The Great Myth of Airpower

Hey readers,

Look I hate to break it to you like this but, you're being lied to. You've been lied to for a long time and repeatedly. By your governments. I know; absolutely shocking right? But I'm not talking about expenses scandals or tax havens or grand conspiracies involving architectural choices at Denver airport (no really, there's a conspiracy theory about that). No instead i'm talking about the great myth; airpower.

 Regular readers will know that I'm likely not talking about the construction of wind farms, but just in case someone new stumbles upon this little read slice of the information superhighway, I should clarify. I'm talking about airpower in the military sense. The use of manned aircraft and other airborne assets in military operations. Military aviation is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of the world, having only really been cemented as viable around a century ago during that little spat between the European Great Powers we now all know as World War I. Of course this isn't to say that the air had never been used in warfare before, far from it, carrier pigeons have been utilised for almost a thousand years and observation balloons were used as early as the French Revolutionary War. But it wasn't until the early 20th century that engineering had progressed far enough to create aircraft that could fly fast enough and carry enough fuel and equipment to be viable in combat. Of course I'm speaking relatively, WWI era military aircraft were incredibly crude, bombs were often delivered by hand and early examples of armed aircraft used to shoot their own propellers off but regardless, a new dimension of warfare was born, one that would never go away.

From this...

to this in  less than a century

The purpose of this piece isn't to dismiss the usefulness of airpower out of hand, it is an incredibly  useful tool in a commander's toolbox. In fact, in any potential peer-state conflict (fight against another country with similar technology to yourself), air power is essential. Without sufficient air cover and support, ground troops would be at the mercy of the opposing side's own air assets and fire support would be limited to artillery (again another useful/essential tool, much older than airpower, but suffers from limitations of its own - maybe i'll write about it another time) and of course that artillery would also be vulnerable to enemy aircraft. Air parity, i.e. control of the air over your own forces, is the absolute minimum any modern state needs to prosecute a war against a peer effectively.

But herein lies a major problem, peer state conflicts have been increasingly thin on the ground in recent decades. That's not to say they don't happen, they do, but the largest air campaign fought between modern forces since World War II was the Falklands war, 34 years ago. More recent conflicts have been characterised by a more asymmetrical nature with conventional forces engaging in warfare among a population as opposed to on a battlefield with well defined lines, Airpower is undoubtedly still useful in these instances, particularly in a close-in support role as the irregular forces currently faced by the armies of the world rarely have an effective answer to modern aircraft. However it is here that we get to the true topic of this piece: the myth, the lie, the ultimate falsehood that is the recent reliance on airpower in post Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.

Ultimately the use of air assets in a conflict zone by western powers is a ploy. A trick. It's a way for our governments to seem like they're doing more than they actually are. Something bad happens? Airstrikes, airstrikes, airstrikes. Our foes can't do the same thing to us, they're accurate,* they're relatively inexpensive and ultimately... strategically useless. It has been the dream of military planners the world over since the dawn of military aviation to win wars solely from the air. From the Zeppelin bombings of Britain in WWI, to the saturation bombing of WWII, to the carpet bombing campaigns of Vietnam... none have succeeded in completely winning or even entirely turning the tide of a war. In order to win a war, one side has to be put in such a position that the continuation of hostilities is no longer feasible for them. In order to do that, their very ability to operate must be stripped from them, their supply lines cut, territory taken etc etc. Aircraft alone cannot do that, particularly the latter. In order to stop a force from operating, taking and holding territory is essential as it limits the foe's ability to manoeuvre his forces, thus restricting his ability to effectively mount offensives. But in order to hold territory, you need men on the ground. People sat in trenches and bunkers, stood on street corners, holding what they have; this is notoriously difficult to do when fighting an insurgency but not impossible. Unfortunately this is costly and risky, it would involve considerable amounts of materiel and men and people would undoubtedly die. Western governments by and large no longer have the stomach for this kind of thing after two ponderous, bloody, and seemingly inconclusive wars in the last decade and a half. Thus, airstrikes are an easy fallback solution, a veneer, the appearance of action when in fact very little is being achieved in the long term.

*Accuracy of airstrikes among a civilian population is a tricky thing and targets are only as good as the intelligence gathered...from the ground.

