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"Solar panels that you can drive, park, and walk on. They melt snow and... cut greenhouse gases by 75-percent?!!!"


https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#home

Solar panels are extremely expensive and requires frequent maintenance. Compared to other forms of energy, solar power is many times more expensive, and there for unsuitable for the roads. Unless these demerits can be solved, this project will not succeed.

It is unsuitable for roads but it is for some locations and purposes pretty comparable.   Also as it can be deployed for a homeowner they now have control of the production of their own energy.  Not being reliant on others for power can be worth extra cost for some.   Solar still works as tax free income in most locations. 

The technology and innovation is great only if the price of expensive solar panel is indeed dramatically reduced in the future.

Yes... if individual house owners want to get self sufficient on electricity, then installing solar panels will be a good idea. Especially in remote and inaccessible areas, where other forms of electricity are not readily available.

and i think solar roads is kind of ridiculous considering the amount of maintenance work that needs to be done. and what about when there's traffic? cars will block the panels which will decrease efficiency.

i don't know about you guys, but in my area if you get solar powered panels.. you still have to pay your utilities company $5-10 a month. it seems like edison lobbied for congress to force solar panel users to be legally required to have edison's grid connect to your home.

if they used the same tec without the solar part I think they would do well as the roads are always being dug up and that would avoid a lot of problems

xpost

Where I live, we also have similar rules. This is one of the reasons why I have never opted for a solar panel, although it would have given me the self-sufficiency as far as the electrical supply is concerned.

The cost of the tempered glass alone for covering all of the roadways would surpass 20 Trillion dollars,

LEDs would be invisible in daylight.

There is no way to efficiently transfer the energy around the road system without putting up high voltage powerlines costing between 1-2 Million dollars per mile, burying those lines is 10 times more expensive.

The roads would be covered with a small amount of dirt, dirt is harder then glass so the tempered glass would quickly become smooth.

The road is not angled for efficient solar power generation.

Parking lots during the daytime are mostly covered with cars.


Blacktop is 99% recyclable and it is essentially a waste by product so it is very cheap.

Tiles tend to break in the middle and also get dislocated as cars pass by them because the weight isn't distributed equally.

I can keep going all day. It is money thrown down the drain.

EDIT: I'm really into solar generation but putting solar panels on the road is ridiculous. To efficiently transport electricity with only 6-7% losses you need 100-500kV lines which are very expensive. Solar panels are more efficient when placed and an angle or when they are following the sun which is impossible on the road.

The road is covered in traffic, cars and dirt. Passing the sunlight through the tempered glass will certainly take away a big chunk of efficiency and placing solar panels in remote places is the most useless thing a person can do.

Black top is waterproof without allowing the water to stay at the very top while tempered glass can probably not do such a thing.

The tiles would at some point (especially if made out of glass) start moving back and forth and end up breaking in the middle allowing rivulets of water to take out the road foundation and cause disastrous damage.

And about putting solar panels on parking lots, the way to go is to create sheds over the parking lots with the solar panels which have the advantage of allowing people to walk to their cars in the rain without getting wet as well.

Cost of Tempered Glass $20 Trillion.
Cost of Solar panels certainly more than another $20 Trillion
Cost of High Voltage wires for efficient transport of electricity (if buried multiply by 10)  1 Million USD per mile


Disadvantages:

Glass will be soon worn smooth and driving on it while wet then will be suicidal (glass is a 5 on the softness scale)
Super inefficient energy production (Worst possible solar power outcome)
Economically unfeasible
Tiles will crack allowing water to wash away road foundation (Tiles tend to crack in the middle if heavy loads pass over them as they start moving around)
Useless LEDs on the road (Invisible during the full sunlight)
Unserviceable (Even with an automatic machine placing all these tiles is not doable)


Garbage claims:

Keeping the road ice free... 0 Degree ice to 0 degree water (celcius) = 0 degree water to 75 degrees water, generating that amount of energy with solar power during a snowstorm? Impossible

Recycling glass (using colored glass with solar panels?)

