Germany: SOLAR freaking roadways - below TRAINS!

[jusaca]

Our fantastic german railway company "Deutsche Bahn" says they want to test putting solar cells between all the rails...
They make some calculations to get something around 100 kW per km of rails. Combined with the 60.000 km of rails this could achieve a PV production of 6 GW!

I see absolutly no problem with high-speed stones and dust beeing thrown onto the panels... Or even longer train delays due to cleaning / replacing of the panels... oO

Unfortunately I couldn't find any source in english for this, so here is only the link to the german news:
https://www.netzwelt.de/news/205196-deutsche-bahn-laesst-testen-solarzellen-gleis-bieten-potenzial-5-atomkraftwerken.html

[Haenk]

Good thing is: Before they receive any damage, they will be stolen

[AVGresponding]

Good thing is: Before they receive any damage, they will be stolen

 

Never ceases to amaze how these stupid ideas get mooted before every available square inch of roof space has been used. Hell, even then, putting them in such a high maintenance scenario would still be stupid.

[Haenk]

It gets even better: There are significant financial advantages planting your solar parks *next* to railroads and highways.
Funny sidenote: "Erzgebirge" (where this experiment takes place) is just that - mountains (i.e. "Gebirge" in German) and lots (I mean *LOTS*) of high trees. So I assume this is about the worst place in Germany to install solar panels.

[janoc]

Well, compared to the "solar roadways" nonsense where cars and such are supposed to actually drive over the panels, with the railways that issue at least isn't there. And the required cabling and such would be easy to install because they have both power and signalling/control cables next (and above!) to the track already anyway. 

Panel maintenance likely wouldn't be a source of delays because a panel or even an entire section going offline doesn't mean the trains need to stop running for it to be fixed ASAP. Any maintenance would likely be done during regular track maintenance/inspections.

Is it a good idea? Probably not. But it is certainly less dumb and more realistic than the other "solar roads" concepts.

[janoc]

It gets even better: There are significant financial advantages planting your solar parks *next* to railroads and highways.

Yeah - but that assumes you own the land there. Railways typically don't, they usually own only a narrow strip of land around the track and nothing is allowed to be built there for safety reasons. So if they (DB)  want to install solar somewhere they don't have that many places where to put those panels beyond the station building roofs and such. That there are much better places where solar panels could be put in general is not very relevant to their business when they can't put them there.

Again, I am not advocating this but considering their circumstances it is perhaps less dumb than it looks.

[TheWelly888]

A tamping machine driver will need to take extra care to avoid damaging the solar panels on the sleepers.

It is just as well DB banned train toilets from dumping straight on the tracks a few years ago!

[pcprogrammer]

I see absolutly no problem with high-speed stones and dust beeing thrown onto the panels... Or even longer train delays due to cleaning / replacing of the panels... oO

They can do like in the old wild wild west. Instead of a bullbar they can mount a brush to clean the panels

[AndyBeez]

But obviously not on the U-Bahn?

So what about the iron fillings that deposit a layer or rust on all trackside surfaces? And an ICE-T travelling at 300kmh produces how much down force/suction effect? Okay, so maybe not on the high speed network? Maintenance hell. Even for German technicians.

I should add, any object trapped under the boggie will scrape those panels right off.

[Bud]

Let them do it, seems the country is desperate for energy sources, surely there will be other ideas more stupid than this one.

[SiliconWizard]

Well, compared to the "solar roadways" nonsense where cars and such are supposed to actually drive over the panels, with the railways that issue at least isn't there. And the required cabling and such would be easy to install because they have both power and signalling/control cables next (and above!) to the track already anyway. 

Panel maintenance likely wouldn't be a source of delays because a panel or even an entire section going offline doesn't mean the trains need to stop running for it to be fixed ASAP. Any maintenance would likely be done during regular track maintenance/inspections.

Is it a good idea? Probably not. But it is certainly less dumb and more realistic than the other "solar roads" concepts.

A good idea? This is complete nonsense again.
While it would appear to be somewhat better than solar roadways, I'm not sure some people realize the constraints rails are submitted to and the cost of maintenance of those already.

The bullshit has got to stop. But will it?

[pcprogrammer]

The bullshit has got to stop. But will it?

Of course not, it makes money go round, and that is what this whole world is about. Money

[SiliconWizard]

Just for those who wouldn't know about rail maintenance: https://www.railway-technology.com/news/germany-to-invest-e86bn-for-railway-infrastructure-maintenance/
Gives you an idea of the cost.

[ebastler]

German railways' partner for this is a UK company, Bankset, who have developed this technology. So here's the whole drama in English: https://www.bankset.com/

Looks like Bankset does not have any other assets beyond this concept. In any case their website looks like it was cobbled together by a one-man band the other night...

Edit: Hang on, Bankset have a second website which looks more substantial: https://bankset-energy.com/. Strange; are they so embarrassed by their solar rails concept that they have kept it outside of their real website?

[tszaboo]

How much do these tracks move during the summer/winter?
Besides, yes, you look at al those rusty bolts and dust, and place all those shiny solar panels next to them.
That being said, this is probably 100 times better idea than the roadways, and maybe I'm wrong.

[floobydust]

Let them do it, seems the country is desperate for energy sources, surely there will be other ideas more stupid than this one.

It's not that they're stupid - they are completely unqualified - politicians have zero education in energy, thermodynamics... and look what results. That, and their cronies are likely doing the sales/installation.
If only engineers had some balls and authority, were consulted first about renewables- there would be less trainwrecks going on and these magical solar roadways projects.

Strange that photo shows no shading on the solar panel's edge... Fotoforensics one edge looked "enhanced".
Also on old, unused rusty track and I wonder if the clearance is enough the panels don't get hit with undercarriage parts. One panel getting picked up will trash many.
Here, the trains leak wheelbearing and truck grease, makes a mess on railroad ties.

