engadget.com — Clogged highways and frustratingly waiting while your gas needle plummets to empty usually doesn't conjure up thoughts of green, but it seems like these very roads could become the source of a lot more energy. Several recent student designs have proposed that major roadways be retrofitted with various forms of wind energy collection devices...
Apr 30, 2007 View in Crawl 4
antdudeApr 30, 2007
Where will the signs be then?
ffejreyApr 30, 2007
Way to steal the first comment from the article
osbjmgMay 1, 2007
tamrix - I agree there are lots of issues, and this is purely research anyway. But to your point: Have you ever been on the highway? It's loud too.
unusualbobMay 1, 2007
These look alot different than I expected, they look cool.
zooropa714May 1, 2007
Nice concept but this would never work. The blades would have to be so large that the wind created by small cars and even trucks would never spin the blades. Plus it would create so much turbulence the vehicles would have to consume more fuel to go the same distance. Wind power farms all over the world have found that larger is better and more efficient. You are seeing 1.5 megawatt wind turbines going up all over the place because the small ones are not efficient enough. The big ones are in the range of 300+ feet tall. Where do you plan on putting these on a freeway? Just build more nuclear power plants and be done with it.
prometheansparkMay 1, 2007
I suspect that attempting to capture the energy of the air being pushed out of the way by the car would result in higher pressure in front of the car (to drive the turbine) and hence poorer gas mileage. Use an expensive and potentially dangerous turbine, to very inefficiently capture energy from cars that's generated from oil. Absolutely brilliant! Did BP think of this? Why not just build treadmills for cars at stoplights too while we're at it?
edwardsnhMay 1, 2007
Now cover these windmills with tech from nanosolar, and you get a two for one deal.
mtdewrulzMay 1, 2007
Well, let me give you an example with fictional numbers just to illustrate what I mean.Let's assume the average car gets 25 miles to the gallon, gas costs $3.00 per gallon, and the average drive to work is 15 miles. That's $1.80 in gas per leg ($3.60 per day) that each person pays for his or her commuting costs.Now, let's introduce wind farms onto the highway. Because of the energy conservation issues, let's say that the average car now gets 20 miles to the gallon, and all other assumptions stay the same. This raises the cost of the average commute to $4.50 per day. At the same time, however, each person is also generating a certain amount of electricity by helping to spin the turbines. I'm not even going to try and estimate how much, but I imagine that because of losses to friction and whatnot, it's not going to be a very efficient amount.This acts as a tax because each person is paying more to drive on the highway; The actual revenue is going to the gas company, but the benefit of wind generated power goes to whomever was paying for that power before (at the expense of commuters). It will reduce traffic (assuming some degree of elasticity) because of the increased cost of commuting. People will find closer jobs or car-pool because they will drop out of the market at the higher price level.Like I said earlier, I don't think that the power generated from the cars themselves would be very efficient but it would also generate power from natural wind so that would (presumably) offset the losses to efficiency. I'm not sure that fulfills the goals of the project, but that's what would happen.
tystoMay 4, 2007
Solar panels on the shoulder of the road in the sun belt is a fine idea. Solar panels *over* the road would seem to be a better idea because it would keep the road and cars on it cooler, but varmints would love to hang out in that shade... in the middle of the road.
gophomaxxMay 4, 2007
The present windmills are not adequate as a result of interference by General Electric. The laws prohibit wind power from producing an adequate amperage and GE has the patent on an essential part of the wind turbine.A better design is available but being refused production. It is vertical and more adequate at transferring energy to the generator which is at the base of the wind turbine.
rem333Jun 2, 2007
@AtomicClearly you don't know the laws of physics. In order for these turbines to generate energy, there has to be some sort of resistance converting the kinetic energy from the spinning blade to electric/heat/etc energy. If you put a turbine in space and gave it one push, it will quickly decelerate until it comes to a stop (only converting the energy you put into it to electrical) due to the resistance inside the turbine. If a turbine had no resistance, it would not generate any electricity.