Since the glass passed the pendulum test a car can stop on it. (Glass wears smooth a lot faster than blacktop and there isn't any demonstration of a big heavy car going fast and stopping on this glass)

Criminality:

Putting so many LEDs out there would create a huge amount of light pollution so we wouldn't be able to see the stars anymore.

I remember going out on a kayak trip simply so I could see a few more stars, I paddled, and I paddled and I paddled and 4-5 miles away from any living soul the stars were still not all that visible.

They have already raised a total of $1,812,196 in Indiegogo, when compared to the goal of $ 1,000,000. Quite surprising, actually, when there are serious doubts about the viability of this project.

Wow! Would be amazing if this happens.

doesn't surprise me.. people like to donate. just give them a feel-good compelling story and they will send money. makes me wonder if there are people who plan to do this to make some money and not spend it on said project.

It would be a waste of money, create dangerous roads, and cause so much light pollution we'd never see another star in the night sky.

It'd be awful!

Read my earlier post for more detail.

I'm all for solar panels but where appropriate. This is at best mass stupidity at work and at worst a big scam.

it would make more sense to test out the solar panel roadways for some times, like a year or so.. to see if it's even feasible. if i were even interested in donating, i'd wait for a year after it's been put in effect to see if there are really any positive benefits.

This would be an awesome project if solar power were ready to be economically feasible. The tech is still years away even with constant tax payer money being dumped into it.

The project is financially not viable. They might spend some money (say $100k) on a small demo, and may keep the rest of the money for themselves. This is going to be another gigantic scam.

As a theoretical thing, I like it as a way to generate power using space we're using already, normal roadways can get pretty roughed up without repaving every few years. Solar roadways probably won't fare any better until they can find a way to withstand having multiton vehicles driving over them frequently.

Aside from the energy efficiency issue, they're also going to be a nightmare as far as safety is concerned.
The LED signage could be hacked quite easily if I'm not mistaken, or at least it won't be particularly hard to do it.

Then there's the funding, crowdfunding will only get you so far, I doubt the plan will be able to attract serious investors

what is your choice for alternative energy?


+ tires will leave tracks on the road blocking even more sunlight

btw, it has a lot of flaws, but why the hell not
I mean, people already surpassed the goal, it's going good and it's not polluting..

why not? well, because it might be better to pursue a different option... one where rubber tires are not always trampling over your panels. it would require a hell of a lot of financial assistance from government, and i really doubt they will play along considering the energy industry probably bankrolls hundreds of millions into washington.

After Solyndra they might be a little gun shy about suspect green businesses. At least one would hope. Of course common sense is almost non existent in "the district" so you never know.

Slightly off-topic...  but everyone should read this before supporting any form of solar energy.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-102LdvoyFkU/Uy27mjDbK8I/AAAAAAAAhAQ/cluYX8dLENY/s1600/Energy_Cost_Chart_Two.png

sometimes it's not just about cost. sometimes it's about the rising climate and how it affects the planet we live on. that's actually much more important than making people extremely rich. at least to me.

OK.. then let's compare wind energy with solar energy. Wind energy is about 3 times cheaper when compared to solar energy. What makes you think that solar energy should be preferred over wind energy?

Is the one of the most vaporware ideas ever to grace our planet.

One might say it's the vapouriest vapor to ever vape.

No government municipal, state or federal would ever invest in such an expensive project. The use cases that roads go through are insane and just maintaining asphalt is a ton of work.

You should really add a graph with nuclear power also

http://conservativecritic.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/total-cost-electricity-production-per-kwh.jpg

Solar energy it's just a new hype , let's be the jetson family , nothing more.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=619852.20
Topic: Solar Freak'n Panel Roadways!!!! Awesome Indiegogo Project, LETS SUPPORT IT!!

I wanted to add one, but couldn't get any. Anyway.. thanks for posting the graph.