[SiliconWizard]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts and agencies. I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

[pcprogrammer]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable. The demise of the human race. With all the production of solar panels, windmills and batteries we are still plundering the earth, and it will run out someday. They should put more effort in reducing over consumption and stopping population growth. But hey that is not economically viable.

But that is just my 2 cents worth

[Cyberdragon]

Good thing is: Before they receive any damage, they will be stolen

Not worth stealing. They'd all be shattered from vibrations and the force exerted by the train on the tracks, especially around curves. Wood and concrete ties can handle the strain, panels mounted above them likely made of the "finest" grade cheap crap? HA...no.

How much do these tracks move during the summer/winter?

Again, those panels will be toast.

[MadScientist]

Rails don’t move like that. That’s an optical illusion brought about by using a telephoto lens

[Rick Law]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable. The demise of the human race. With all the production of solar panels, windmills and batteries we are still plundering the earth, and it will run out someday. They should put more effort in reducing over consumption and stopping population growth. But hey that is not economically viable.

But that is just my 2 cents worth

Delaying is the whole game.  One way or another, individually, we will all die.  Some of old age, some of illnesses.  Most of us do what we can to delay that inevitable event.  Society is the same -- delay the inevitable so society doesn't die too soon.  But die it will someday, remember, even the Sun itself will run out of fuel some day.

Even eating is but a temporary solution to a perpetual problem, but certainly I will take some food just to last yet another day.  So I am fine with finding energy solutions that just delay the inevitable.

Trouble is, our politicians (aided by the people surrounding them) often select solutions based on their own benefit (political contributions, etc.) rather than for the benefit of society.  Given the quality of education these days, I doubt they can really pick the better solution even if they do have a "pure heart."

These solar walkways and solar road is dumb.  This solar panel between rails is dumb.  From my gut feel (ie: no real hard stats I can quote), they will be not be net energy positive if you include maintenance cost.  They are vanity projects for politicians.

[Cyberdragon]

Rails don’t move like that. That’s an optical illusion brought about by using a telephoto lens

A zoom lens warped the middle of the screen not the edges? Oh yes they can move, badly, they are called "sun kinks". They expand 1ft for every 1800ft when hot. They can get shoved by several feet in turns if there is any ballast issue. In either of these cases, normal rail ties usually survive. No way in hell would solar panels take even the relatively small strain each tie takes, unless you added flex points at the connections to tne rails, which means more $, and causing more vibration issues, meaning you'd have to dampen it, meaning even more $ for a tiny panel.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-train-tracks-buckle-in-extreme-heat-2013-7

Ah yes, more "lens effects".

[pcprogrammer]

Delaying is the whole game.  One way or another, individually, we will all die.  Some of old age, some of illnesses.  Most of us do what we can to delay that inevitable event.  Society is the same -- delay the inevitable so society doesn't die too soon.  But die it will someday, remember, even the Sun itself will run out of fuel some day.

Even eating is but a temporary solution to a perpetual problem, but certainly I will take some food just to last yet another day.  So I am fine with finding energy solutions that just delay the inevitable.

Trouble is, our politicians (aided by the people surrounding them) often select solutions based on their own benefit (political contributions, etc.) rather than for the benefit of society.  Given the quality of education these days, I doubt they can really pick the better solution even if they do have a "pure heart."

These solar walkways and solar road is dumb.  This solar panel between rails is dumb.  From my gut feel (ie: no real hard stats I can quote), they will be not be net energy positive if you include maintenance cost.  They are vanity projects for politicians.

Without a doubt we will all die, and we all hope of old age, and I will hopefully die before the real shit hits the fan. And that will certainly be well before the sun gives in.

For me it is the hypocrisy of what we are spoon fed by the governments and media that bothers me. But when they start telling the truth the end might well be here very soon due to all the idiots starting to demonstrate and try to overthrow these governments with chaos kicking in.

About the hypocrisy, for instance in the Netherlands a lot of people where not granted building permissions due to the nitrogen problems, but what do they do, they grant permission to Zandvoort racing track to expand into the dunes. How is that not in conflict with the nitrogen problems.

Sure I don't have a fool proof solution either, and I won't stop eating for sure, but I try to moderate on what I consume. Economy would suffer if everybody was like me

[floobydust]

Is there a successful solar roadways project anywhere in the world? One that makes enough energy to pay for itself and repairs/maintenance? Engineers know the answer, it's a basic back of a napkin sketch.

[tszaboo]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable. The demise of the human race. With all the production of solar panels, windmills and batteries we are still plundering the earth, and it will run out someday. They should put more effort in reducing over consumption and stopping population growth. But hey that is not economically viable.

But that is just my 2 cents worth

You really need to read up on the realist side of global warming and climate change. Not the leftist "impending doom tomorrow, we are already late" or the right wing denialist. On every measure, humanity is doing better than yesterday, less people in poverty and the growth rate is dropping. Do you want less people in the planet, the best way to do it is to lift people from poverty and educate them. There has been so much bullshit about climate change, and it is an industry, selling you this.
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag? And that's what they sell you as green. Think about it for a minute.

[SiliconWizard]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

My point is that there is no lack of good engineers and potential real experts. They are available. The fact they are not listened to is another matter.
It's again not a matter of qualification. It's just the fact that politicians will order reports from people with an expected content. If the content matches the expectations, it gets published and acted upon, otherwise it gets right down into the trash. That happens all the time.

They do not order reports to help them decide. They decide first, and then order reports that will back up their decisions. And then all it requires to appear relevant is some nice titles, the name of a "reputable" agency, and so on. The content of such reports never get "peer-reviewed" before being even "used".

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable.

Politicians in particular, but most people in general, do not like being told that there is no "quick" fix and no easy-to-implement solution to a problem they are having. Since here the proper answers almost always imply "it's very complex, it's going to take a very long time, you can't approach it with simplistic solutions and the effects of relevant actions may not be apparent for a century or more", anyone who will claim otherwise will be favored even if it's just pure bullshit.

Then the ideology is another layer of issues.
In particular, there's something "odd" in believing that whatever mess we have made meddling with our environment is going to be taken care of with even more human meddling.

