Solar Roadways Get DoT Funding

[The Grim Squeaker]

Solar Roadways, a project to replace over 25,000 square miles of road in the US with solar panels you can drive on, just received $100,000 in funding from the Department of Transportation for the first 12ft-by-12ft prototype panel. Each panel consists of three layers: a base layer with data and power cables running through it, an electronics layer with an array of LEDs, solar collectors and capacitors, and finally the glass road surface. With data and power cables, the solar roadway has the potential to replace some of our aging infrastructure. With only 15% efficiency, 25,000 square miles of solar roadways could produce three times what the US uses annually in energy.
The building costs are estimated to be competitive with traditional roads, and the solar roads would heat themselves in the winter to keep snow from accumulating

I'll admit to knowing next to nothing about the traditional costs of building highways, but how the hell can building roads out of solar panels be competitive with pouring asphalt?

[Darth Tanner]

Thats quite incredible if anywhere near true. Especially if we could figure a way to wireless charge electric vehicles from the roads their driving on aswell.

Following the link in the article gets you to a better article and a video.

linky

Its a very bold idea, but Id imagine it gos a bit beyond bold into crazy lunatic ravings.

Oh and their official site...
http://www.solarroadways.com/

[Sky Captain]

I`d say it sounds too good to be true. Also wondering how they will prevent the glass surface from scratching and becoming nearly opaque when sand gets on the road. Glass is slippery when wet - what happens when it rains.

It just seems more logical to build a dedicated solar power stations in deserts where they would work with maximum efficiency and much less likely to be damaged.

[salm]

In a video the guy claims that he handed over all the specs needed for a road - traction, reduced glare and so on - to the Penn State University’s Materials Research Institute and according to him they said that creating such a material might be expensive but not impossible.

[Steel]

I cannot believe that it is possible to make a solar panel you can drive on without it being destroyed, considering the number of underground pipes etc that are cracked under normal roads made of tarmac on concrete.

The fact that he says it is possible to do for the same price as pouring tar from a bucket makes him even less credible.

Why not decrease the cost and complexity by an order of magnitude and put them along the side of the road? Given that there does not exist a solar panel for which that is a viable option I'm skeptical that this is anything but complete bullshit.

[Darth Wong]

There's always some company making rosy promises about a product it can't yet deliver. DOT is probably just funding it because $100k is not a huge amount of money for them to spend, and maybe something useful will come out of it.

[Zixinus]

Hold on here, are we talking about essentially sheets of delicately placed silicon to be placed under cars, which are not only heavy but dirty? We are looking at concrete deforming under busses, trucks and cars that and this guy believes that glass can replace it? And he wants to add LEDS and microprocessors under the glass?

Why not decrease the cost and complexity by an order of magnitude and put them along the side of the road?

Quote from their site:

Wouldn’t it make more sense to just build canopies over the roads to hold the solar panels? Or just place solar panels on the north side of the roads, facing the sun? That way, we wouldn’t have to be able to drive on them?

No. It would be incredibly expensive as you would still have to pay for our current asphalt roads. We plan to use the money already budgeted for roads for the replacement Solar Roadways™. If we still had to build current roads plus the canopies or side panels, the cost would likely be so high that taxes would have to be raised to cover it. You would also lose most of the features of the Solar Roadways™, such as being lit by LED’s for safer night driving. The side panel idea would do nothing to keep the roads free of snow and ice, so northern cities would still have the removal expense and the accidents caused by the unsafe road conditions. Many of the other features would be lost too, such as saving the lives of millions of animals, a self-healing, decentralized power grid, all aspects of an intelligent road: reporting in with potential problems, reducing crime and terrorism, etc.

In other words, no, because Solar Roadways (TM!), that is two layers of fairly complex electronics (which includes batteries) plus one layer of special glass, is cheaper than pouring cememt over some dug out road.
Somehow, I remain skeptical.

