This 3km tunnel running on solar power just switched on today. It’s part of the Paris to Amsterdam line and the first in Europe, promising to save a ton of energy that would otherwise be wasted during the trip.
Now Paris and Amsterdam obviously aren’t two miles apart. But this thing features a 16,000 solar panel array that could power 50 per cent of the entire Antwerp station, where the first train to pass through it departed from. Imagine if more of these popped up on other train lines. [Treehugger]
Abraham
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 1:57 PMWOW!
Nick Wilson
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 2:22 PMAnd all the trucks sticking to the slow lane. Sometimes I think we are such a primative society compared to Europe.
Adam
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 5:35 PMTrue. When I was there recently they had police sitting at the top of a hill on a german freeway (4 lanes each way). They were not checking for/fining speeding – they were making sure trucks/buses were staying in the slow lane as to not disturb the flow of traffic.
Richard
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 3:06 PMI realise that you need a wide roof to place all the solar panels, but could you not have hired an architect to build something a little more aesthetically pleasing, instead of grabbing the structural engineer to whip something up on CAD.. that thing is hideous…
ozoneocean
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 5:10 PMYou’d be surprised. I bet you anything it WAS architect designed. …that’s a look they often go for, like douchebags with the carefully styled “bed hair” look.
Nodeity
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 3:09 PMThe problem with doing this on the scale here, is that the technology is changing fast. Ok, I have 2.5Kw on my roof but the difference in cost and output is astronomical. I know you have to start somewhere, but in this case I think it would be better to wait until the technology matures a few more years to at least give it a chance to be competitive.! Before you jump on me about this, think of what’s just around the corner with hydrogen solar and the like,… it’s just too soon for this kind of scale imo…
ozoneocean
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 5:13 PMIf you never start somewhere though, you never start. The technology only ever really begins to “mature” when people really start to take it up en masse so industry has a reason to develop it, mass produce it and start selling more affordable items. You can only get economies of scale when there’s a scale to begin with.
Nodeity
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 7:48 AMYeah,.. it’s not like I’m totally against it, after-all I have gotten my toes wet! I guess when it comes to Gov’s spending our coffers I’m a bit touchy… as ‘stevjosco’ mentions, Australia has built a reprehensible record for mismanagement of funds and might I add, time! Let’s hope they don’t completely shitcan the current system, cos I’m hoping to upgrade houses sometime down the track, and I’ll want some form of solar/hydrogen whatever works best on that…
damo
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 8:15 PMI also have 2kw on my roof. It’s true output v cost is extreme but I see it as just paying my electricity bills in advance. After that it’s profit.
Waiting and wishing for a new tech such as hydrogen could take a long, long time.
Rob
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 4:54 PMWhy stop at covering the train line – why not cover the freeway as well? However, what happens when the sun goes down? What we need are better batteries.
stevjosco
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 4:59 PMApparently the whole thing cost $20mil (presumably in USD since that figure came from Inhabitat.com). That’s quite cheap. I’m sure if it was done in Australia it would somehow blow out to at least 20 times that price and be a major blunder. Look at how recent public transit ticketing projects in Melbourne and Sydney turned out for an example.