【法國建成第一條太陽能公路】近日，法國的小鎮(zhèn)上鋪設(shè)了一段太陽能公路，路面因鋪設(shè)了一層多晶硅樹脂薄膜，防水耐用，經(jīng)得起大量汽車碾壓。另外，法國計劃未來5年興建總長度達1000公里的“太陽能公路”，預(yù)計每公里路段產(chǎn)生的電力，足夠為一條容納1000名居民的村莊提供照明用電。
The tiny town of Tourouvre-au-Perche in Normandy, France no longer has to worry about how it will power its street lights. The Sun will handle that.
French Ecology Minister Ségolène Royal (above) officially opened the kilometer-long road on Wednesday. It took five years to develop and cost $5.2 million to produce and install the 30,000 square feet of solar panels. They're coated with a clear silicon resin that enables them to withstand the impact of passing traffic.
Being the first of its kind, the panels are still prohibitively expensive to produce en masse (they're also less efficient than conventional panels because they're laid flat rather than angled). But should Colas, the road's manufacturer, figure out how to get costs down and efficiency up, France may install them along another 1,000 kilometers of its roads.