DOT is probably just funding it because $100k is not a huge amount of money for them to spend, and maybe something useful will come out of it.

Actually, they're funded for a single 12' by 12' panel (the first).

[Darth Wong]

DOT is probably just funding it because $100k is not a huge amount of money for them to spend, and maybe something useful will come out of it.

Actually, they're funded for a single 12' by 12' panel (the first).

It's still basically an R&D grant.

[Traveller]

Concrete and ashphalt roads according the world bank, come in at an average of ~1 million dollars per mile. Ive seen quotes on 4 lane highways as high as 25 million USD per km, with expressways even higher still. And as rest of you point out, these are fairly low-tech roads and still cost a fortune. I'm pretty sure the US govt gives money to schemes even less practical than this on all the time and it never makes the news. The only noteworthy thing about this goofy idea, is how it underlines how narrow-minded americans truely are. Their solution it seems to every problem they create, is to try to maintain and even extend an unsustaniable status-quo by promoting an even MORE complex, fragile and costly solution. The massive low-tech road system is the US allready costs far to much(and over 50% of it now is rated as being in a state of dis-repair), promotes sub-urban sprawl, and thus, urban decay at the same time, increases energy use and congestion etc etc. Despite this ideas high-tech gloss, its really a symbol of americas unwillingness to change a philosophy that was fundamentally flawed from the get-go.

Like DW says, they may have a couple of good notions or technology buried in this silly idea, but thats about the best anyone could hope for IMO.

[KroLazuxy_87]

I certainly believe that it would be possible to create something like this, the work being done with alloys and in ceramic engineering is amazing. What I doubt, is that it would be economical. No way developing new hardware, tearing up old roads, building these solar roads, and paying the more expensive and specialized laborers needed could be "competitive."

[[R_H]]

It just seems more logical to build a dedicated solar power stations in deserts nuclear power plants where and they would work with maximum generate electricity with greater efficiency and much less likely to be damaged.

Maintenance is still going to be a problem in the desert, with all the sand and dust. However, it'd be easier than closing the road, digging the panels out and then replacing them.

Frankly, all of these "lets use solar power to try to generate power on a large scale" are idiotic and a waste of resources.

[Simon_Jester]

I can see why "use solar panels as pavement" is idiotic, but why is, say, "carpet a hundred square miles of Nevada in photovoltaics" idiotic?

[[R_H]]

I can see why "use solar panels as pavement" is idiotic, but why is, say, "carpet a hundred square miles of Nevada in photovoltaics" idiotic?

Maintenance? Cost? Besides, that's now a 100 sq. miles that you can't build anything else on.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I can see why "use solar panels as pavement" is idiotic, but why is, say, "carpet a hundred square miles of Nevada in photovoltaics" idiotic?

Maintenance? Cost? Besides, that's now a 100 sq. miles that you can't build anything else on.

Yeah, since you're soooo short on space in the fucking USA and 100 square kilometers out of 57,000 km^2 will devastate the regions economy and transport. Also, most solar power schemes can be built on top of buildings, only some of the large scale unfied projects (such as focused heat to boil water in turbines) needs a really open area.

The maintenace argument might be feasible (I've no idea what the cost to replace the panels might be, it varies with the technology and underlying materials), but it'd be less hazard prone than urban areas. As for electricity costs, it's not as good as nuclear, but it's safer, has a far better public image and requires less sensitive materials. (Disclaimer: I support nuclear power, etc'. However, I also support mass solar power for civilian and government use in conjunction with hydropower and the like).

[Steel]

In other words, no, because Solar Roadways (TM!), that is two layers of fairly complex electronics (which includes batteries) plus one layer of special glass, is cheaper than pouring cememt over some dug out road.
Somehow, I remain skeptical.

My point was that it is cheaper to build (and maintain) normal road + normal solar panels (optionally + a fucking laser beam to melt snow) than it would be to install this product, even if it is possible to make it at all.

