Switzerland’s solar railway has been a success. What happens next?

Comments

• theneverfox@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It’s like solar roadways, except once again trains are the natural evolutionary end point

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  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Musk will do it better with tunnels full of self driving cars that are recharged in real time from the solar pannel roads they are driving on!

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    • towerful@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Nah, the tunnel needs to be surrounded by magnets that induce a current in the Tesla as it drives through. That current can then be used to charge the Tesla.

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    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      “We can put solar panels in the tunnels! Give me another trillion!”

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  • iocase@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s like carcinization, the tendency for everything to evolve into a crab body plan.

    Railinization? The tendency for every hare brained tech idea that touches transportation to evolve into railroads?

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    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      trains are just arthropods with wheels instead of legs.

      • Body consists of a hard shell rather than a skeleton ✅
      • Multiple locomotory limbs ✅
      • Small limbs at the front of the face ✅
      • Smooth top, greebles on the bottom ✅

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• Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  after rolling out 100 metres of photovoltaic (PV) panels in between active tracks

  One of the biggest concerns, previously expressed by the International Union of Railways, is that the panels could suffer micro-cracks, lead to a higher risk of fires and distract train drivers due to reflections

  Built-in sensors also ensure they work properly while brushes attached to the end of trains can remove dirt from the panels’ surface.

  Yeah that doesn’t really sound like a resounding success IMO.

  Just put it on a house?

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  • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Concerns don’t mean it’s a problem, just that it was identified as a possible problem. Did this study bear these concerns out? From the article, right between two of the paragraphs you copied:

    Sun-Ways has tackled these issues by building more resistant panels than what would be installed on rooftops, fitted with an anti-reflection filter.

    Also, yes, install them on houses. We can do both. We should keep putting them just about everywhere they work until there is no added benefit or there is no more fossil fuel being used for electricity.

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    • davetortoise@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I still dont understand why it’s so important to have them along rail lines. Why not just build a regular solar farm?

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    • pageflight@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Sure if we can do both! But it seems like lots of easier options are still untapped in many places, like the sides of the rail right of way.

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  • TimWardCam@c.im ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    @Valmond @supersquirrel Ah, the reflection thing. There was concern about that in the vicinity of #Cambridge airport.

    But the really naïve response would be "surely the panels are designed to absorb sunlight, not reflect it?"

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    • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      At certain angles it would be good to reflect light, as it cannot easily be absorbed and converted, and would otherwise just heat things up, which is not what you want for solar cells, they get very very hot already.

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• dadarobot@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  solar fricken railroads?

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  • Transform2942@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This idea makes a thousand times more sense because they’re not trying to replace the load-bearing surface with an expanse of expensive and delicate glass, they’re just filling in otherwise unused space

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    • warm@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You know what makes more sense? Putting them on homes.

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    • iocase@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Instead they just put it in a place where they have to be disconnected and removed to reballast or tamp the permanent way, or for railhead grinding, or for sleeper replacement, or for any maintenance task that needs access between the tracks…

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    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      rocks, sand, parts, snow, ice all land between those tracks.

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• supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Pretty ridiculous idea on the face of it but who knows!

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• nocturne@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This coupled with solar canals would be amazing.

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  • SpikesOtherDog@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Solar highways as well.

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    • sj_zero ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago federation: confirmed

      And the giant money incinerator!

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  • monkdervierte@lemmy.zip@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Ok, but we don’t have much open canals here. We even revert straightened streams from the 1900s, because they have severe disadvantages, especialy in ecology and flood control.

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• SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Soon to be proactively banned in the US.

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• MasterBlaster@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  That’s easy. Bury it or otherwise make it disappear so we can keep making bank on petrochemicals. duh!

  Sorry for the cynicism. I can’t help it. I’ve seen too much.

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• iocase@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’m interested to see how it impacts maintenance for the permanent way. I don’t think it helps at all… Reballasting, tamping, changing sleepers, railhead grinding .etc all need to go places where these panels are, so now you have to remove them, do your maintenance, and put them back?

