How’s this for the road to OZ? Solar Roadways was just awarded $100,000 by the Department of Energy to develop solar panels that can be embedded into roads. If widely adopted, the 12-by-12 foot panels help finally solve many of our energy problems. Skeptical? With the panels, a mile-long stretch of four lane highway could remove 500 homes from the power grid. Production is a long way off, but this is very exciting. Imagine a similar technology for converting the motion of sidewalk pedestrians into energy. It’s a company like Solar Roadways that will make these things reality.