This is not to say that the air campaigns in Syria, Iraq, and Libya have been entirely ineffective. Of course not, allies on the ground in these theatres were, and undoubtedly still are, incredibly grateful for this support. In the case against the fight against IS/Daesh, it has dealt some serious body blows to their oil operations, but such things can be rebuilt. Until those refineries and fuel dumps are captured and held by people - the fighting shall grind on.

Wars cannot be won by air alone.

Thanks for reading,

Wheelchairman2


All images belong to their respective authors and are used under fair use.

Opinions are changeable things.

Hello readers,

Once again I turn to this web based software to inflict my thoughts upon you poor unfortunate souls. Today i'm going to discuss a somewhat uncomfortable topic with you all, but you may be surprised at my conclusions so stick with me. But it might be a long one so go brew yourself a cup of tea or coffee or vodka or something and then pop back. I'll wait.

A UGM-133 Trident II or Trident D5 SLBM test

Alright you comfortable? Good stuff. Today i'm going to be talking about something near but not particularly dear to my heart, nuclear weapons.

Yup those bastard things. Those expensive relics of the cold war (well actually World war II but more on that later) that seem to cause endless pointless debate in parliament for some reason or another. No one can seem to agree on whether or not it's a good idea for us i.e. the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to maintain in independent nuclear deterrence. My opinions on nukes was originally detailed some time ago in my twin piece regarding Iran's nuclear program several years ago wherein I reluctantly expressed support for their continued existence. But today i'm going to tell you something different. I want the bloody things gone. Not just ours, but everybody's USA, UK, RUS, FRA, PRC, IND, PAK, DPRK and of course let us not forget ISR (yes, we know, we've always known.)

Indeed you read that right, I want nuclear weapons to be consigned to the dustbin of history, thrown out and treated with the same attitude as one might treat the trebuchet or the catapult. A historical curiosity relevant in a specific period but now no longer needed. In order to understand why one must consider the context in which nuclear weapons were first built. They were built as we all know during the second world war. During this little bump in history's road everyone was blowing a lot of stuff up from the air and that took a lot of bombs and a lot of planes to carry those bombs. Because they could only fall from the sky unguided and in order to ensure you hit something worthwhile you had to throw a lot of crap in the target's general direction. So scientists around the world were approached by strategists and were asked "is there any way we can blow as much or more stuff up... with less bombs?" and the scientists were like "funny you should ask...' and 'lo the Manhattan project and its contemporaries came into being. America won that race of course, owing to various factors, not least of which being the extremely effective allied sabotage campaign against German and Japanese efforts to do the same.  Then of course Little Boy and Fat man went boom and everyone went 'woah that shit works!' and of course instead of being utterly terrified at what they'd wrought all of the major powers du jour made it their one goal to get their own super explode-y bomb or two (or several thousand.) Now in its own way, the nuclear standoff that followed for the next forty or so years was oddly good, the world was knackered from the big scrap of 1939-45 and all these shiny new super scary super boomy bombs held everyone in check mostly. Although admittedly it was much more luck than judgement that the world didn't die screaming in a series of nuclear fireballs (case in point Vasili Arkhiopov, cheers pal. You did us all a solid.)

So why you may ask, should we get rid of them now? After all the world is probably at it's most unstable point in several decades, the Middle East has been in a near permanent state of turmoil for the past decade and a half and relations with Russia are at their lowest point since the mid-eighties! You're right of course and that is precisely why they should go.

Nuclear weapons are at best a bargaining chip and at worse a collectors item. A toy never to be taken out the box because once that seal is breached, all of its value is lost. The world is kept in check on this exact principle, deterrence theory relies on non use to work. Once a nuke is fired (and presumably detonated on a target) deterrence is done, it's failed, the thousands of equally deadly weapons held by other nations no longer hold any fear at that point because whomever pressed the button clearly no longer cares.

I've been doing a master's degree in International Security since September of last year and I've picked up a few things along the way. This is one of them, what really drove this opinion home however wasn't anything gleaned from the reading that I've done or discussions that I've had, but instead from a BBC television programme aired a few months ago. An episode of BBC2's This World entitled Inside the War Room: World War Three. Unfortunately it's no longer available on iPlayer but you're all a tech savvy bunch so i'm sure if you want to watch it you can find a way to do so. Long story short the episode had various experts (former government officials and the like) from across the political spectrum of the UK  take part in a scripted exercise that detailed a diplomatic crisis escalate in a former Soviet satellite state turned NATO member. To put none too fine a point on it things do not turn out well. I don't want to spoil the end but i'll tell you this much, it made me feel physically nauseous and I've watched the uncensored version of Threads. 