Think about the failiure rate of individual components of this system such as power lines, solar panels and the electronics in isolation and somehow these will not become a fucking nightmare when being continuously driven on??

[Zixinus]

In other words, no, because Solar Roadways (TM!), that is two layers of fairly complex electronics (which includes batteries) plus one layer of special glass, is cheaper than pouring cememt over some dug out road.
Somehow, I remain skeptical.

My point was that it is cheaper to build (and maintain) normal road + normal solar panels (optionally + a fucking laser beam to melt snow) than it would be to install this product, even if it is possible to make it at all.

Think about the failiure rate of individual components of this system such as power lines, solar panels and the electronics in isolation and somehow these will not become a fucking nightmare when being continuously driven on??

I was being sarcastic. I'd rather side with your than with Solar Roadways (TM!!!!!!!!), because specifically I don't believe that two layers of electronics plus a layer of specalised glass will be cheaper than pouring cement over some dug out road.

[[R_H]]

Yeah, since you're soooo short on space in the fucking USA and 100 square kilometers out of 57,000 km^2 will devastate the regions economy and transport.

Ok, so now you have a bunch of solar panels in Buttfuck, Nowhere.

Also, most solar power schemes can be built on top of buildings, only some of the large scale unfied projects (such as focused heat to boil water in turbines) needs a really open area.

The small ones are peanuts though. And those large projects use an stupendous amount of real estate for an assload of motorized mirrors in sunny areas. Deserts usually.

The maintenace argument might be feasible (I've no idea what the cost to replace the panels might be, it varies with the technology and underlying materials), but it'd be less hazard prone than urban areas.

Are we still talking about large scale, or on roofs. Because 100 sq miles of solar panel would be a bitch to dust off on a regular basis. And replacing any busted panels would require you to drive out a repair crew (which costs money and takes time) to Buttfuck, Nowhere, the repair crew then needs to drive to the panel(s) that need to be replaced, and then drive back again. Or you could station a repair crew there, but then you'd have to build a camp to house them, have people to cook and clean for them, transport supplies to them, and pay them more because they're living in the middle of nowhere.

As for electricity costs, it's not as good as nuclear, but it's safer, has a far better public image and requires less sensitive materials.

Only because of a bunch of moronic propaganda. Which could be used to change public opinion about nuclear power. And if all these spendy projects fail, or fail to meet public expectations (for example: Our main story this evening, Libya just nationalised the portion of Desertec on its soil, as of now, there will be power rationing in Europe.), how do you think the public will react? Yeah, all of a sudden, the image of solar power is tarnished. And instead of sensitive (but common materials), you're relying on geography, and climate which can and will change.

And stuff like Gallium(III) arsenide, which is also used in the manufacture of semiconductors isn't "safe", it's toxic. Indium, used by the vaunted Nanosolar and other companies manufacturing CIGS-based thin film solar cells (ultra efficient! ), is expensive (700 - 1000USD/kg) and pretty rare.

(Disclaimer: I support nuclear power, etc'. However, I also support mass solar power for civilian and government use in conjunction with hydropower and the like).

Doesn't sound like you're much of a nuclear power supporter.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Yeah, since you're soooo short on space in the fucking USA and 100 square kilometers out of 57,000 km^2 will devastate the regions economy and transport.

Ok, so now you have a bunch of solar panels in Buttfuck, Nowhere.

Just build it the same distance you would a coal power plant or the like.

Also, most solar power schemes can be built on top of buildings, only some of the large scale unfied projects (such as focused heat to boil water in turbines) needs a really open area.

The small ones are peanuts though. And those large projects use an stupendous amount of real estate for an assload of motorized mirrors in sunny areas. Deserts usually.

So? The USA has stupid amounts of space, and your main national security issues after terrorism and global security is energy security.

The maintenace argument might be feasible (I've no idea what the cost to replace the panels might be, it varies with the technology and underlying materials), but it'd be less hazard prone than urban areas.