[srb1954]

Rails don’t move like that. That’s an optical illusion brought about by using a telephoto lens

And is the derailed carriage also an optical illusion bought about by using a telephoto lens?

[floobydust]

Every day humanity is using more and more energy, more crude oil, natural gas, electricity.  We do not have forever to face that fact. Those are multi-trillion $ industries not amenable to making less profit. Who wants less money? Not the energy companies.

Solar roadways are a great fantasy, money losing toy projects that flop but there was hoopla and millions $ spent and the politicians gets feels and votes. Let's all feel happy about saving the planet.
Never mind that renewables are simply not adopted widespread enough, not powerful enough to meet the green ideology.

The pandemic showed politicians overrule, distort and bias information from health professionals. It's the same for engineers (if there are any) in any Energy Ministry. "That solar roadway is shit, it will get trashed by trains in a domino-like manner and not generate useful amounts of energy."
But it looks cool, like something in a Marvel comic! Just need some Spiderman marketing. Let's do it!

[SL4P]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts and agencies. I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

No, the problem is the process for selecting those sycophants and lobbyists.

[vk6zgo]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable. The demise of the human race. With all the production of solar panels, windmills and batteries we are still plundering the earth, and it will run out someday. They should put more effort in reducing over consumption and stopping population growth. But hey that is not economically viable.

But that is just my 2 cents worth

You really need to read up on the realist side of global warming and climate change. Not the leftist "impending doom tomorrow, we are already late" or the right wing denialist. On every measure, humanity is doing better than yesterday, less people in poverty and the growth rate is dropping. Do you want less people in the planet, the best way to do it is to lift people from poverty and educate them. There has been so much bullshit about climate change, and it is an industry, selling you this.
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag? And that's what they sell you as green. Think about it for a minute.

Maybe, if you are talking about the energy cost per bag, but the cotton shopping bag is kept at home ready for your hypothetical "20,000 times", & doesn't present a disposal problem, nor does it it end up in the ocean when those disposal efforts fail.

The CO2 thing & the disposal problem is really a "double whammy".
After years of replacing traditional packaging materials with petrochemicals it has come back to bite us on the bum.

[pcprogrammer]

My point is that there is no lack of good engineers and potential real experts. They are available. The fact they are not listened to is another matter.
It's again not a matter of qualification. It's just the fact that politicians will order reports from people with an expected content. If the content matches the expectations, it gets published and acted upon, otherwise it gets right down into the trash. That happens all the time.

You are right, there are very good engineers, but they are mostly the quiet type, and when they speak up they are ignored for sure.

They do not order reports to help them decide. They decide first, and then order reports that will back up their decisions. And then all it requires to appear relevant is some nice titles, the name of a "reputable" agency, and so on. The content of such reports never get "peer-reviewed" before being even "used".

And the general public does not see nor does it want to see it is mostly rubbish. And a bit of a shame is that it happens in the scientific community to. Papers are rushed out because otherwise they might loose grant money. Does not matter if what is in it is true or false.

Politicians in particular, but most people in general, do not like being told that there is no "quick" fix and no easy-to-implement solution to a problem they are having. Since here the proper answers almost always imply "it's very complex, it's going to take a very long time, you can't approach it with simplistic solutions and the effects of relevant actions may not be apparent for a century or more", anyone who will claim otherwise will be favored even if it's just pure bullshit.

That is true. Both that it is very complex and that people don't want to hear it. And everybody wants the problem to be solved, but when it comes down to it they don't want to do to much that interrupts their life they are used to. We still need our two to three vacations a year and preferably as far away as possible.

Then the ideology is another layer of issues.
In particular, there's something "odd" in believing that whatever mess we have made meddling with our environment is going to be taken care of with even more human meddling.

Well said. But that is what a lot of people think. "A well the government and scientists are going to take care of it all."

Others think "lets go out in space and colonize other planets, we will do better there" Yeah right, lets go and f.. up another planet or two.

[pcprogrammer]

You really need to read up on the realist side of global warming and climate change. Not the leftist "impending doom tomorrow, we are already late" or the right wing denialist. On every measure, humanity is doing better than yesterday, less people in poverty and the growth rate is dropping. Do you want less people in the planet, the best way to do it is to lift people from poverty and educate them. There has been so much bullshit about climate change, and it is an industry, selling you this.
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag? And that's what they sell you as green. Think about it for a minute.

Read between the lines of what I post and you would see that I'm neither left or right. I don't deny there is a problem but merely state that what is presented as a solution is not what it is. Nor do I advocate that we are already to late, because I don't know if that is so.

And you are right that education is the way to go, but I think we are failing in that department. The focus is still to much on growing economics instead of stable economics, meaning that production and sales has to keep going up. And even though growth rate might be dropping there is still growth in population. Expectations are a growth to 10 billion people by 2050. That is another 25% extra in less then 30 years.

Human psychology is very tricky. What about our drive for an annual raise in salary for still doing the same job. The only thing that happens is that it will also drive up prices, because your salary has to come from somewhere. Inflation and deflation, just like heaven and hell are man made principles and eventually we will pay the price for it.

And yes climate change is an industry. Definitely one selling bullshit. I don't think it is just CO2 and even when we manage to stop all fossil fuel burning it would take many, many years to see the CO2 levels drop to pre 1900 levels. The whole problem is much more complex and like in your cotton bag example all the production of the renewables have the same issues.

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

[AVGresponding]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

It's related to the carbon and water footprint. Cotton plants take a lot of water. Though as I recall the number is 1000 times or something? should be easy to find out with your favourite search engine.

[jusaca]

To end this off-topic discussion:

According to a UK government report, to be more eco-friendly than a plastic bag, a cotton bag would have to be used 173 times.

Not an unrealistic to achieve value.

Regarding the argument, that this simply is the only location DB has to spare for PV: That might be true, but all those precious solar modules would still be better utilized by placing them on roof tops, where they are way better protected and yield a longer lifetime and an overall higher energy output.

