We'd love board feedback on our concept: Combined Heating and Computation

[jimmothy]

Donating to solar roadways is pretty much admitting engineering is not your thing.
I think your concept is definitely possible and doesn't break any of the laws of physics, but I just cant see it being ever beneficial cost/energy wise.

Well my friend,  Solar Roadways has been chosen by Popular Science as one of the 100 Greatest Innovations of 2014! It's in their 27th annual "Best of What's New" December issue and the department of energy as well as the California IOUs have asked us to submit proposals for grants... Looks like were both on the right path!

Take a look at the new projectexergy.com and let us know if this is any better.

The website looks much more professional than before, however it's lacking information. I'd like to see diagrams/explanations while getting straight to the point and avoiding obfuscation.

As I said before you should really forget about solar roadways and try to distance yourself because it's damaging your credibility. It is undeniably uneconomical to make solar roadways. It's been debunked by so many engineers at this point I'm surprised so many people are still latching on to the concept. If you guys can't figure out why solar roadways is unfeasible then I'm afraid your invention is doomed to fail for the same reasons they are. (hint: it's the cost)

Looking at the "henry-build-log" I am digging the watercooling setup however it looks pretty expensive. I'm guessing your whole cost is at least ~$500 for a ~500W system.

Let's do the math:

I pay ~$10/MBTU ($0.034/kwh) and ~$0.15/kwh.

0.5 kw * $0.034 * 24 * 365 = $148 (possible savings per year)

0.5 kw * $0.15 * 24 * 365 = $657 (cost of using electric heating instead of natural gas)

So you would need to find a computing application that pays at least $509 per year with only 500w worth of hardware before it becomes cheaper than natural gas heating for a maximum savings of only $148 per year.

If you do manage to find an application that pays out that well, then I'm sure it would make more sense to just set up a datacenter with cheaper electricity + more powerful/efficient servers.

[ltorsini]

Thanks for the feedback on the website, it's helpful.  I think we'll add an animation or two about how the system integrates with other building systems but we likely won't go into detail about its construction. 

The costs are much higher than your estimates but the benefits and returns are much higher as well.  Sorry, no details to give there but suffice it to say there is a financial model that looks pretty interesting.  These folks from Germany seem to be on the same Path:  https://www.cloudandheat.com/en/index.html

[ltorsini]

Donating to solar roadways is pretty much admitting engineering is not your thing.
I think your concept is definitely possible and doesn't break any of the laws of physics, but I just cant see it being ever beneficial cost/energy wise.

Well my friend,  Solar Roadways has been chosen by Popular Science as one of the 100 Greatest Innovations of 2014! It's in their 27th annual "Best of What's New" December issue and the department of energy as well as the California IOUs have asked us to submit proposals for grants... Looks like were both on the right path!

Take a look at the new projectexergy.com and let us know if this is any better.

The website looks much more professional than before, however it's lacking information. I'd like to see diagrams/explanations while getting straight to the point and avoiding obfuscation.

As I said before you should really forget about solar roadways and try to distance yourself because it's damaging your credibility. It is undeniably uneconomical to make solar roadways. It's been debunked by so many engineers at this point I'm surprised so many people are still latching on to the concept. If you guys can't figure out why solar roadways is unfeasible then I'm afraid your invention is doomed to fail for the same reasons they are. (hint: it's the cost)

Looking at the "henry-build-log" I am digging the watercooling setup however it looks pretty expensive. I'm guessing your whole cost is at least ~$500 for a ~500W system.

Let's do the math:

I pay ~$10/MBTU ($0.034/kwh) and ~$0.15/kwh.

0.5 kw * $0.034 * 24 * 365 = $148 (possible savings per year)

0.5 kw * $0.15 * 24 * 365 = $657 (cost of using electric heating instead of natural gas)

So you would need to find a computing application that pays at least $509 per year with only 500w worth of hardware before it becomes cheaper than natural gas heating for a maximum savings of only $148 per year.

If you do manage to find an application that pays out that well, then I'm sure it would make more sense to just set up a datacenter with cheaper electricity + more powerful/efficient servers.

Okay jimmothy - we've started our prelaunch for Kickstarter.  Take a look at our prelaunch videos and see if they make sense?

FB forum: rgy]https[Suspicious link removed]rgy

Animated Pre Launch Video: https://lo3energy.wistia.com/medias/zbtaim9o9o

Pre Launch Teaser: https://lo3energy.wistia.com/medias/sxm43ep69m

We're hoping you have more suggestion!