So why should the UK disarm? Well i'm not suggesting we do it immediately and all at once, there are enormous practicalities to consider. A great deal of our military-industrial infrastructure is given over to the maintenance of our deterrent and it would take more than a night or two to dismantle that. Ideally we should gradually step down the size of our nuclear force, first reduce the number of warheads on each sub, then the number of subs until slowly but surely we reach zero. But why us? Well, despite the news media's attempts to convince us otherwise the UK is still a world power, its up to somebody to set an example. Trident is up for renewal anyway, there's probably not going to be a better window for disarmament for some time. Also, as loath as I am to say this we are quite well covered by the American nuclear 'umbrella' the loss of our subs and warheads would not be too big of a body blow to the NATO strategic position. Also, these things are bloody expensive, in a time of 'austerity' why the hell are we spending so much cash maintaining and probably replacing a weapons system that is essentially useless? That money could be used to much greater effect bolstering our beleaguered and underfunded conventional forces. I know the old maxim goes 'prepare for the next war, not the one you're currently fighting'. But if the next war goes nuclear, we're all dead anyway.

Another argument against disarmament, especially global disarmament, is that it prevents great power conflict. I.E. no major wars have taken place between two great powers since 1945 largely thanks to the nuke. This is partially true, the threat of nuclear annihilation has undoubtedly played a role in keeping the peace, but not necessarily in high command or at the top levels of government, as demonstrated by the example above. There are many others too, when the world has teetered on the nuclear knife edge, it's often been a lower ranking member of the military or government that's stopped everything from being turned into glowing glass. Prior to the release of the movie The Day After the Reagan administration considered a nuclear war to be potentially winnable! This is not to suggest that a made for TV movie about nuclear war highhandedly changed the administrations' minds but it did allegedly leave ol' Ron feeling 'greatly depressed' and doctrine was in fact altered.

Even major scholars in the field contend that nuclear weapons don't necessarily prevent great power conflict, most famously Neorealist John Mearshimer who believes that they merely make it 'less likely'. (As a positivist he would of course largely ignore the impact that individuals making decisions might have on such things of course but that's going into really complex realms of theory.)  Would we see an upswing in major conflicts between large nations if nukes were eliminated as a factor? Almost certainly, but modern conventional weaponry is so effective and so expensive to maintain that any such conflict would likely not last long. As grim a portent as that may be it's still better than the current potential outcome.    

Will I live to see global zero? Probably not, will anyone? Who knows. But one can hope.

Thanks for reading,

Wheelchairman2

Turkey's whoopsie.

Hey readers! Long time, sorry again.

So... I've been compelled to write by the events of the past few days. As you might have read, because it's been all over the news, Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian combat aircraft in what they claim was their airspace. A claim furiously disputed by both the Russian military authorities and the surviving pilot.

Wait, surviving pilot?

Yeah... The air force of a NATO member just killed a Russian airman. 'Oh boy' you might think, 'that ain't good'. Well guess what? You'd be bang on the money. It's not good. For anyone. At all. Oh also a Russian marine died in the rescue effort so that's great. In all seriousness though, RIP Oleg Peshkov and Alexander Pozynych, we're not at war with your country. Yet.

So the situation in Syria is a goddamn mess right now as i've covered in previous posts, there's 2 dozen actors on the ground with differing ideologies and goals scattered all about the shattered shell of what was once a vaguely functional nation, I won't go into who's who or where the blame lies right now because hell that's complicated even for me. But besides the bloody (literally unfortunately) mess on the ground we also have some rather crowded air space.

The Americans are bombing Syria - namely ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh (whatever your preferred name for them is) targets, so is , Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates with the UK just on the cusp of joining in, although we're already stuck in over Iraq along with the other chaps as well as Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany too. This is known as 'Combined Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve'.

 Then there's Russia, who unlike everyone else is clinging onto Bashir Al-Assad for thinly veiled geo-political and strategic reasons. Not that I particularly blame them, Russia has had a long history of Relations with Syria and has enjoyed close ties with the Assad family for decades, plus their naval base in Tartus is Russia's only foothold in the Mediterranian both a real and symbolic reminder of Russian military power. Real in the sense that yes it does exist, symbolic in the sense that it is what remains of the former Soviet Union's once formidable forward basing capability. In the face of what it sees as NATO/US encroachment on its back yard Russia is unwilling to let go of this last thorn in the side of NATO naval dominance in the region.

