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Switzerland’s solar railway has been a success. What happens next? (www.euronews.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/energy@slrpnk.net
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[–] 11 points 4 months ago* (5 children)

You know what makes more sense? Putting them on homes. Solar railways are a pointless attempt at some money from the company involved. They are not practical.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I agree we should be putting solar panels on roofs. I disagree that this railway solar idea is impractical. If this article is to be believed they have already demonstrated effective operation at pilot scale. They mentioned some challenges specific to this application, but they also seem to have compensated for them

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The challenges are what makes them impractical. The company has investment it needs to repay, so it obviously wants to tell you it's not a big deal. It's much more cost efficient and solar efficient to install them on roofs of homes and building, create shelters from them, or simply just make a field of them. Things like "solar railways" should be a last resort, after we have already covered the obvious solutions.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    This one makes a lot of sense though. You have a built in way to clean the panels through the trains, the panels are protected by the rails, and theoretically nothing should be putting weight on them (in practice the weight of a human or maybe a cow - at most)

    Plus railroads last a very long time. Basically until we rip them up

    We don't need a solution to transition away from fossil fuels, we need lots of solutions. We really should be putting up solar panels anywhere and everywhere they will survive for at least a few years. Even if it's 70% as productive as a properly angled panel, so what? We don't need to min max here

    We need production ramped up and capacity online as fast as possible. If solar railways become a new source of demand, that means more investment in both

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