Being a nerd has become the cool kid thing to be. The media people in Washington now call their big gala the “nerd ball” because it attracted all of the policy wonks. The fact that few of these people can do basic mathematics does not matter. They wear the right costumes and strike the right pose so they can pretend to be bookish nerds. Every  liberal pretends to be a science fan, even though none of them have any background in science, especially the human sciences.

But, fads are what they are and no group is more faddish than the Left. The trouble with this one is that incredibly stupid ideas get passed around like settled science, to use a common refrain. Here’s a good example from Tech Crunch, a site that caters to the fake nerd crowd.

Here’s an idea crazy enough that it just might work: Pave the streets with solar-powered panels that have their own built-in heat and LED lights. That’s what Scott and Julie Brusaw hope to accomplish with their ongoing Solar Roadways project, which they just funded through a hugely popular crowdfunding campaign.

The husband-and-wife team has spent the better part of the last decade developing solar-powered modular panels that could be installed in roadways and parking lots, and would be able to collect power from the sun. Those panels could also keep streets clear of snow and ice, while illuminating them with LEDs.

Rather than paving streets and driveways with asphalt, the Solar Roadways panels would theoretically be able to decrease our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels by generating massive amounts of clean energy. Panels are made from ruggedized glass and connect to one another through a mesh network, so that even if one panel fails the system will notify repair crews that it needs to be replaced.

Actually, the theory is nonsense. Asphalt is black and that means it absorbs sunlight readily. The light is converted into heat, which is why the road is smoking hot in the middle of summer. It is also why the snow melts away even when it is below freezing, once the road is exposed. The road is converting close to 100% of the sunlight into heat. Solar panels, on the other hand, convert about 15% of sunlight into electricity. For that reason alone you have a huge loss of energy using solar panels instead of asphalt.

Then you have the issue of storage. If you want to use solar to light the roads, then you have to store the energy because lighting them in the daytime is stupid. That means batteries. They have a loss of energy, but they also cost a boatload of money and have to be replaced regularly.

We’re not even at the hard parts. Building a road from solar panels would require new materials capable of handling the massive abuse that comes from being driven over by trucks and cars. Those materials could not be smooth as the cars would fly off the roads in the rain.

Anyone with a mastery of basic science would spot this as nonsense, but the fake nerd trend means these people get to con a bunch of fake nerds into “crowdfunding” their alchemy. There’s always good money in pretending to be the smartest guy in the room.