Germany: SOLAR freaking roadways - below TRAINS!

[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.