This is exactly why I prefer nuclear power plants. They are:

1. Environmentally friendly (no Greenhouse gas emissions, no coal mining and destruction of the terrain.etc).
2. They are affordable. (I have seen people posting here that they won't mind paying $0.25 per KWh, but trust me, most of the world population wouldn't be able to afford electricity at such rates).
3. There are enough Uranium deposits to provide electricity for everyone in this world for more than a thousand years, unlike coal or gas.

When we talk about nuclear energy we should also remeber that there are two types fusion or fission,

With the amount spent on solar and wind equipment we could have developed by now a fusion plant with deuterium as a energy source that would wipe away the fears of nuclear waste or accidents.

True. Except I heard that some of the same environmentalists that push solar and wind also despise nuclear energy. Paid by energy companies much?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power would be a be a better place to spend money

Have to disagree with you on that. A large number of nuclear fission reactors are operating in the world right now, but nuclear fusion is a bit more complicated. So far no one has come up with a viable methodology to produce electricity cheaply from nuclear fusion. The current fusion reactors exist only for demo purposes.

If all the money that as poured into solar and wind energy would have gone to development on nuclear fusion things would have improved a lot.

But of course there are lots of people not so happy about plants producing solar panels shutting down.

wind turbines don't pollute, hydro power doesn't either (altough there are some negative effects), let's stick to wind :D


your graph says 2x :D


nuclear power plants are enviromentally friendly, am I missing something?

We need to solve the waste disposal problem for sure but other than that it is actually very cheap green energy. Technology and smart people will solve the disposal issue if governments get out of the way. 

I am not a big supporter of hydro-power. Hydropower generation requires large dams and reservoirs, which flood millions of acres of forest land, adn there by disrupting the original ecology.

IMO, nuclear power plants are environmentally friendly. With the advancement of technology, new methods for the waste disposal are being developed.

as Ron said there is the disposal issue while with wind turbines there is not

It's innovative, but I predict blackouts during rush hour.  ::)

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#home

sheesh, 2 million... some people just wanna donate without vetting and thinking where their money goes. i already have enough trouble donating to "children in need" for fear that it's some sort of scam.

The disposal issue is a minor one. The technology has advanced very much these days, and it requires just around 100 sq. km of barren land to contain the entire nuclear waste generated in this earth for a 100-year time period.

Very bad idea. This will be much more expensive then using cement as is used now.

If this was really a profitable venture then they could simply build a little bit of "solar roadways" then use the money generated by electricity to build more roads.

How come Big Coal doesn't just take over nuclear and enjoy a more profitable revenue stream? yes their old market might be cannabalized but I just don't understand...is it to milk what they can over their investment in coal lobbying before doing so?  ???

Nuclear is really expensive and difficult to start.

A factory takes a long time to become operational, and starting up a nuclear factory takes months even after completion until the reaction reaches a good level.

It's also a regulatory nightmare and there is always the difficulty of finding the right people to run a nuclear factory. It's not like you can find them with a job search on craigslist overnight.

Plus your dealing with something that poops out potential bomb grade plutonium, not something you do without the government fondling your privates.

Nuke power then put it on a one way rocket to the sun every 50 years or so...

There is still several hundred years of known coal in the ground and given the general public's appetite for nuke versus dirty coal, for some weird reason they keep picking dirty coal....

could you imagine another columbia??  :o

Or Challenger? Hurtling nuclear waste into the sky on top of a controlled explosion makes me a bit nervous.

They could cut down the red tape dramatically. Sadly it would make sense to do so therefore it will not happen.

Absolutely wrong. Even if all the costs (capital expenses, maintenance and disposal) are taken in to account, nuclear energy remains much cheaper when compared to other forms of energy.

Yes, the up front costs are high but when you spread that cost out over the life of the facility this kind of power makes a lot of economic sense.

Exactly. And here is a graph which supports the argument.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/uploadedImages/org/info/projected_electricity_costs_finland_2003.png

Does this include subsidies?
Does this include the costs of 'accidents', like in Fukushima?

