Solar Powered Train

[Lenny53]

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20210331_35/

[learmoia]

2.8km... out of 30,625km.........

And I'm guessing the train isn't directly powered by solar, it's just that there are enough solar panels on the grid to produce enough power for the train to operate.

It's a good proof of concept...

I'm surprised there isn't an initiative to solar/wind power the North East Corridor.

[BruceStikkers]

The article mentions they have a solar field that provides power for the adventure. It would obviously take a very large solar setup to power the Northeast Corridor or other rail systems. They would also need additional equipment to store power for when the solar system is not providing enough power such as at night.

Bruce Stikkers
St. Joseph, IL

[trainforfun]

Great concept , but they should never publish an article like that so close to april 1st .....

[learmoia]

The article mentions they have a solar field that provides power for the adventure. It would obviously take a very large solar setup to power the Northeast Corridor or other rail systems. They would also need additional equipment to store power for when the solar system is not providing enough power such as at night.

Bruce Stikkers
St. Joseph, IL

From a literal standpoint.. sure...

but if the Solar/Wind production produces the same amount of power used by the NEC in a 24 hour period and the excess power is used to power homes/businesses/ect during the day...

The the use of Natural Gas/Coal/Nuclear to power the NEC (and homes) at night is net neutral being offset by the NG/Coal/Nuclear 'NOT' being used during the day to power homes.

No clue how many solar panels / wind turbines it would take to produce that much power.

... I'm more of a 'just put solar shingles on all of the houses' kinda guy..

[CNscale]

The Netherlands recently made environmental history, after its national train company NS, became the world’s first railway company to get 100% of the energy needed to power its trains from wind. This came into effect on 1 January 2017.

https://www.senseandsustainability.net/2018/02/22/dutch-trains-powered-by-100-wind-energy/

[jagged ben]

No clue how many solar panels / wind turbines it would take to produce that much power.

..

How many locomotives on average run on the Northeast corridor at any given moment?  If I knew that I could give you a rough idea.

Ballpark guess is 1-2 new wind turbines or 1000 solar panels to power a locomotive when supply and demand are at full.  Multiply the wind by 3-4 and the solar by 7-9 to offset the energy use.   The wind would need to be ideally sited.  The solar could be more or less anywhere, including sited along parts of the right of way if there was an advantage to that.

[dem34]

The NEC will probably be renewable powered anyway. A pretty hefty portion of the coast along the NEC has been earmarked for offshore Wind Power. Which will be interesting, the ones picked are about as tall as the current WTC with the blades included.

[Maletrain]

Well, how does the train get through a tunnel? 

Seriously, this is a very misleading PR release. And the same can be said about many other "solar powered" "clean energy" publicity articles. 

Only so long as there is plenty of non-solar generation or there is plenty of electrical energy storage, can PR people claim "offsets" from uses of CO2 emitting methods during the days. 

The idea of getting totally or almost totally away from CO2 emitting power sources will be to store the energy derived from "green" sources for use whenever demands occur.  In the transportation sector, either a lot of batteries or switching to hydrogen power seem to be an answer.  Trains could do either, as could automobiles.  Note that making all automobiles electric would create a huge increase in electric power demand at night when the sun don't shine.  And, a lot of trains run at night.  And, ships can't just go adrift at night or run retractable trans-oceanic extension cords.  So, we will probably need both batteries and hydrogen for energy storage.