Are we still talking about large scale, or on roofs.

Maintenance - large scale. On roofs = urban areas. (every house in Israel has a solar panel for hot water. It's cheap and simple to maintain, although solar power for electricity would be better albeit more expensive).
Just mandate it by law in areas of the country where it makes sense, and let the people keep the electricity or sell it back to the grid.

And replacing any busted panels would require you to drive out a repair crew (which costs money and takes time) to Buttfuck, Nowhere, the repair crew then needs to drive to the panel(s) that need to be replaced, and then drive back again.

It doesn't need to be 5 hours drive from civilization. And repair crews for gas plants work for free, am i rite?

Or you could station a repair crew there, but then you'd have to build a camp to house them, have people to cook and clean for them, transport supplies to them, and pay them more because they're living in the middle of nowhere.

Like with normal power plants? (Only this would be less labour intensive)

As for electricity costs, it's not as good as nuclear, but it's safer, has a far better public image and requires less sensitive materials.

Only because of a bunch of moronic propaganda.

I couldn't agree with you more on that count .

Which could be used to change public opinion about nuclear power.

What could, propaganda or cash for investment in solar power?

And if all these spendy projects fail, or fail to meet public expectations (for example: Our main story this evening, Libya just nationalised the portion of Desertec on its soil, as of now, there will be power rationing in Europe.),

We're talking about the USA, not the plans in Europe for solar power in the Sahara desert (which is what I guess you're referring to).

how do you think the public will react? Yeah, all of a sudden, the image of solar power is tarnished. And instead of sensitive (but common materials), you're relying on geography, and climate which can and will change.

Yeah, they'll get hotter and drier in most cases.
Seriously, are you claiming that we shouldn't invest in solar power since the climate and geography in sunny areas and the desert will change in the close future? I'd be more worried about earthquakes and floods, or loss of hydropower .

And stuff like Gallium(III) arsenide, which is also used in the manufacture of semiconductors isn't "safe", it's toxic. Indium, used by the vaunted Nanosolar and other companies manufacturing CIGS-based thin film solar cells (ultra efficient! ), is expensive (700 - 1000USD/kg) and pretty rare.

There are alternatives being worked on, and some of the power schemes are mechanical (heat collection via cheap and simple mirrors to steam water to power turbines) rather than chemical-material. And nuclear materials are rather expensive too, what with the security measures and precautions needed (concrete trucks and the like).

(Disclaimer: I support nuclear power, etc'. However, I also support mass solar power for civilian and government use in conjunction with hydropower and the like).

Doesn't sound like you're much of a nuclear power supporter.

I voted for it, and the government here is lobbying the USA for help in building a nuclear power plant (with greater focus than investment in solar power for energy use, and I live in freaking Israel, you know, the country which is 67% desert and has no natural energy resources?).
I support a mix, hydropower and geothermal in areas that allow it, solar panels for civilian homes and isolated locations, and the basis for the grid (and bulk of the energy production) to be based on nuclear power.

[[R_H]]

Ok, so now you have a bunch of solar panels in Buttfuck, Nowhere.

Just build it the same distance you would a coal power plant or the like.

What if you run into the problem of nearly all your cities not being within a reasonable vicinty of where the electricity is generated?

The small ones are peanuts though. And those large projects use an stupendous amount of real estate for an assload of motorized mirrors in sunny areas. Deserts usually.

So? The USA has stupid amounts of space, and your main national security issues after terrorism and global security is energy security.

I'm not American.

Are we still talking about large scale, or on roofs.

Maintenance - large scale. On roofs = urban areas. (every house in Israel has a solar panel for hot water. It's cheap and simple to maintain, although solar power for electricity would be better albeit more expensive).
Just mandate it by law in areas of the country where it makes sense, and let the people keep the electricity or sell it back to the grid.