[ebastler]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

The factor of 20,000 applies to organic cotton bags in particular. It comes from a Danish government study. As the study explains, the very unfavorable multiple is driven by the impact on ozone depletion.
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf.

The mechanisim by which cotton production impacts the ozone layer so heavily is not explained in the published study. This page discusses it, and states that electricity required for irrigation is the bad guy -- and that the electricity is assumed to be produced from natural gas, which in turn is pumped through its pipelines with ozone-damaging Halon additives.
https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb

Conventional, non-organic cotton bags "only" need to be reused 7100 times, based on the ozone impact. Based on climate change impact, they need to be reused 52 times, a more reasonable number.

I have no idea how to weigh climate change advantages vs. ozone depletion disadvantages, and what the respective impact of shopping bags is relative to other causes.

[pcprogrammer]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

The factor of 20,000 applies to organic cotton bags in particular. It comes from a Danish government study. As the study explains, the very unfavorable multiple is driven by the impact on ozone depletion.
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf.

The mechanisim by which cotton production impacts the ozone layer so heavily is not explained in the published study. This page discusses it, and states that electricity required for irrigation is the bad guy -- and that the electricity is assumed to be produced from natural gas, which in turn is pumped through its pipelines with ozone-damaging Halon additives.
https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb

Conventional, non-organic cotton bags "only" need to be reused 7100 times, based on the ozone impact. Based on climate change impact, they need to be reused 52 times, a more reasonable number.

I have no idea how to weigh climate change advantages vs. ozone depletion disadvantages, and what the respective impact of shopping bags is relative to other causes.

That's weird that "organic" cotton is environmentally worse than "conventional" cotton. One would think that with the use of pesticides and whatever they use during growth to keep the crop healthy it would be far worse. This assuming that with "organic" they mean "bio" and thus grow the crops without pesticides and with the use of insects or whatever natural stuff they use to keep the crop healthy.

[Rick Law]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

It's related to the carbon and water footprint. Cotton plants take a lot of water. Though as I recall the number is 1000 times or something? should be easy to find out with your favourite search engine.

Ahhh....  plastic shopping bags!!!   You just pushed my most current hot button issue.  Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all.  Even paper bags is permitted only for small stores under 1500 sq feet (or 2500, forgot which).

This kinds of dumb decisions are what I and perhaps others called "single dimension thinking".  Making decision with just a single variable limit is going to be a bad decision.

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Both 20000 and 1000 are unrealistic usage counts.  Even denim is not tough enough to be washed in a typical laundry washer 1,000 times.  Spun nylon may do it, but then you still have to consider the environmental impact of washing.  In my case, the high cost of both water and electricity prevented me from doing hand or machine wash with high regularity.  I have a less costly ($ and environmental) alternative than washing.

The small throw-away plastic grocery bags (when emptied of purchased items) also serves as my my typical daily garbage bag - it measures 15.5x11 (inches) with a 1x6 (inches) extension on each side as handle.  That was free but no longer available.   Now, I purchase small garbage bags (23.75x28 inches @ .8MIL) as food and grocery bag.  I am still throwing away 1 garbage bag a day (too smelly inside and rules prevents me from leave it outside the house).  The daily throw away bag is a much larger and thicker purchased garbage bag instead of a small and free plastic bag that I took home with my grocery.  It beats trying to get the dry out tomato scrapping off the fabric bag, or smelly chicken meat juice rotting on fabric and wasting a ton of water (and electricity) doing washing it.

[Monkeh]

Ahhh....  plastic shopping bags!!!   You just pushed my most current hot button issue.  Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all.  Even paper bags is permitted only for small stores under 1500 sq feet (or 2500, forgot which).

This kinds of dumb decisions are what I and perhaps others called "single dimension thinking".  Making decision with just a single variable limit is going to be a bad decision.

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Massive portions of the planet already did this. I've had no issues with filthy bags from dirty produce or leaking packages. Perhaps the problem is not the bag?

[Rick Law]

Ahhh....  plastic shopping bags!!!   You just pushed my most current hot button issue.  Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all.  Even paper bags is permitted only for small stores under 1500 sq feet (or 2500, forgot which).

This kinds of dumb decisions are what I and perhaps others called "single dimension thinking".  Making decision with just a single variable limit is going to be a bad decision.

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Massive portions of the planet already did this. I've had no issues with filthy bags from dirty produce or leaking packages. Perhaps the problem is not the bag?

Don't care who else may be doing it.  I just don't like runny meat juice favored bread... 

Edited to add:

(To be honest, it was my ice cream -- meat juice leaked into my ice cream once.  But I hate to admit that is one item I also ensure I am not lacking.)

I am sure many others could leave the garbage on the back - I would like that and collect garbage less frequent than daily.  But we all have our "I like to" verses the "I need to".

[Monkeh]

Ahhh....  plastic shopping bags!!!   You just pushed my most current hot button issue.  Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all.  Even paper bags is permitted only for small stores under 1500 sq feet (or 2500, forgot which).

This kinds of dumb decisions are what I and perhaps others called "single dimension thinking".  Making decision with just a single variable limit is going to be a bad decision.

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Massive portions of the planet already did this. I've had no issues with filthy bags from dirty produce or leaking packages. Perhaps the problem is not the bag?

Don't care who else may be doing it.  I just don't like runny meat juice favored bread...

This is a non-issue. My produce doesn't drip everywhere, perhaps buy something properly packaged and learn to pack better.

[Rick Law]

...
This is a non-issue. My produce doesn't drip everywhere, perhaps buy something properly packaged and learn to pack better.

-- ReEdited significantly because I clicked post by mistake the first time --

We have that nicely packaged (in sealed plastic) veggie as well.  I like green, I prefer un-packaged veggie.  I found packaged veggies/fruit more loaded with spray-on preservatives.  I know some fruits are even wax coated.

By the way, even when in sealed packaged (say something like celery or Romaine lettuce), I do find some left over soil and occasional bugs in the inner leaf.  Mites of course is far more common with crowns (the flowering part) of green stalk veggies.