So what the hell happened?

Well put simply one of these:

A pair of Turkish Air Force F-16s

Shot down one of these:

Su-24s in flight

I'm not going to upload a picture of the thing going down in flames but it wasn't pretty. This isn't the first time Russian aircraft have violated Turkish airspace in recent years, Syrian aircraft did it a lot at the start of this whole business too, it happens. It shouldn't but it does. Its unclear as to whether or not the aircraft was actually over Turkish airspace or not at this point, Turkey vehmently maintians that it was, Russia is arguing until its blue in the face that it wasn't. Even more worrying are the claims by the surviving pilot that he recieved no warning from the Turkish pilots before being shot down again this is something that is disputed by the Turkish authorities. NATO has come out as saying that it believes Turkey's version of events but I wonder how far that rhetoric is carried on behind closed doors. Frankly Turkey has been a little too twitchy of late and these are the consequences of that. This is the first time that a Soviet/Russian aircraft has been downed by a NATO power in fifty years. Am I worried? A little yes.

Now Russia has outright stated that all future strike missions will have a dedicated fighter escorts and they have deployed a destroyer nearby in a dedicated air defence role, they've also warned of dire consequences for Russo-Turkish relations - an understandable reacation given the circumstances.

Let me be clear I am in no way a supporter of Russian foriegn or defence policy, to my mind their recent actions in Donbass, Crimea, Georgia and Syria have been distasteful to say the least, understandable from a Russian perspective perhaps, but distasteful. However the waters are too muddy for me to decry Russian actions in this particular case as things stand. The Turkish are certainly not blameless, I feel that the shooting down of this aircraft was needlessly agressive, noted I was not in the air at the time and I am just a spectator here, but with that comes the value of some objectivity. Britain's airspace is probed by Russian aircraft on a near daily basis, granted we don't have a war next door threatening to spill over our borders. Will this be the start of a third world war? Unlikely, but there is a great deal to be said for restraint. Particularly when the guys you just shot down work for the country with the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet.

Just saying.

Anyway thanks for reading.

wheelchairman2

The blog today

Hey readers,

I know I still don't update this repository for my thoughts anywhere near as often as I should and I apologise for that. This isn't really part of the usual material that I would post on here but it is an update of sorts.

Originally this blog was supposed to be a place wherein I would complain about things I didn't like in the media, or in real life (i.e. personal experiences I have had a la my 'famous' post 'On the Buses') but upon reflection I realise it's evolved somewhat since that original oh so lofty vision coalesced into this... prose dump. 

Everything I write on here is my opinion, it is my interpretation of world events through my somewhat jaundiced, but grounded (at least I like to think it is) perspective, while I still intend to use this space to write about any humorous occurrences in my day to day, the majority of the content will continue to be my explainers of world events. Why? Because it's often said you should write what you know and I'm damned if I know much about anything else. So I'll stick with that for now.

Please look forward to my next work in which I will be breaking down the reasons as to why conspiracy theories are mostly bollocks.

Cheers as always and thanks for reading,

Wheelchairman2

Ukraine, the invisible ceasefire and the dangers complacency.

Hey readers! (All 5 of you)

So it's been almost a year since I last posted because i'm terrible at keeping promises and schedules, plus I have a job now so that's another excuse. A poor one but an excuse nonetheless. Still, I must admit that recently i've got that bloggy feeling and I just had to start typing.

So what's been making me angry recently? Well the title of this post might give it away I suppose. The ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine has been a cause of endless frustration for me in recent months. Today in the midst of a supposed ceasefire the shelling of areas still inhabited by significant numbers of civilians is continuing.

