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Ransom Riggs
Roadways that power themselves
by Ransom Riggs - April 20, 2007 - 7:00 AM

Well, in a manner of speaking. The idea is this: streetlights and traffic signals take lots of electricity to function — electricity which could be generated by a special low-impact ramp, built into the road, which would harvest power from the inertia of the cars moving over it. (Sounds a bit like the tube station that powers itself, which we blogged about awhile back). Check out this video from Hughes Research and see if what you think. Would this work on American roads, or would it be annoying? (Apologies in advance for the cheesy rock soundtrack.)

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Comments (6)

  1. There is no free lunch. I don’t think this can bypass the priciple of “Conservation of Energy”. If this uses kinetic energy then it must slow the car down. If the driver wants to slow down (like for a red light) then this is good and will save a little wear on the brakes. Otherwise the driver will have to press the gas harder to maintain speed burning some extra fuel. So this could be an effective way of transfering costs from the road authority to drivers.

    I also wonder if a device this complicated will cost less to install and maintain than the dollar savings in electricity it generates.

    -Stew

    posted by Stew on 4-20-2007 at 8:18 am

  2. Stew is right – this would only be a good idea in terms of energy use if used in place of situations where you’d want the cars to slow down (e.g., replace speed bumps with these).

    posted by justin case on 4-20-2007 at 9:23 am

  3. The highway barriers that generate power from the wind of passing cars is a better idea.

    Since no links are allowed here, just google ‘highway barrier wind energy’

    posted by CB on 4-20-2007 at 9:52 am

  4. This is awesome! Maybe it has some issues, but it might be the start of something great.

    posted by BekkytheScot on 4-20-2007 at 10:39 am

  5. Not good enough. Nice try though…

    posted by bob on 4-20-2007 at 2:29 pm

  6. If this were used to replace speed bumps, it would serve a very useful purpose. Would be nice to get something out of speed bumps besides the bump!

    posted by Jessica on 4-23-2007 at 8:55 am

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