▲ 101 ▼ French railway operator tests solar on train tracks (www.pv-magazine.com) submitted 9 months ago by supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net 26 comments fedilink hide all child comments
[–] sockman@sh.itjust.works 24 points 9 months ago (3 children) Solar freakin' railways permalink fedilink source hideshow 3 child comments replies: [–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago (2 children) I actually liked the idea of solar trails, but then Japan made these tiles that produce electricity when they get stepped on permalink fedilink source parent hideshow 2 child comments replies: [–] fartographer@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 child) One of the cool things about those types of technology is that you can stack them. Something like photovoltaics on top, thermoelectric under that to take advantage of the differential between the heat at the solar cell and something like the ground or the tracks themselves, and underneath all that would be the piezoelectric that you're talking about. Of course, everything that you add causes some energy loss between each of the systems, but if you've got the money for the hardware, then the sunlight is free, the heat from the solar panels is already a planned energy loss, and the noise/vibrations/movement from the trains are known and accepted losses already. Even though each energy transducer wouldn't be used in its most efficient way, it would still be a net positive. Hell, make everything easy to disassemble so that it's super-repairable, even though that introduced even more inefficiencies: it's still making use of all the free energy just sitting there and waiting for someone to use it. permalink fedilink source parent hideshow 1 child comment replies: [–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 1 point 9 months ago We could put metal hose in a in asphalt so that the heat from the asphalt could power a turbine. I'm not sure how feasible it would be permalink fedilink source parent
[–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago (2 children) I actually liked the idea of solar trails, but then Japan made these tiles that produce electricity when they get stepped on permalink fedilink source parent hideshow 2 child comments replies: [–] fartographer@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 child) One of the cool things about those types of technology is that you can stack them. Something like photovoltaics on top, thermoelectric under that to take advantage of the differential between the heat at the solar cell and something like the ground or the tracks themselves, and underneath all that would be the piezoelectric that you're talking about. Of course, everything that you add causes some energy loss between each of the systems, but if you've got the money for the hardware, then the sunlight is free, the heat from the solar panels is already a planned energy loss, and the noise/vibrations/movement from the trains are known and accepted losses already. Even though each energy transducer wouldn't be used in its most efficient way, it would still be a net positive. Hell, make everything easy to disassemble so that it's super-repairable, even though that introduced even more inefficiencies: it's still making use of all the free energy just sitting there and waiting for someone to use it. permalink fedilink source parent hideshow 1 child comment replies: [–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 1 point 9 months ago We could put metal hose in a in asphalt so that the heat from the asphalt could power a turbine. I'm not sure how feasible it would be permalink fedilink source parent
[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 child) One of the cool things about those types of technology is that you can stack them. Something like photovoltaics on top, thermoelectric under that to take advantage of the differential between the heat at the solar cell and something like the ground or the tracks themselves, and underneath all that would be the piezoelectric that you're talking about. Of course, everything that you add causes some energy loss between each of the systems, but if you've got the money for the hardware, then the sunlight is free, the heat from the solar panels is already a planned energy loss, and the noise/vibrations/movement from the trains are known and accepted losses already. Even though each energy transducer wouldn't be used in its most efficient way, it would still be a net positive. Hell, make everything easy to disassemble so that it's super-repairable, even though that introduced even more inefficiencies: it's still making use of all the free energy just sitting there and waiting for someone to use it. permalink fedilink source parent hideshow 1 child comment replies: [–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 1 point 9 months ago We could put metal hose in a in asphalt so that the heat from the asphalt could power a turbine. I'm not sure how feasible it would be permalink fedilink source parent
[–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 1 point 9 months ago We could put metal hose in a in asphalt so that the heat from the asphalt could power a turbine. I'm not sure how feasible it would be permalink fedilink source parent