Why this is a problem

Six days ago after exhaustive talks in Minsk, the capital city of Belarus, a ceasefire agreement was reached between Ukraine and the rebels and Russia, no doubt representing the interests of the 'Russian volunteers' (aka Russian regular army and special forces in insignia free uniforms). There were 12 points to this agreement, first and foremost of which being an 'Imediate and full bilateral ceasefire' to take effect at midnight on the 15th of February local time. Guess what though, that didn't happen, instead fierce fighting has continued resulting today in the withdrawal of Ukranian troops from the town of Debaltseve after sustaining at least 22 fatal casualties and over 100 wounded. These rebel movements are in clear violation of the Minsk accords and yet there has been virtually nothing more than rhetoric from western powers in response to it. Why? Well as mentioned in my previous post about the Ukranian situation, the western powers are pretty terrified of this escalating. What could we do? Arm the Ukranians? Sure, but that might be considered as an act of war by some in the Kremlin which could have some very nasty consequences indeed. Except Russia isn't supposed to be directly involved in Ukraine so why would they care? Except they are, so of course they do. So for now western military aid is restricted to the non lethal kind. Brtain for example, was kind enough to send the Ukranian army a whole bunch of Saxon armoured cars recently, the result of a deal that admittedly predates the so called 'War in Donbass' but even so, those things aren't exactly going to turn the tide against the Russian 76th Airbone Division, 36th Airborne Brigade or the 18th Mechanised Brigade etc (all of which are definitely not in Eastern Ukraine.)

'Definitely not Russian' soldiers in Crimea last year

So... What does this all mean?

 It means that the war is going to continue unabated, it means that Russia is going to continue stomping all over a neighbour's soveriegn territory with impunity, it means more people on both sides are going to die and it means that it's probably going to get worse. We know Russia is involved in Ukraine, they know we know that, but staring down the country with the world's largest nuclear arsenal isn't an easy thing to do. European military spending is at an all time low, the public's appetite for war is nonexsistent and to top it all off Russia hasn't been fighting a seemingly endless guerilla war against radical islamists across the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa, they've only had to do it in Chechnya. Also they've increased their military spending for 2015 by US$20 billion, bringing it up to $81 billion it's highest level of publically declared spending since the end of the Cold War.

NATO has made moves to counter increased Russian aggression in the region, stepping up air patrols in now allied former Warsaw pact states like Estonia and Lithuania and creating a new rapid reaction force to be based in the region. But despite these shifts in posture it must be stressed; an actual physical response is highly unlikely. The collapse of the oil price and increased sanctions against Russia are slowly undermining the Russian economy but Putin and the Kremlin has something of an iron grip on the nation and its feelings. If anything such actions may only provide fuel for the nationalistic fervour that currently enraptures Moscow.

What does Putin want?

Well i'm not the man's shrink so I don't have access to his innermost thoughts and desires, but my take on the situation is that he wants to reclaim at least some of the Soviet Union's lost territory and more importantly, prestege. The USSR, with the SFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) at its heart, was once feared and respected, with allies and influence. Being part of the KGB old guard old Vladimir misses those days no doubt and what better time to make a push than when political will in Europe is at low ebb? When the might of NATO has other priorities? When the populations of our democracies are more concerned with spending on welfare and job programmes than security? Our politicians know this too, there are no votes in foreign policy and certainly none in defence. This isn't the sixties, or even the eighties, there are no conventional threats to contend with anymore, who cares what happens in Ukraine right? Well that's all well and good until your airliner gets shot down, or a Russian long range bomber violates sovereign airspace and someone makes a miscalculation. Wars are messy things, they tend to spill over and when they do, it's not a case of grabbing a cloth and cleaning up.

That's not a friendly bear

I can't pretend to have a solution to this mess, I wish I did. I have wishes, hopes perhaps, a broad increase in European military spending and re-deployment of NATO assets to the alliances' frontiers would be nice. My fear is that by the time something is done, it will be far too little, far too late.

Only time will tell.

Thanks for reading,

Wheelchairman2

Iraq 2014: ISIS vs the US and... Iran?

Hey readers!

So some of you may have recently heard about some nasty goings on in northern Iraq involving an organisation known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Confusingly acronym-ed as ISIS. (Because technically it stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham or occasionally Syria.) This particular group of individuals have swept across many of the northern cities of Iraq apparently uncontested with Iraqi forces fleeing, surrendering or defecting in droves.

Anyway, in the media lately there has been extensive coverage of this, as well as a heck of a lot of blame being tossed around the place. It's Bush's fault! It's Blair's fault! Iraq 2003! Etc etc etc. The reality of the situation is, unsurprisingly enough, somewhat more complicated than that. While yes, 11 years ago the US, the UK, and many partner nations did end up invading Iraq and in the process dismantled local security forces, over the next 8 years coalition forces spent a great deal of time, effort and money rebuilding those forces. Equipping the new Iraqi army with refurbished armoured vehicles, new small arms and personal protective gear. As well as a new officer candidate school  based around the British Sandhurst system. What all of these preparations couldn't account for though, was the sheer depth of corruption within the Iraqi establishment and an extremely bloody civil war erupting just over Iraq's northern border.