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  • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I can’t find the article, but when I first read this news a couple of days ago, it mentioned that they could remove each panel in something like 10 minutes and it was as easy to put them back. I’ll look a little more and see if I can find it.

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    • iocase@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The issue is you need to grind the tracks multiple times a year on busy routes, along with ballast tamping or replacement. That’s set by total gross tonnage not by a set time span, and these maintenance items are not optional. Tamping prevents pumping and rail fatigue which can be catastrophic if you allow it to degrade and suddenly fail. Rail grinding removes microcracks created by fatigue due to every wheel passing over it. Grinding deletes the cracks, but if you leave it for too long the cracks grow and can total the rail. 10 minutes per panel is a long time when you need to maintain tens of thousands of kms of track.

      Even a short distance between two towns is a maintenance headache. It could take weeks to remove the panels entirely and that’s before you get started doing maintenance at all… All you’ve accomplished is removing a maintenance obstacle you put there in the first place. Then you have to put it all back when you’re done…

      A railroad typically spends 1-3% of the entire cost to build a km of track just to maintain it every year. That’s a big operating cost that eats into rail budgets already (part of why I believe they should all be nationalized to better align public incentives with a natural monopoly but that’s beyond this conversation.)

      For reference, most rail costs around $1-3 million per km to build, $5-10 million or more within urban areas due to land acquisition. Typical railroad maintenance is somewhere around $10 000-$30 000 per km per year with unrestricted access. 20 mins round trip per panel (probably half an hour with deadtime between panels moving tools and gear) that’s a massive amount of increasedl about costs and service interruption.

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    • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You seem in good spirits, so not assuming you are a troll, but you realize that the 10 minute estimate instantly doubles because that’s both on and off for each panel. And the people who estimate work at scale never actually do the work, so add at least 5 mins per panel and multiple that by thousands per stretch of track to be regularly maintained.

      And all of this ignoring that you now have an order of magnitude more potential failure points for both the panels, the tracks and the trains riding them. All as you assume that every single bolt, bracket and gasket will be properly reinstalled while workers do this mind numbing, repetitive task for days and weeks on end.

      As a fun side benefit, the trains of course cannot run during this constant maintenance period.

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• AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Adblock wall

  archive.ph/o85ur

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• fedditter@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Was bedeutet das für Hessen?

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• sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I remember reading about this a year or so ago and just a tsunami of comments about why it was unfeasible. Have to love internet experts.

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  • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You know what really effectively ends the the most painful forms of cancer… Death.

    Be careful blindly submitting to headlines or titles of papers. Some get tunnel vision on solving one problem, their problem, while ignoring other problems (not my problems) or creating new sub issues from their “solutions”. As others point out, significant problems do still exist here.

    Also, you were maybe reading about solar roadways, which would be different than this implementation.

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• Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  We just had that topic: lazysoci.al/post/48713985

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  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes, this is after that test.

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    • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Not really. We are still roughly one year into the three year trial.

      For his part, Joseph Scuderi hopes to shorten the duration of the pilot project in Buttes – set at three years by the Federal Office of Transport – and to obtain final approval quickly. “We have demonstrated that the solar plant between the rails is safe. The sooner we obtain final approval, the sooner our partners abroad will also be able to move forwards.”

      www.swissinfo.ch/eng/…/91628036

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• StealthLizardDrop@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  How easy are they to steal?… asking for a friend… who needs panels for his house… yes lets go with that

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  • JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Probably similar to stealing them from a field, just with more risk of getting hit by a train

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    • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Screwing up our transition to renewables… You probably deserve to get hit.

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  • TimWardCam@c.im ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    @StealthLizardDrop @supersquirrel The cost of the panels is no longer a very large part of the cost of a solar installation. The scaffolding erectors and the roofers are harder to steal.

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