The combine "costs" for the Chernobyl disaster are enough to build 40 new nuclear plants :).
Just the latest shell that needs to be build on top of the current crumbling sarcophagus is worth around 1 billion.

Nuclear power may be the solution but with advances in nuclear fusion .

OK people. Any thoughts on this?
------------------------------------



http://terrapower.com/

http://youtu.be/T49r6tmcayI

50x more energy using the byproduct u 238 ?

Too good to be entirely true?

Well... Is it to good to be true?

http://youtu.be/ieX88nBFVS4

Subsidies are not included in this. And talking about accidents, they happen to other energy providers as well. They can even happen to the coal or gas based electricity generators. The difference with nuclear reactors is that the accidents are extremely rare.

nevermind the cost, it's human life that  gets fucked over from the radiation poisoning. the more nuclear reactors you have, the more likely it's going to explode in your face. in the past 35 years, we've had at least 2 of them.. and almost a case in philadelphia as well.

and if you have a population that has been exposed to the radiation, you'd need to quarantine them.. otherwise they'd mix genes with other people and make babies with 3rd eyes.

I would say that is a great idea and I'm glad it got funded by 200 % and more (Video made me go bah though)
There is one problem though intermittency the Sun is not always shining
Edit three problems
One it has to connect to the grid and retain power
Two we don't have enough materials to do it everywhere
Three How much energy and pollution is used to create the unit and what is B/E energy input energy used to produce the product over its lifecycle
That said I would love to see a future sci fi world where there are solar roadways that can generate energy on the grid and also somehow gain energy whenever a car moves.

Intelligent roadways are the future, especially in regard to cabling they made a good point about the overhead cables electric roads have good intelligent applications if you can link it to an electric car that said I like their hard work and perseverance story so its neat.
Not sure how many jobs it can replace though but a paradigm shift interesting i'm conflicted at it working but at the same time want someone to try it

Agreed. In its current form this would just be a money pit. If they can solve the problems though this could be pretty amazing. 

The Chernobyl disaster was caused by the security lapses on the part of the Soviet authorities. But now the technology has advanced and there are no chances of any such disasters occurring again. There are hundreds, if not thousands of nuclear reactors operating across the world, and every year they save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, who would have other wise died due to respiratory illnesses caused by the thermal power plants.

Nuclear energy is generally the cheapest in the long run.

I believe that it does cost a lot to start a Nuclear plant, and it does take several years to build. A company would not recover all of their capital investment in one year, but in the long term (what companies ultimately look for) a Nuclear plant is a good investment and Nuclear energy is very cheap.

The problem with Nuclear is that most people do not want a Nuclear plant to be "near" them. They generally have little problem buying Nuclear energy, but do not want to have the (extremely small) risk of being nearby when a meltdown occurs.

http://www.vice.com/read/how-effed-are-nukes

after effects of major nuclear bombing.. if you look at the pics from kazakhstan and chernobyl, it's kind of a turn off. kazakhstan's current issue is that they are unable to quarantine the affected people, so they are interbreeding with the non-affected people and making babies with serious issues.

What you do want to do with affected people? Do you want to euthanize, imprison or sterilize them? Strip them with their basic rights to interbreed?

If a doctor says it's 99% probable you will give birth to a child with a malformation or any other problem , what gives you the right to bring to this world a child that will have to suffer all his life?

The doctor is giving percentage it means he is not totally sure. And the doctor is not 100 percent correct in giving percentages. What if the doctor says 99 percent and the reality is 1 percent. What would you do if you are the affected person?

they should be quarantined and live in their own areas.. letting people mix like that could lead to catastrophic disaster in the kazakhstani society. it's not convenient doing that to a group of people, but it's for the greater goods.. and sometimes it just has to happen that way.

Not having a child and maybe I will think on an adoption.

I will not risk it.

Genetic mutation from radiation, either in humans or animals have not been reported from Kazakhstan. There has been some incidents of increase in cancer rates, especially in areas near the Semipalatinsk nuclear test sites. But mutation hasn't been reported from anywhere yet. And cancer is not a hereditary disease. If there is no mutation, then cancer patients can have healthy babies.