A solar heater? Or a photovoltaic panel? If it's the former, I don't see the problem either, seeing how they're pretty cheap. Photovoltaics are really expensive, the thin film stuff costs something like .99USD/Watt, and the highest efficiency has been ~15%. Not that great.

And replacing any busted panels would require you to drive out a repair crew (which costs money and takes time) to Buttfuck, Nowhere, the repair crew then needs to drive to the panel(s) that need to be replaced, and then drive back again.

It doesn't need to be 5 hours drive from civilization. And repair crews for gas plants work for free, am i rite?

It depends where the best place to build a solar plant is, where it can be built and where the nearest town/city with qualified technicians is. Since when have we been talking about gas plants?

Or you could station a repair crew there, but then you'd have to build a camp to house them, have people to cook and clean for them, transport supplies to them, and pay them more because they're living in the middle of nowhere.

Like with normal power plants? (Only this would be less labour intensive)

Err, as far as I know, they don't live at the plants.

Which could be used to change public opinion about nuclear power.

What could, propaganda or cash for investment in solar power?

Pro-nuke, or anti-renewables propaganda. The pro-nuke side, IMO, be as rabid and aggressive as the greentards are.

And if all these spendy projects fail, or fail to meet public expectations (for example: Our main story this evening, Libya just nationalised the portion of Desertec on its soil, as of now, there will be power rationing in Europe.),

We're talking about the USA, not the plans in Europe for solar power in the Sahara desert (which is what I guess you're referring to).

It's an example of how it potentially could fail to meet public expecation. The alternatives seem to enjoy more acceptance here than in the USA, to the point that parties like the Socialists and Greens want to switch completely over to them.

how do you think the public will react? Yeah, all of a sudden, the image of solar power is tarnished. And instead of sensitive (but common materials), you're relying on geography, and climate which can and will change.

Yeah, they'll get hotter and drier in most cases.
Seriously, are you claiming that we shouldn't invest in solar power since the climate and geography in sunny areas and the desert will change in the close future? I'd be more worried about earthquakes and floods, or loss of hydropower .

That, and the fact that using large scale renewables (such as wind or solar) that they (assuming rational thinking) would only be using them as peaker plants, not as baseload plants.

And stuff like Gallium(III) arsenide, which is also used in the manufacture of semiconductors isn't "safe", it's toxic. Indium, used by the vaunted Nanosolar and other companies manufacturing CIGS-based thin film solar cells (ultra efficient! ), is expensive (700 - 1000USD/kg) and pretty rare.

There are alternatives being worked on, and some of the power schemes are mechanical (heat collection via cheap and simple mirrors to steam water to power turbines) rather than chemical-material. And nuclear materials are rather expensive too, what with the security measures and precautions needed (concrete trucks and the like).

Cheap and simple mirrors that track the sun. That doesn't sound cheap or simple to me. U3O8 cost 165USD/kg in 2008, and the price was as low as 22USD/kg in the early 90s. Since 2003, reserves have increased by 50%. Source. That's pretty cheap, and supply won't be an issue either. Regarding security, do you think that a huge scale solar plant won't need any either?

Doesn't sound like you're much of a nuclear power supporter.

I voted for it, and the government here is lobbying the USA for help in building a nuclear power plant (with greater focus than investment in solar power for energy use, and I live in freaking Israel, you know, the country which is 67% desert and has no natural energy resources?).
I support a mix, hydropower and geothermal in areas that allow it, solar panels for civilian homes and isolated locations, and the basis for the grid (and bulk of the energy production) to be based on nuclear power.

I live in Switzerland, where the Alps cover about 60% of the area. And we don't have any natural energy resources other than hydro (which has pretty much been completely exploited (55% electricity by hydro, 39% by nuke, the rest by coal/gas, and if it were up to the greentards, we'd use renewables to replace the 39%). Honestly, instead of subsidizing renewables I'd rather have energy efficient construction, switch heating and cooking from fossil fuels to electric, hybrid vehicles and energy efficient appliances be subsidized.

