This is a story that intrigues me. It comes from a part of the world that I rarely if ever get to hear any news from. I suppose it’s the same for most people in the world or maybe I’m the only one lingering in the dark. Morocco is not a nation that is often in news & I surely never find it around making big headlines in the environment section of reporting. But here is its big debut, at least as far as I’m concerned. In a frame agreement between the Kingdom of Morocco and France, the French Republic plans to award French industry Alstom, a contract for the design, manufacture, construction, operation and maintenance of a very-high speed rail link between Tangier and Casablanca.
Now what is so intriguing again about this? Well, you can call me what you want, but it’s that name “Casablanca”. How on this earth did a place get named Casablanca? I love the movie & many regard it as the greatest romantic flick of all time (not me) But still, the name brings back memories, some good, some awful. But sticking to the real story, the track is going to be an electrical railway line between the two places. So what is so special about that? Well, the electricity for this track will be solely derived from solar energy. 183,000 square meter (45 acre) field of solar panels will be built to supply the emission-free electricity.
It is common knowledge that most trains that run on electricity use the power produced from burning of coal in some thermal power plant. That defeats the purpose of keeping the ecology clean. Now, with solar panel fields providing the energy, the trains can run on electricity that has been produced in a clean fashion. That is a wonderful thing indeed!
I have one suggestion though & if anyone is interested or listening to this wacky idea, I hope you will benefit from it. I travel in trains a lot & I find plenty of wind to drive a wind mill through the journey. With so much emptiness on a train, can we not use the outer surface to produce electricity using wind mills, that are smaller but more in number placed on the train or its sides. I mean when there is space & wind, why not use it?? Just a thought.
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