Since just two days ago you claimed that there were no nuclear test near villages in Russia


... I will not believe a word of what you're saying about the minimal impact those test had on the population and that there were no mutation reports

Just because mutations are likely to be small and difficult to detect it doesn't mean they haven't occurred.




http://www.ippnw-students.org/Japan/Semipalatinsk.pdf

The biggest risk is that governments are concerned some of the byproducts from the reactors are then moved and converted into nuclear weaponry
Also how to dispose of nuclear waste Glassification processes etc how long it takes for spent fuel to cool down example Fukushima reactors
Although countries like Japan have the tech and could go nuclear or China which is nuclear there are concerns about giving it to other countries
Iran nuclear program/ sanctions and poor economic well being of its citizens as a consequence
North Korea Nuclear Armed and Independent but based on the reports we have sucks to live there
No New Nuclear Reactor has been built in the USA since 1977 because of increasing costs as more and more safeguards are put on them and people protest the idea.
The only reason nuclear has been able to maintain its share of the energy grid is because of efficiencies found in reactors
From 30% efficient in the 1970s to 90% efficient in 2000
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-T-Z/USA--Nuclear-Power/
That said until the Geopolitics is solved nuclear probably won't sell well for some time yet.

The nuclear waste or the nuclear fuel can't be directly converted to nuclear weaponry.

The Uranium fuel used in nuclear reactors is Low-enriched uranium (LEU), which contains 3% to 5% U-235. (The remainder is U-238, which is not radio-active).

For creating nuclear weapons, you need Highly enriched uranium (HEU), which contains 80% to 90% U-235.

Converting the LEU to HEU is a very complicated process, and only a very few nations in the world currently possess that technology.

The problem is not all nations are transparent about their facilities and capabilities
Having enriched uranium for medical usage (nuclear medicine) requires 20% purity
That said once at 20% it becomes much easier to get to 90% nuclear grade than it is from that 3% to 5% enrichment

That is why governments are concerned with Breakout which is the ability to get to weapons grade rapidly before any counter response can be done simply put the centrifuges just need 3 months from 20%
http://www.iranwatch.org/our-publications/articles-reports/irans-nuclear-timetable
___
Increasing the percentage of U-235 becomes progressively easier, as explained in a 2012 glossary by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Harvard Kennedy School.

If the aim is to reach 90 per cent, getting to 3.5 per cent requires some 75 per cent of the work, and once 20 per cent is attained, nine-tenths of the job is done.

For this reason, when in February 2010 Iran began enriching to 20 per cent alarm bells rang. This dramatically shortens the time needed – in theory – to produce a bomb's worth of weapons-grade uranium.

Iran could, in theory, produce weapons-grade uranium from its stockpile of uranium enriched to five per cent using its existing enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo.

But it would take considerably longer than with 20-per cent and crucially, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, would notice any such "break out" long before it is completed.
__
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/10436068/Iran-nuclear-talks-what-you-need-to-know-about-uranium-enrichment.html


Newer reactors have less of this risk but older reactors even CANDU can enrich to that level easily
Take the Chalk River Facility the North American Source for Radioactive Isotopes it enriches to 20% and no one is concerned but if you put one of those in Latin America some people would worry about the facilities security from Terrorist Attacks and the risk they move to weapons grade weaponry depending on the transparency they provide.

The reason their are inspectors checking those facilities or negotiating at the NPT every 5 years (Non-Proliferation Treaty)

As an aside that does not mean sanctions on innocent civilians and student bank accounts is the solution either in regards to Iran.
Economic warfare is still warfare

This is an issue that has no easy solutions On one hand inexpensive power is something that can make a more stable economy in places that really need it but their unstable governments will always be interested in exploiting it to increase their standing in the world as a nuclear nation. Sanctions as you mentioned only tend to hurt innocent civilians and military force should always be a last resort.