[Monkeh]

Well then put all your nice fresh unwashed veg in a bag of its own and wash the bag with less water than you use to clean your windscreen from time to time..

My meat doesn't drip everywhere. My bread does not get soaked by items it shouldn't be near. My frozen stuff doesn't thaw. And all this without using 20 bags every shop. It always astounds me to see the waste when I'm over there.

[ebastler]

That's weird that "organic" cotton is environmentally worse than "conventional" cotton. One would think that with the use of pesticides and whatever they use during growth to keep the crop healthy it would be far worse. This assuming that with "organic" they mean "bio" and thus grow the crops without pesticides and with the use of insects or whatever natural stuff they use to keep the crop healthy.

I would assume that the "organic" cotton scores better than the conventional variant on many of the other metrics. But while the study lists a dozen or so metrics, it only gives the scores for climate impact and ozone impact (unless I overlooked something).

But the irrigation > electricity > natural gas > halon gas > ozone depletion cascade dominates the outcome, and it seems that growing organic cotton requires more irrigation to keep the cotton plants healthy.

[Rick Law]

Well then put all your nice fresh unwashed veg in a bag of its own and wash the bag with less water than you use to clean your windscreen from time to time..

My meat doesn't drip everywhere. My bread does not get soaked by items it shouldn't be near. My frozen stuff doesn't thaw. And all this without using 20 bags every shop. It always astounds me to see the waste when I'm over there.

You must have missed the part that I need to throw out the garbage every day since I can't leave that out door.  I wrap waste nicely in knotted plastic bag kept to keep it from smelling too bad between weekly pickups.  So one way or another, I am throwing out a bag a day anyway.  It is either a "free" grocery bag from the store when it was legal, or now a purchased garbage bag first used for grocery.  Why waste water and electricity both of which has their environmental and financial cost.

By the way,  I too wish the meat I got doesn't drip.  But how well the shop packs it is not in my control.  The damn store near by would even repack the meat after cutting out the browning corners and worst -- wrapping fresh hamburger over browning ones to make the pack looks fresh).  I get my fruit and veggies from another store with much much better selections.

[tszaboo]

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Yes, I reuse plastic grocery bags, as many times as it is possible. Although my main grocery bag is a blue IKEA big yellow bag.
Drippy stuff usually comes packaged here.

[AnalogueLove1867]

Can you imagine using a grocery bag for say for just a few times without washing it?  The left over soil from veggies/fruit, condensation from frozen items, leaked meat juice, fruit juice from skin blemishes, and even bugs caught between crevices of fresh veggie leaf inevitably collect in the bag.  The bag quickly turns into a bio-hazard unsuitable to carry food or anything else. 

Yes, I reuse plastic grocery bags, as many times as it is possible. Although my main grocery bag is a blue IKEA big yellow bag.
Drippy stuff usually comes packaged here.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for saving the planet. You truly are an angel.
Early 2000's teachers at school used to discourage us from using writing paper or paper straws because they had never heard about pine plantations and assumed all paper had to come from the Amazon Jungle.
Now They are encouraging students to go back to using paper straws because plastic straws are killing all the sea animals. Now many schools give out free tablets to students because landfill is obviously better than decomposing paper.

[AnalogueLove1867]

Sure politicians are not qualified, but they are supposed to be surrounded by qualified people and they do pay vast amounts of money to experts. and agencies I don't think the problem is qualification per se. The problem is that ideology rules over science.

You mean alleged experts. I have seen a lot of "consultants" during my working live to know not many of them are real experts. As long as you speak loudly and with some arrogance they quickly think you are an expert. Just another kind of politicians

And yes ideology seems to rule big time. But they seem to overlook one thing. The whole "renewable" scene is just shifting the problem to delay the inevitable. The demise of the human race. With all the production of solar panels, windmills and batteries we are still plundering the earth, and it will run out someday. They should put more effort in reducing over consumption and stopping population growth. But hey that is not economically viable.

But that is just my 2 cents worth

You care way too much about something that you claim is inevitable.
If you hate humans that much you should consider feeding yourself to a shark.
You are completely contradicting yourself and you actually do not believe in anything you are saying.
It also has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.
No joke. You are the leftist equivalent to some Christians who claimed that the sinking of the Titanic was
a punishment by god for humanity being so arrogant, prideful, greedy and secular.

[AnalogueLove1867]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

The factor of 20,000 applies to organic cotton bags in particular. It comes from a Danish government study. As the study explains, the very unfavorable multiple is driven by the impact on ozone depletion.
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf.

The mechanisim by which cotton production impacts the ozone layer so heavily is not explained in the published study. This page discusses it, and states that electricity required for irrigation is the bad guy -- and that the electricity is assumed to be produced from natural gas, which in turn is pumped through its pipelines with ozone-damaging Halon additives.
https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb

Conventional, non-organic cotton bags "only" need to be reused 7100 times, based on the ozone impact. Based on climate change impact, they need to be reused 52 times, a more reasonable number.

I have no idea how to weigh climate change advantages vs. ozone depletion disadvantages, and what the respective impact of shopping bags is relative to other causes.

Or maybe you also have to consider that people are  forced to perform researches on things that get them grants?
No grants = no money = no livelihood if you are a researcher or technician rather than a full time lecturer.
So if you were a horticulturist who knew everything there is to know about cotton you are going to include as many buzz topics as possible in order to get that grant money.
Global warming, Ozone layer, racist history of cotton picking, cotton plantations destroying native plants and animals etc etc.

The ozone layer has almost completely "healed" and continues to improve despite what any study decides to say.
It isn't even entirely clear whether or not CFCs were  the culprit.  Year-to-year fluctuations in area and depth are caused by variations in stratospheric temperature and circulation.
NASA -> " the word hole isn’t literal; no place is empty of ozone. Scientists use the word hole as a metaphor for the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units."

So basically A topic about dodgy technology is full of dodgy people and dodgy science.