[Korvan]

A search for solar panel prices gave a few results that put them around $450 a square meter. So the cost of just the panels to cover 25,000 square miles works out to be about 29 trillion. Now you just have to rip out all that asphalt, possibly rebuilt the road bed, add the supporting hardware and come up with glass you can drive big transport trucks over. I just hope your road crew isn't unionized!

[KrauserKrauser]

This idea died for me the second I envisioned a careless trucker leaving his chains on his 18 wheeler and tearing up the road for miles and miles. Good luck surviving that SolarRoad TM.

[Simon_Jester]

I can see why "use solar panels as pavement" is idiotic, but why is, say, "carpet a hundred square miles of Nevada in photovoltaics" idiotic?

Maintenance? Cost? Besides, that's now a 100 sq. miles that you can't build anything else on.

Most of the places that get the most sunlight (Nevada) also have very low real estate values, for the good reason that they are in the middle of a vast sunbaked desert. As for the rest, we seem to manage with other kinds of remote industrial facilities- Hoover Dam was in the middle of nowhere when it was built, and a lot of factories go up many miles from the nearest city.

It will cost more than zero money and effort to maintain, but that doesn't mean it will cost too much. Could you show me the math on why it's a special problem for solar arrays?

What if you run into the problem of nearly all your cities not being within a reasonable vicinty of where the electricity is generated?

Have you not heard of transformer stations? Again, Hoover Dam was in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere when it was built, and powers cities hundreds of miles away. I'm not sure if it's feasible to move high gigawatt-range power across distances of thousands of miles, but at the very least it will reduce the fossil fuel consumption of the area within several hundred miles of the plant.

Now, if you live in Finland or whatever, you may not care, and large solar plants may not be right for you. But aside from sheer bloodyminded refusal to consider the problem seriously, that's no reason to rule it out as a solution for other people. Worst case, it frees up more oil and coal for you to burn before it all runs out.

It depends where the best place to build a solar plant is, where it can be built and where the nearest town/city with qualified technicians is.

In the US, that would be somewhere out in the western desert, where large towns and cities are spread out across every few hundred miles. You could put your plant down in any number of places less than an hour's drive from a viable town. In Europe the problem is trickier because the nearest good solar site is the Sahara Desert, and there aren't a lot of great places to live nearby. But, once again, the fact that solar doesn't solve your problems doesn't mean it's impossible in the abstract.

That's pretty cheap, and supply won't be an issue either. Regarding security, do you think that a huge scale solar plant won't need any either?

Not much, since the only way to do serious damage to it is by carrying in a nuke or dropping cluster munitions on the place. And unlike a nuclear or hydroelectric plant, no plausible accident in the plant will have effects beyond the plant aside from a loss of power- there's no dam to break or fallout to spread.

[[R_H]]

Most of the places that get the most sunlight (Nevada) also have very low real estate values, for the good reason that they are in the middle of a vast sunbaked desert. As for the rest, we seem to manage with other kinds of remote industrial facilities- Hoover Dam was in the middle of nowhere when it was built, and a lot of factories go up many miles from the nearest city.

OK.

It will cost more than zero money and effort to maintain, but that doesn't mean it will cost too much. Could you show me the math on why it's a special problem for solar arrays?

Some quick Googling brought up "Sandstorms Shrink UAE’s Solar Power Generation", where dust clouds reduced out put by 40%, according to the director of the plant, after cleaning the panels, output returned to normal.

