render of the exterior of ‘solar serpent’ all images courtesy of mans tham

the project ‘solar serpent’ by swedish architect and urban strategist mans tham, explores how architectural design could change both the function and the narrative of motopia’s most symbolic structures. urban oil wells have made the link between energy and daily life unusually apparent in los angeles. but oil is not the only apparent energy source in these places. there is also an abundance of sun.

render of interior of ‘solar serpent’

this has also sparked the recent los angeles solar program signed by mayor villaraigosa. allocation of land use is a central issue for any solar proposal and the program focuses on incentives for installations on roofs on private homes, public buildings and parking lots within the city. the third leg of the solar program is the gigantic ivanpah solar steam power plant in the mohave desert outside of the city. it would have a peak capacity of 500 MW and be connected by power lines to the grid of the LA region.

while renewable, the desert strategy is to continue down the beaten path of importing resources while draining an ecology somewhere else. mans tham proposes local energy production instead.

with los angeles county having 800 km of freeways he thought of using some of them for the location of a large scale solar installation, right in the middle of the city.

2d sketch plan of ‘solar serpent’

solar panels need unshaded sun which makes freeways with their big clearing an ideal site. mounted above a road, they also provide shade that would decrease the use of air conditioning on sunny days. but also: the high cost of UV degradation of paved freeway surfaces would decrease drastically.

the 24 kilometer long stretch of the santa monica freeway between downtown and the beach is on average 40 m wide. this gives a paved surface of one million m2 which constitutes only 5% of the county’s freeway system. the santa monica freeway could house the equivalent of more than 600,000 domestic market panels of 1.6 m2 each. the santa monica freeway would be become a local power plant.

compared with the ivanpah solar complex of 500 MW, this freeway could give a max peak effect of 115 MW. that would be enough energy -150 gigawatt hours – to cover the electricity needs of, for example, venice, california. the result is local production for local consumption in the grid with minimal transmission losses.

section

another resource for local energy production is the extraordinary high levels of CO2 found locally on the freeway. the levels are – according to a 2004 USC survey – sufficient for large scale industrial algae production.

the CO2 rich air is brought through pipes into linear covered algae ponds along the freeway. this would bring green tech jobs for farming, harvesting and processing to the very neighborhoods that today are the most disadvantaged by their proximity to the freeway.