[SiliconWizard]

[...]
Did you know for example, that the "renewable and green" cotton shopping bag needs to be used for something like 20000 times to have the same environmental impact than the single use plastic bag?
[...]

No, really?  How is that number derived?

The factor of 20,000 applies to organic cotton bags in particular. It comes from a Danish government study. As the study explains, the very unfavorable multiple is driven by the impact on ozone depletion.
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf.

The mechanisim by which cotton production impacts the ozone layer so heavily is not explained in the published study. This page discusses it, and states that electricity required for irrigation is the bad guy -- and that the electricity is assumed to be produced from natural gas, which in turn is pumped through its pipelines with ozone-damaging Halon additives.
https://medium.com/@parkpoomkomet/breaking-down-the-danish-study-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-grocery-carrier-bags-b8c97eb6c8fb

Conventional, non-organic cotton bags "only" need to be reused 7100 times, based on the ozone impact. Based on climate change impact, they need to be reused 52 times, a more reasonable number.

I have no idea how to weigh climate change advantages vs. ozone depletion disadvantages, and what the respective impact of shopping bags is relative to other causes.

That's weird that "organic" cotton is environmentally worse than "conventional" cotton. One would think that with the use of pesticides and whatever they use during growth to keep the crop healthy it would be far worse. This assuming that with "organic" they mean "bio" and thus grow the crops without pesticides and with the use of insects or whatever natural stuff they use to keep the crop healthy.

It's worse if you want to make it appear worse. You just need to use the right metrics and ignore those that are unconvenient.
It's again all part of the same ideology considering that we humans can do better in a few decades than billions of years of evolution with extremely complex and diverse interactions.

[pcprogrammer]

It's worse if you want to make it appear worse. You just need to use the right metrics and ignore those that are unconvenient.
It's again all part of the same ideology considering that we humans can do better in a few decades than billions of years of evolution with extremely complex and diverse interactions.

You know it is very difficult these days to know what is true and what is not. One has to wade through so much information and ask yourself "could this be true?"

For me one of the questions I always ask is who benefits from the given information to make a decision on what could be true or not. It is not always money where the benefit lies, but most of the time it is. Being grant money or bribe money or gains on the stock market.

Like for example acquaintances of mine claim that airplanes are spraying chemicals when they see "chem" trails in the sky. Sure airplanes tend to fly in circles near us, of which I don't know why. But then I wonder what it would cost to dispose of chemicals in such a way and how they could get away with big airplanes to do this without being noticed and held to accounting? There will be far cheaper ways to dispose of chemicals, right.

But as said before you are a wise man and your statement works for me. Even though the human species has accomplished quite a bit we still can't do what nature can.

[SilverSolder]

[...]  airplanes tend to fly in circles near us, of which I don't know why. [...]

Planes often do a couple of turns on the way in to land.  Also, planes are sometimes "parked" in holding patterns.  If you live within somewhat reasonable distance of an airport, this may be what is going on.

[pcprogrammer]

[...]  airplanes tend to fly in circles near us, of which I don't know why. [...]

Planes often do a couple of turns on the way in to land.  Also, planes are sometimes "parked" in holding patterns.  If you live within somewhat reasonable distance of an airport, this may be what is going on.

Not near the sea so guess not the turns on the way in to land. Did not know about them doing that though. Know about the holding patterns but the nearest airport is 25Km away and only a single runway not a lot of planes type of airport, but it might well be the holding patterns.

[SilverSolder]

[...] the sinking of the Titanic was a punishment by god for humanity being so arrogant, prideful, greedy and secular.

Well,  Captain Smith was trying to break speed records despite conditions obviously not being quite up to it...    so in that case, human failings were actually to blame!

[SilverSolder]

[...] Just two months ago, grocery shopping bags become illegal in my State - no plastic bags at all. [...]

Don't the supermarkets still have little rolls of plastic bags to put meat and fish into?  Usually right by the freezer or fridge.

That way, the "permanent" shopping bags don't get so dirty.  -  I agree they need to be washed every so often...   just another chore in life!

[tszaboo]

The ozone layer has almost completely "healed" and continues to improve despite what any study decides to say.
It isn't even entirely clear whether or not CFCs were  the culprit.  Year-to-year fluctuations in area and depth are caused by variations in stratospheric temperature and circulation.
NASA -> " the word hole isn’t literal; no place is empty of ozone. Scientists use the word hole as a metaphor for the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units."

So basically A topic about dodgy technology is full of dodgy people and dodgy science.

Lookie here, we have a science denial fundamentalist.
Maybe this is a success story, that despite people like you, all the banning of Freon and other accelerants were successful of preventing a an event that would cause mass extinction. Despite.

[Rick Law]

The ozone layer has almost completely "healed" and continues to improve despite what any study decides to say.
It isn't even entirely clear whether or not CFCs were  the culprit.  Year-to-year fluctuations in area and depth are caused by variations in stratospheric temperature and circulation.
NASA -> " the word hole isn’t literal; no place is empty of ozone. Scientists use the word hole as a metaphor for the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units."

So basically A topic about dodgy technology is full of dodgy people and dodgy science.

Lookie here, we have a science denial fundamentalist.
Maybe this is a success story, that despite people like you, all the banning of Freon and other accelerants were successful of preventing a an event that would cause mass extinction. Despite.

I think we all know this, but at times we let urgency push out other valuable considerations too far back in our minds.

All scientific conclusions should be questioned now and again.  Even Newton's Laws of Motion received modifications (relativity/quantum mechanics) as time go by.  Ozone, Climate, Small Pox, Cholera...  Only by questioning the "back-then fact" that "TB is an incurable disease" can we find cure for TB or any other "known to be fatal" illnesses.

As we know more, have better equipment, have better techniques, we may learn that what we thought to be true was really an illusion or is merely simplification/approximation.  Worst yet, scientific "norms" are affected by cultures and politics of the time.  One not believing in flat earth would have made one a heretic at one time.  There is no reason to believe that we are totally free from cultural or political influences with our "scientific findings" today -- particularly and when much of science today rely on grants offer by current cultural, educational, governmental, and political organizations.

