yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

A Smarter Path | Chasing Genius | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

I was about six. My favorite toy was my slot car track, and what that really is, is little electric cars on an electric road. That electric road, the thing stuck with me.

I am an engineer. Rather than to make a better mousetrap, I chose to make the world a better place. We were out in our garden one day, and Julie turned to me and said, "Can you make roads out of solar panels?" You know, if I can figure out a way to protect the solar cells, it just might work. It's got to have the same traction as asphalt, has to be strong enough to support a fully loaded semi-truck, shatterproof, fireproof. The roads are collecting heat anyways. This thing collects the power and stores it.

We covered all our parking lots and roads with just 15 percent efficient solar cells. We've produced more than three times the energy this country uses.

Solar roadways contain solar cells, LEDs to make your line markings, heating elements for snow and ice, and it's also a safety feature for the roads. When I first started talking about it, half the people we talked to thought we were crazy. Some even said we were geniuses. People wrote articles saying that it was really audacious and that we were never going to accomplish that.

So we got really in dire straits financially before we got our first contract from the Federal Highway Administration. We're making improvements, and eventually, we hope this will become the standard of the future. The planet will be healthier, our waters will be cleaner.

It's really cool to come around full circle to what I was dreaming of as a child. If my six or seven-year-old self was here seeing what we're doing today, they would surely be amazed.

More Articles

View All
Gel electrophoresis | Biomolecules | MCAT | Khan Academy
Let’s say that you have some vials here, and you know that in the solution you have fragments of DNA in each of these. What you’re curious about is, well, what about the DNA fragments in this first vial, in vial number one? How long are those fragments? H…
The Triumph and Tragedy of Indian Independence | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
So I’d like you to start out by telling me your name and your relationship to me. My name is Lata Roy Chatterjee, and I’m your stepmother. And tell us how old you are and where you were born. I’m, uh, 84 and a half years old, and I was born in Pubna, whic…
Warren Buffett is SELLING!
So the 13Fs are out for Q1 of 2021. Of course, the 13F SEC filing shows us exactly what the big-name investors have in their portfolio, so we can see what they’re buying and selling from quarter to quarter. The only annoying thing, though, is that this in…
Interpreting a parabola in context | Quadratic functions & equations | Algebra I | Khan Academy
We’re told that Adam flew his remote controlled drone off of a platform. The function f models the height of the drone above the ground in meters as a function of time in seconds after takeoff. So, what they want us to do is plot the point on the graph of…
The real cost of owning a car | Car buying | Financial Literacy | Khan Academy
So let’s think about all of the costs that are involved in buying the car. The first and most obvious one is the cost of the car itself. Now, it’s really important to think about what the actual cost of the car is, because you might say, “Okay, there’s Ca…
How the Warhead on the AIM-9 Sidewinder Works - Smarter Every Day 282
Hey, it’s me Destin! Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. I want to talk about something that’s really neat… Um… I’m at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake here in California. I’m in front of a building that does things… and here is an F-18, which is a bea…