No need to single out North Korea or Iran, when none of the nuclear powers themselves (including India and Pakistan) are transparent about their facilities and capabilities. How can the US or Russia blame the DPRK, when the former is having thousands of nuclear weapons compared to the few dozen under the control of the latter?

Fair point Byrant, I just went with those two since they are the typical ones on the table when your talking about the NPT and Non-Proliferation.

Technical list is
India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and Previously Libya to complete that list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons

I could go on a rant about how Israel's policy of ambiguity is a problem since they don't officially say we have nukes but also don't say we do not have nukes as well.

Or India having Nukes making Pakistan want to have nukes as well due to their tensions to have a power balance but that said I agree with you having the nuclear chip on the bargaining table is a weapon that larger states simply do not want little or unstable states to be able to wield.

Heck could even say Gaddafi following the USA and disarming his nuclear arsenal led to his downfall as without the nuclear deterrent they were not afraid to invade and take over the country
Disarmament in 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmament_of_Libya
Invasion and Takeover in 2011 with a civil war ongoing to now because even though Gaddafi was controversial he was the balancing pin between all different ethnic groups.

Carrying on one DPRK missile launched would destroy a big area of Japan or South Korea and do massive damage (Not China though lone buddy/sort of), but that attack would be suicidal and that is what scares large states that one missile can be a giant threat and as a result slows nuclear proliferation even for peaceful purposes, since they assume not all actors are rational.

Or governments change why South Africa abandoned its program once Apartheid failed and the ANC was to come into power.

That said Solar is a neat solution to those energy problems just not scalable or low enough in cost yet (even with the recent US Solar Bankruptcies to Chinese Firms), but Geothermal seems like the most efficient one in the long run if technologies can improve stored energy forever (well a long time) from the Earth.

However there is always room for a more diverse set of energy options but that Geopolitics still gets in the way.

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons must mean that none of the world nations can possess nuclear weapons. It is hypocrisy from the part of Russia and the US, when they say that other nations can't have nukes and only they can have them.

It is hypocritical that is why the NPT has had a resolution for them to denuclearize their own arsenals every 5 years
Which the US and Russia did by decreasing total units but also updating and modernizing their arsenals

That said the NPT is non binding and attempts to make it binding would result in states leaving the treaty so its complex.

Pretty much can sum it up here
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2013_12/How-Divergent-Views-on-Nuclear-Disarmament-Threaten-the-NPT

Consequently, nuclear-weapon states consider nuclear disarmament and the achievement of a world without nuclear weapons to be a long-term aspirational objective at best. Thus, pending the achievement of perceived global preconditions for nuclear disarmament, these countries are prepared to take only limited and gradual disarmament steps without fundamentally reassessing the role of nuclear weapons or altering the nuclear strategic balance. At the same time, nuclear-weapon states focus on the prevention of further proliferation of nuclear weapons, which they see as the only real challenge to the integrity of the NPT. This is not only their clear priority, but they argue it is a necessary precondition for more-substantial nuclear disarmament steps.

The perspectives of most non-nuclear-weapon states regarding the urgency of nuclear disarmament are quite different. Among these countries, nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are widely seen as a high-risk approach to national and international security. According to this view, humanity escaped unharmed during the Cold War period and thereafter as much by luck as by design. Moreover, the concepts of nuclear deterrence and the necessity of nuclear strategic stability, which were merely transferred to the 21st century with little change, look increasingly anachronistic 20 years after the end of the Cold War. This lack of adaptation to new realities might be seen not only as a missed opportunity but also as a serious misjudgment and a key driver and incentive for proliferation. Arguably, there is a direct relation between the continued reliance on nuclear weapons by nuclear-weapon states and the quest for these weapons by other states. This link can only be broken by a collective and sincere move away from nuclear weapons.

Most non-nuclear-weapon states that are not part of “nuclear sharing arrangements” or “nuclear umbrellas” consider nuclear weapons to be highly dangerous in themselves. They view retention of and reliance on nuclear weapons as outdated, while seeing disarmament as an essential element of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The mere existence of nuclear weapons results in a permanent risk of devastating consequences for the entire planet. Such an existential threat to all humankind should no longer be handled by a few states as a national security matter to the detriment of the security interests of the vast majority of states.