So yes, question science!  Denial its results unless it can be proven, again and again as practice and theory improve.  Stop questioning yesterday's results may mean you are repeating yesterday's mistakes.

EDIT: Corrected two typos
"and" should be "when",
and added an "s" to "scientific findings" just before the "and/when"

[SiliconWizard]

The ozone layer has almost completely "healed" and continues to improve despite what any study decides to say.
It isn't even entirely clear whether or not CFCs were  the culprit.  Year-to-year fluctuations in area and depth are caused by variations in stratospheric temperature and circulation.
NASA -> " the word hole isn’t literal; no place is empty of ozone. Scientists use the word hole as a metaphor for the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units."

So basically A topic about dodgy technology is full of dodgy people and dodgy science.

Lookie here, we have a science denial fundamentalist.
Maybe this is a success story, that despite people like you, all the banning of Freon and other accelerants were successful of preventing a an event that would cause mass extinction. Despite.

I humbly admit that I don't know much about the ozone layer and whatever happened *exactly* with this hole.
But for anyone who does, is there anything that AnalogueLove1867 said above that is provably false?
And, does someone questioning one particular point make them a science denial fundamentalist?
Another question is, does using hyperbolic discourse ("mass extinction") help science?

Just wondering.

[tszaboo]

The ozone layer has almost completely "healed" and continues to improve despite what any study decides to say.
It isn't even entirely clear whether or not CFCs were  the culprit.  Year-to-year fluctuations in area and depth are caused by variations in stratospheric temperature and circulation.
NASA -> " the word hole isn’t literal; no place is empty of ozone. Scientists use the word hole as a metaphor for the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units."

So basically A topic about dodgy technology is full of dodgy people and dodgy science.

Lookie here, we have a science denial fundamentalist.
Maybe this is a success story, that despite people like you, all the banning of Freon and other accelerants were successful of preventing a an event that would cause mass extinction. Despite.

I humbly admit that I don't know much about the ozone layer and whatever happened *exactly* with this hole.
But for anyone who does, is there anything that AnalogueLove1867 said above that is provably false?
And, does someone questioning one particular point make them a science denial fundamentalist?
Another question is, does using hyperbolic discourse ("mass extinction") help science?

Just wondering.

Have you read his comments?

[CatalinaWOW]

As Rick Law says, all science needs to be questioned.

WRT the "ozone hole", I have no doubt that limiting CFCs was a good thing and aided in the reduction of the "ozone hole".  But it is my understanding that the hole repaired itself more quickly than the models which were used to justify the legal restrictions on CFC's predicted.  Indicating that the science was not totally right.  And that more is to be learned about this subject.  Not surprising, and not an indication that our legal reaction was wrong.  Just an indication that waving the science flag is not a magic path to correct action.

Assertions that life on earth would end if the ozone hole is hyperbole, not supported by any model that I have heard about.  Even for human beings, cataracts and skin cancer would just mean people dying younger, not dying before they could reproduce.

[AnalogueLove1867]

The ozone layer has almost completely "healed" and continues to improve despite what any study decides to say.
It isn't even entirely clear whether or not CFCs were  the culprit.  Year-to-year fluctuations in area and depth are caused by variations in stratospheric temperature and circulation.
NASA -> " the word hole isn’t literal; no place is empty of ozone. Scientists use the word hole as a metaphor for the area in which ozone concentrations drop below the historical threshold of 220 Dobson Units."

So basically A topic about dodgy technology is full of dodgy people and dodgy science.

Lookie here, we have a science denial fundamentalist.
Maybe this is a success story, that despite people like you, all the banning of Freon and other accelerants were successful of preventing a an event that would cause mass extinction. Despite.

There is nothing science denying about anything I said here. There was no mass extinction due to ozone depletion and there still is no mass extinction. So your whole doomsday scenario is all in your head.
You might as well preach Mormonism to people claiming they are "god denialists". Don't forget to scare them with Armageddon / the coming end of times.
We should reduce Chlorofluorocarbons because we can do something about that.
But good luck in preventing the creation of nitrous oxide in lightning, bromine released by volcanos, methane produced by many different means
, or variations in stratospheric "weather".

[wraper]

Rails don’t move like that. That’s an optical illusion brought about by using a telephoto lens

A zoom lens warped the middle of the screen not the edges? Oh yes they can move, badly, they are called "sun kinks". They expand 1ft for every 1800ft when hot. They can get shoved by several feet in turns if there is any ballast issue. In either of these cases, normal rail ties usually survive. No way in hell would solar panels take even the relatively small strain each tie takes, unless you added flex points at the connections to tne rails, which means more $, and causing more vibration issues, meaning you'd have to dampen it, meaning even more $ for a tiny panel.

I don't see how it's a problem for solar panels shown on photos. Narrow panels mounted on railway sleepers. Even if everything moves, panels stay on sleepers just fine. Also I don't see a problem using some simple strain relief / vibration absorber under them. For connections cables with a little bit of extra length will work just fine to deal with any movement. Not to say even with all of those railway failures shown on photos solar panels mounted on sleepers would survive just fine. The downside would be they likely would need to be removed  for railway repair.

[polwath]

They should just install Solar Cell with poles on the side of the rails instead. Or at least, installed it on the existing overhead line poles or railway station rooftops. 

As those railway sections mostly has blank area to do it anyway. That is much cheaper to install and no damage risk from trains and rails expanded from heat for long term use.
And easier to repair without disrupt the train schedules as a whole.

Another money wasted on stupid ideas.

[SiliconWizard]

My opinion on why there is this apparent obsession with solar roadways and solar panels between rails, and similar ideas, while there are obviously tons of places to put solar panels that are a lot more practical with a lot less potential damage and maintenance, is mainly political: it's not to come up with practical, useful solutions to generate electricity. It's to make things that currently look terribly bad from an environmental POV, such as roadways and even railways (because they host "transportation" in general, and transportation is currently "terribly" polluting), look clean and aligned with "progress", while still keeping the exact same infrastructures as before.