What ISIS have done is quite remarkable, they saw an opportunity and seized it. To use an American turn of phrase the Iraqi security forces were caught with their pants down. Efforts to mount an offensive to retake the captured areas are now in the early phases with the bulk of the forces involved being Iraqi troops and Shia (or Shi'ite depending on how you choose to spell it) militia. (ISIS is a Sunni organisation) the United States may be providing air support and forward observer teams to direct the strikes (although not quite yet, the White House is dithering slightly, but there is a carrier group sitting ready and waiting) and the Iranian Quds force (Republican Guard Special Forces) has committed 2,000 of its members to the cause as well! Yes you read that right. The most hard line defenders of the Islamic Republic of Iran may well end up  fighting alongside Iraqi troops and American advisors against a terrorist organisation. The UK has even made steps to re-open it's embassy in Tehran, never underestimate the ability of a crisis to bring former foes together. No one ever said that playing 'The Great Game' wasn't cynical...

This whole situation is a mess, it came as a complete surprise to everyone, the response has been as confused and frantic as any I've ever seen. The usual platitudes of condemnation have emerged form the expected sources. But what is surprising is the shock and anger behind many of them. The UN has even evacuated much of it's staff to Jordan out of concern and even went as far to appeal for 'Iraqi unity' in the face of the crisis. Given the prevalent sectarian and tribal divides the beset the country that's a grand statement to make.

I apologise for the somewhat sloppy nature of this post but currently the situation is really this confused. Until further details emerge and more definite action is taken there's not a great deal of analysis I can offer. Point of fact however is that the blame for this cannot solely, or even largely be placed at the feet of the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation. There are far too many factors and moving parts for it to be broken down that simplistically.


One thing is certain though, you can always count on the Middle East to cause headaches for everyone who works, or is even remotely interested in international security.

Thanks for reading.

Wheelchairman2

Solar Roadways: A Bright Future? Probably Not.

Hey Readers,

So over the past few days there's been a video floating around Facebook and various other social media outlets. One of those ones that says 'Oh my god you have to watch this!' without actually telling you what it is. Which irritated me of course, I hate those kinds of things, BUT I will admit that once somebody actually explained what it was about when they posted it piqued my interest. Solar Roadways. Exactly what it says on the tin, roads and other similar surfaces, made out of smart solar panels. With heating elements, LED lighting, tons and tons of bells and whistles.

Here's the video:



Wow, what an amazing idea! Right? Right guys? Well yeah it is, it's fantastic, on the surface. However examine the issue a little closer and some cracks start to appear. Not really with the technology itself; more with the myriad difficulties in implementing it on a scale as suggested by the video. The problems themselves aren't even singular issues, they're all interconnected in a horrifying web of pitfalls and traps.

For starters there's the sheer scale of the idea. Eventually replacing the entirety of the U.S road network with this system. Now I know that they're not suggesting doing it all at once, but even so nothing on this scale has been attempted since the construction of the interstate highway network back in the 50s. (Which was actually done in order to make it easer to shift large military resources by road during the Cold War.) That was complex enough and all that required was a few hundred million tonnes of poured concrete and asphalt. This scheme requires a hell of a lot more than that. Then there's the cost. According to a study conducted in November 2003 by the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) the cost of building just normal roads is astronomical. Adjusted to 2006 dollars the costs are (according to a report by Rails to Trails, an organisation dedicated to turning disused rail lines into hiking trails or something, I dunno I googled this and their report was the most easily interpreted source.)

Where was I? Oh yes the costs. Right, so for one mile, of one lane of a standard four lane highway in a rural area in 2006 dollars could cost between $3.1 million to $9.1 million. In urban areas that cost increases to $4.9-19.5 million per lane mile. In more extreme cases such as major cities it can cost between 16.8-74.7 million dollars per lane mile. I'm talking about standard roads here, concrete and asphalt. Those costs were for eight years ago, adjusted for inflation they're probably a lot higher now. Again I must stress, that's for standard boring highways. Looking on the Solar Roadways indiegogo site, the individuals behind it haven't actually calculated a production level cost yet, but given the complexity of the components, I doubt it's going to come cheap. All of a sudden that $2 million the indiegogo campaign looks set to generate doesn't look like all that much does it?