So it's a fundamental shift in the approach between the Nuclear Weapon States and the Non Nuclear Weapon States on Non-Proliferation

when i see people talking about this (above)
i think that world need some change in their way of think
you know world change because of big or impossible idea coming from anymous people with their crazy idea
you know someone who found gravitation law came just because he's sitting and just saw apple drop from the tree
you know people will not can transport with airplane if theres not two people with their crazy idea, they want to fly in the sky
you know thomas who created lamp with thousand failure and then found the perfect material to created it

i think this is crazy idea because if this success it will can change the world with this idea

and nuclear is the cheapest energy in this era , i will agree with this but , this energy have big problem with its radiation  ::)  ::)

Oh really?

And where doe the power come in a two stage nuclear weapon?

U238 can't sustain a chain reaction but it is used as a temper which goes to a fission reaction.

Basically for a thermonuclear bomb you might not need u238 (you can repalce it with plutonium) but you will need the cheap u235 "waste".

Of course you might argue that p239 is also created from uranium and... so on :).

How much long is this long-term target?

Right now, this is the number of nuclear weapons possessed by the nuclear powers:

Russia - 8,500
USA - 7,700
France - 300
China - 200
UK - 225
Pakistan - 120
India - 110
Israel - 80
DPRK - 10

For the last 10 years or so, there has been no considerable reduction in this number.

They had 4x more 30 years ago so it's going down.
Besides that's the number of total nuclear weapons (some of them might be already dismantled or out of service) , not the total active nuclear warheads.

From a technical stand point, this proposal has some a good part which is the fact how roads are a surface that has been already prepared, flattened and stuff which will cut costs, but from a feasibility stand point it's illogical, the properties of tarmac and current solar panels has nothing to do with each others in anyway and that one of many issues.

A similar study was made for trains a couple of years ago, and for trains is by far more logical and the plan was to have a roof running all over the railroads which will produce electricity that will be injected to the train network, but the study showed the amount of solar panels needed for the needs of one train is HUGE not to mention from investment stand point it was viable at all.

I think the best way to deal with carbon is to think about decentralized energy, the Sahara desert for example offers an illimited potential in terms of Thermosolar and solar ray concentration power (not so in terms of photovoltaic as these require a lower temperature for optimum power delivery (around 21°C) which can be good in northern Africa, southern Europe and similar thing can be made done NA region) the energy can be then exported to EU, and you'll have carbon free energy (from a production perspective at least that can electrify Africa and europe ! and for the cheap

I would say it would be outside of the NPT that arms reductions occur.
All talks for disarmament were between the USA and Russia not through the Non Proliferation Treaty.
Even the Six Party talks didn't involve the whole council.
 
The reason that it is done this way is because to many parties mean nothing will be done
The recent talks now are between Iran the USA and Russia are an interesting example though
http://www.news.com.au/world/iran-to-hold-nuclear-talks-with-us-russia/story-fndir2ev-1226947164634


Agree from a feasibility standpoint weathering is a serious problem, when the temperature changes rapidly etc. There is also the concern of heavy rainfall or how it would work with its electrical line if the thing is flooded. Waterproof wires perhaps but that raises questions as well on how much underground wiring is needed beneath the surface and how it generates energy if one part is broken aka the circuit stops
(Similar to Christmas lights where if one lightbulb is broken the energy isn't passed on past that lightbulb but works to the breaking point)
It raises many questions on how it would work in practice that said it could work so its still worth analyzing. Perhaps they can find solutions.

I didn't know that it was considered for Trains but that makes sense to me, the costs may be too high presently but as costs go down and production increases it may work in the future. Neat idea thanks for sharing that.

And decentralized energy, well we do use a decentralized system with Bitcoin so I can see that becoming a natural extension of energy, and bringing about illuminated revolution :)