It's like, you know, giving all prison inmates a "I'm an honest person" t-shirt and giving them their freedom back. Then we could close up all prisons and claim that we have finally ended crime.

Just a thought.

[floobydust]

Of course the politicians are the true idiots- no qualifications at all required to run a state/country etc. and here we have stupid, money wasting projects galore, playing on voter psychology. It seems to be for the good "feels".

I'm faulting the engineering profession - for being wimps and allowing moron politicians to follow advice from charlatans. And for not getting the school system to do basic math and science with kids, to teach them that the renewables fantasy is just that - some dream of endless energy good for the planet. Sorry, it's not quite like the movies.
Also, politicians killing all the classic power generation, demonizing coal-fired power plants, shutting down nuclear plants - Europe is going to get the lesson that bad decisions can cause years of suffering and solar roadways ain't going to make up for it, ever.

[SilverSolder]

My opinion on why there is this apparent obsession with solar roadways and solar panels between rails, and similar ideas, while there are obviously tons of places to put solar panels that are a lot more practical with a lot less potential damage and maintenance, is mainly political: it's not to come up with practical, useful solutions to generate electricity. It's to make things that currently look terribly bad from an environmental POV, such as roadways and even railways (because they host "transportation" in general, and transportation is currently "terribly" polluting), look clean and aligned with "progress", while still keeping the exact same infrastructures as before.

It's like, you know, giving all prison inmates a "I'm an honest person" t-shirt and giving them their freedom back. Then we could close up all prisons and claim that we have finally ended crime.

Just a thought.

Ahhh, makes you feel good as you drive your supercharged V-12 down the solar roadway!

[thm_w]

You must have missed the part that I need to throw out the garbage every day since I can't leave that out door.  I wrap waste nicely in knotted plastic bag kept to keep it from smelling too bad between weekly pickups.  So one way or another, I am throwing out a bag a day anyway.  It is either a "free" grocery bag from the store when it was legal, or now a purchased garbage bag first used for grocery.  Why waste water and electricity both of which has their environmental and financial cost.

If your garbage smells that means food waste is going in there, which is not ideal.
One option, if you have the space, is to have an outdoor compost bin. Or a food waste collection program. But those are not available everywhere.

They should just install Solar Cell with poles on the side of the rails instead. Or at least, installed it on the existing overhead line poles or railway station rooftops. 

As those railway sections mostly has blank area to do it anyway. That is much cheaper to install and no damage risk from trains and rails expanded from heat for long term use.
And easier to repair without disrupt the train schedules as a whole.

Another money wasted on stupid ideas.

Yes steel poles should not be terribly expensive.
Wonder how lossy the rails are and if you can pump much power into them.

[nctnico]

They should just install Solar Cell with poles on the side of the rails instead. Or at least, installed it on the existing overhead line poles or railway station rooftops. 

As those railway sections mostly has blank area to do it anyway. That is much cheaper to install and no damage risk from trains and rails expanded from heat for long term use.
And easier to repair without disrupt the train schedules as a whole.

Another money wasted on stupid ideas.

If you (and other) would have read the articles about this idea more carefully, then you wouldn't have missed that they are looking into how to install solar panels around railways. This means that they are not necessarily installed between or near the tracks. It is research with an open mind towards every possibility.

[floobydust]

[...] It is research with an open mind towards every possibility.

That is not science or engineering- that is guessing at a solution. Very popular with dumb people, politicians especially.
Here I don't see the basics of project management, we all took that in ECON101 at uni.

Do some engineering using site insolation data, panel size, shading etc. to estimate energy collected over a year.
Then look at project lifetime, maintenance of the panels and cabling, cleaning costs etc. and see if this thing will pay off.
It's not that difficult to predict the outcome or compare it with locating the solar panels someplace else.
The problem is the engineering is not being done up front which would kaibosh many bad ideas right at the start.
Instead, we have a lot of money squandered on something that is ultimately a failure - solar roadways.

[CatalinaWOW]

I agree, analysis should precede implementation.  But the general process is identify problem, posit solution and analyze.  In this case I believe the problem identified is land ownership/sky access rights to large areas.  Sure there are square kilometers of rooftops and other options, but those square kilometers are controlled by literally thousands of legal entities.  So looking at railroad right of ways as a way to only deal with a few entities, possibly only one, is appealing.  Whether there is a technical approach that can use that legal benefit is unclear, but it would be foolish to discard the idea based on analysis of only one approach.

Remember that land/legal costs are as real as the cost of junction boxes and wire.

[PlainName]

My opinion on why there is this apparent obsession with solar roadways and solar panels between rails, and similar ideas, while there are obviously tons of places to put solar panels that are a lot more practical with a lot less potential damage and maintenance, is mainly political: it's not to come up with practical, useful solutions to generate electricity.

I think I will disagree with you there.

One obvious place is rooftops but, typically, the council don't own citizens roofs so there's nothing they can do there. Persuade householders to flash the cash and get something up, but that's already been done and dusted.

OK, so you can build a roof over a footpath or motorway or railway, but all you're doing is raising the panels up 8' (sorry, 2.5m) and pissing off the population who now go to work or the shops in tunnels.

By contrast, the TPTB own the roads and paths and railways and don't have to ask anyone if they would mind awfully walking underneath 20 miles of shadow. Seems to be a simple solution to a difficult (yes, in a political way) problem.

[MrMobodies]

I wonder how much extra workload they will create and time spent when replacing the rails of sleepers.

[PlainName]

In principle you just need a couple of bolts to hold them in place, but in practice I image they will be a bugger to remove. If they're not, they'll be gone overnight as naughty people nick 'em for their own use

How often are sleepers moved?

I wonder if they wouldn't be attached to existing sleepers but supplied en bloc in new ones. That would deal with the issue of being pinched and also fitting and moving. Probably have to be a little more careful with the sledge, though.