This is One Odd Solar Bike Lane in the Middle of a Korean Highway

In South Korea, a 20-mile bike line has been built down the middle of a highway (talk about a "protected" bike lane), and it's covered in solar panels. Now all we need is for South Koreans to embrace plug-in vehicles en masse.

Yes, the path travels between the cities of Daejeon and Sejong in a region about 100 miles south of Seoul, right down what was the center median of a six-lane highway. And those panels do provide some much-needed shade, in addition to generating energy.

The South Korea path seems a lot more extensive than a far smaller version installed in Holland late last year, though the uses are quite different. Holland's 230-foot-long SolaRoad, which cost about $3.7 million to install, was built as a test bed for showing how certain road surfaces could be used to generate solar energy as well as providing special lighting and traffic-management date. But not shade, of course.

Check out the Korean path by way of the drone-powered three-minute video.