Power generating speedbumps !!

As a Prius Head, I would be hacked off at these ramps. They are essentially robbing energy from the vehicles that pass over them (momentarily increased rolling resisitance). The one place they might be acceptable is on a down hill road (conventional vehicles are just converting excess kinetic energy into heat via friction braking anyway). Of course, every time a Prius Head drives downhill, we feel satisfaction as we see the little schematic showing all the regenerated energy heading into our battery. We get truely giddy if we score 3 or more leaf-car units (50 Watt-Hour energy units.)

 

No doubt, it is a good invention, but the amount of power it generates is quite minimal to recover the $1M cost (even if it goes down to $100K in near future). Assuming a car passes the bump for 1 sec each time, and assume that there are 360 cars pass the street for one random day, here is the energy it generates (powerxtime)

20kWx360sec = 2kWxh

Last month my electric bill says 850 kWxh. You need 425 such bumps to power one family for one month. That is about 14 bumps for one day. At $100K, the cost is about $1.4M to power one family for one day. At 5% interest rate, the interest for one day of $1.4M is $70K/365 ~= $200. That is more than my G&E bill for one month.

My point is that such energy is of high cost. Sea waves may actually be a better power source since it is constantly present, not for 360 secs in one day. Just my humble opinion...

 

Go ahead and doubt.
This is not a good invention.

Passive harnessing of energy makes sense where the energy is not already in use and would go to waste otherwise.
This device doesn't recover lost energy, it actively steals it from the consumer who purchased it. :angry:

 

i don't know, kiloran, my husbands first thought was right on line with ceric - that it is great technology because the next logical step would be wave action.

this might not be a feasible technology now, but it may well lead us to a clean, sustainable power source - i applaud the technology, if not the current application

 

Harnessing energy from waves in the sea is probably a fine thing (I believe there are some environmental issues even with this.

Harnessing energy from my car is not ok.
That energy comes straight out of the fuel I purchase.
It would actually be more efficient to steal the fuel right out of the tank rather than letting my car burn it, convert it into mechanical energy, convert it into electrical energy and then store it in a battery.
(mechanical engineering degree)

 

so why pay 100G when they are only 25K pounds??

 

Its one thing if they don't put them anywhere except places where they would have them anyway.... but I'm sure they will get greedy and I could see them on freeways and all kind of places to keep speeders down and make power at the same time.

It would increase wear and tear and become extremely annoying as the shock is transferred into your vehicle.... They may even be dangerous.

I just really think it would not be managed well and they would get carried away.

 

I seriously doubt that these things would appear on the freeway or any major road. Retrofitting existing speed bumps however would be a much better use.