A Smarter Path | Chasing Genius | National Geographic

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.