And a paper on the "Effects of sandblasting on the efficiencies of solar panels" (membership needed to read the paper) but

Photovoltaic solar-energy can be a solution, if efficiently used, for providing electrification, water pumping and communications in inaccessible regions as in the south of Algeria. The glass protected solar panels made for these purposes are, however, constantly exposed to the damaging effects caused by sandstorms. These occur particularly in spring with velocities that can reach 120 km/h, and for various durations, typically not, vert, similar48 h. The small particles of sand (of average size <120 μm) rise high into the atmosphere, and the relatively large particles (average size >120 μm) remain at lower altitudes and at ground level. This preliminary work considers the effects of the sandblasting duration on the efficiencies of solar panels. The results show that the solar panels' efficiencies decrease during sandstorms, and some of these decreases are permanent when the protective glass sheets are damaged by erosion.

and another paper A new correlation between photovoltaic panel's efficiency and amount of sand dust accumulated on their surface, which also requires registration to view, but

The accumulation of dust particles on the surface of photovoltaic (PV) panel greatly affects its performance especially in the dusty areas. In the present work, an experimental and theoretical study has been carried out to investigate the effect of sand dust concentration on the efficiency of PV panels. A stand-alone PV system is designed to carry out this work. The I-V characteristics have been measured simultaneously for both clean and dusty modules. It has been found that the short circuit current and the maximum output power decrease significantly as dust particles start to accumulate on the panel surface up to a concentration of 1 g/m2, but the rate of decrease is slower for concentrations beyond that value. The reduction in short circuit current in one sample of study is found to be ∼40%, whereas it is ∼34% in the maximum output power. In contrast, it is stated that the open circuit voltage is not sensitive to sand dust accumulation. A significant degradation in the efficiency of PV modules is observed for sand dust accumulation up to 1 g/m2. A linear relation has been proposed to correlate the degradation in efficiency to the amount of sand dust accumulated on the module surface. This relation can help PV system designers to reliably predict the effect of sand dust accumulation on PV module efficiency under real environmental conditions.

Have you not heard of transformer stations? Again, Hoover Dam was in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere when it was built, and powers cities hundreds of miles away. I'm not sure if it's feasible to move high gigawatt-range power across distances of thousands of miles, but at the very least it will reduce the fossil fuel consumption of the area within several hundred miles of the plant.

The longest overhead power line is in the DRC, it's 1700km, was built in late 70s/early 80s. Projected cost at the time was 250million USD, but the final price was over a billion.

Now, if you live in Finland or whatever, you may not care, and large solar plants may not be right for you. But aside from sheer bloodyminded refusal to consider the problem seriously, that's no reason to rule it out as a solution for other people. Worst case, it frees up more oil and coal for you to burn before it all runs out.

My issue with sustainable energy is that there is an absolute refusal, by the Greens and similar groups, to consider the already in place methods of generating large amounts of baseload electricity.

In the US, that would be somewhere out in the western desert, where large towns and cities are spread out across every few hundred miles. You could put your plant down in any number of places less than an hour's drive from a viable town.

There's still the issue of finding people in those towns qualified to work at/maintain the power plant, or if that's not possible, making those towns lucrative enough for qualified people to move there.

In Europe the problem is trickier because the nearest good solar site is the Sahara Desert, and there aren't a lot of great places to live nearby. But, once again, the fact that solar doesn't solve your problems doesn't mean it's impossible in the abstract.

I think this type of a project is better suited to the US, because you've got enough well suited land. The problem with the Sahara project is that it would be located in countries like Libya, and all the issues that nations like that bring to the table. The strongest proponents for renewables here in Europe are the ones that are most adamant about only using renewables, regardless if that's the best solution (it's not). Round peg, square hole type of thinking.

Not much, since the only way to do serious damage to it is by carrying in a nuke or dropping cluster munitions on the place. And unlike a nuclear or hydroelectric plant, no plausible accident in the plant will have effects beyond the plant aside from a loss of power- there's no dam to break or fallout to spread.

Petty vandalism is still a possibility, but I'd think that the remoteness of the middle of the desert would hinder it.

As to the part about fallout spreading, I can only say containment buildings. Both the AP1000 and the EPR will use steel and concrete containment, which has advantages over just using a reinforced concrete containment building.