Then there's the jobs angle, will this create jobs? Yes. Will it also make people lose their jobs? The answer to that is also yes. The video mentions for example: LED created road markings, what about highway maintentence folks who paint the road markings today? Or the people who fill in those potholes that won't be a problem anymore? Oh sure you'll need to hire people to program the LEDs, replace any damaged panels, but both of those jobs will likely require substantial amounts of expertise. Expertise individuals working for highway maintenence currently; most likely lack. So a few menial workers lose their jobs, oh well sacrifices have to be made in order for change to take place. Correct, but the job problem doesn't end there, the video also mentions heated roadways thus negating the need for snowploughs etc. Not an issue in southerly states most of the time, but above the snowline in America, winter preparedness is a huge industry. Now do you think for a second that the companies, with  contracts to provide winter preparedness services to state and local level government, are going to sit idly by as their road network is replaced by a system wherein their services are no longer required?  No, which means lobbyists, which means maybe hinting to your state representatives in D.C. and local politicians as well that if they vote to approve the replacement of the road network, perhaps their company and affiliates will be forced to withdraw their support for your next election campaign. Too bad.

Then, there's the energy question. The video states that, if the entire U.S. road network were to be replaced with these Solar Roadways, it would generate 3x more energy than America consumes. Amazing! Wow! Except for one major problem. Storing surplus electrical energy is really really REALLY hard. Metal based battteries? Too inefficient and an environemental nightmare, there is emerging technology that could solve this like graphene batteres and liquid oxygen storage but again they are not cheap or simple solutions. They're also largely untested. Also, what are you going to do with that surplus energy even if you do manage to store it? Sell it? How it's not like gas or oil where you can just pipe it or ship it somewhere else. It's not going to be a profit centre for anybody.

For example, the largest provider of electricity in the U.S. by customer volume is Pacific Gas and Electric, or PG&E. It serves over 5 million customers to almost two thirds of California (the most populous state in the U.S.) and the border areas of Oregon. In 2011 it generated $14.956 billion dollars in revenue, had an operating income of $1.942 billion, a net income of $858 million and total assets coming close to $50 billion.  They own nuclear plants, gas pipelines and various other parts of the energy infrastructure in the State. They're a powerful actor politically speaking. They'll have a lot of pull at various levels and they would not want to see their power stations shut down over some fancy high-tech roads thank you very much. How are the solar roadways going to work in this regard anyway? At what level with the energy production be managed? And by whom? Say PG&E were approached and were told. "hey, you can manage this part of the road network and charge for energy produced by it." Ok great, "But first you have to decomission all of your generating stations and lay a hell of a lot of people off." Not so great. The cost of decomissioning a power station is mind boggling, Especially nuclear facilities, current U.S. estimates stand at $325 million per reactor, a decomissioning of a relatively small reactor in France has cost over 480 million Euros (20x the original estimates.) The E.U. Commission estimates that over the next two decades, the decomissioning of all 150 current reactors would cost at least 150 billion Euros. The U.S. has 104 with 5 more currently under construction.

All of this is just a snapshot, this doesn't factor in oil revenue, shale gas production, coal, wood, biomass, wind, hydroelectric, etc. Energy is an enormous sector and while in theory this is a great idea, in practice it's simply not a practical solution.

It's not all bad news though, I do believe that this technology will see some use only on a limited scale.  Play parks, public spaces, car parks, outdoor sports courts could all very feasibly use this tech. The United States Military will doubtless be very interested in this technology also, hard wearing easily replaceable energy producing road surfaces? That has a lot of potential for use in overseas military bases, particularly in combat zones were local power grids are unreliable. It'd be a heck of a lot more efficient than relying of fuel powered generators, less of a logistical nightmare too. Supply lines cut? Less of a worry now because at least base systems and communications won't be at risk of running out of juice. Other more foward thinking areas of the U.S. will probably adopt Solar Roadways too, San Fransisco, Portland, Seattle and various other environmentally concious towns. Europe, particularly Western Europe, may be somewhat receptive to the idea as well but frankly I cannot see this being implemented on a large scale any time in the near future. As much of a shame as that is. The politics are just far too complex, the vested interest far too entrenched.


Thanks for reading,

Wheelchairman2