Proposals would turn highways into wind farms

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, ranging from overhead turbines that collect energy from quickly-moving cars below to barrier panels (pictured after the jump) that harness the wind from closely passing vehicles moving in opposite directions. Ideally, the wind energy could then be sent back out to the grid to power nearby communities, light-rail transportation systems, or even intelligent billboards. Of course, most of these ideas are still in the research phase, and even if proven feasible, we can't imagine the up-front costs (or inconveniences of installing these things) to be minor, but we're sure that government subsidies should be able to to lend a helping hand.

Read - Barrier panel prototype, via Inhabitat
Read - Overhead turbine design, via Inhabitat

[Trevor Bommersbach @ Apr 30th 2007 10:17AM]

This should make for interesting highway fight sequences for the next Matrix.

I just hope those truckers pay attention to the height restrictions, should these be put in place. I mean look at the McArthur.

[akintz @ Apr 30th 2007 10:20AM]

I really hope they wouldn't consider using all of this extra energy for something like a billboard. :(

[Piter @ Apr 30th 2007 10:21AM]

since that "windmills" are running on cars generated wind, that's turning the car's gasoline into electricity. why? shouldn't we use cleaner energy sources?
that "mills" will slow down the air over or at the side of cars, making them consume more gasoline.
maybe I am missing something...

[chris @ Apr 30th 2007 3:09PM]

Piter - I don't think this would be much of an incentive to keep driving petro vehicles; the system would work just as well (better, from a cost-benefit standpoint) with alternative fuel vehicles.

They wouldn't slow down the cars passing under or around them; the engine moves the car, the car moves the air, the air moves the turbines. The highway wind is the inadvertent result of an energy expenditure and it would be a pretty passive collection process.

[ksmith @ Apr 30th 2007 10:51AM]

I'm with you Piter, I think that this would cause more drag on the cars, causing them to burn more fuel. Although I'm still trying to work this one out.

[Ayle @ Apr 30th 2007 12:48PM]

Those dont accelerate the wind so it wont do anything to your car gas consumption: as you car move it slice trough the air and pushes it aside those thing just take advantage of the wind your car generate....

[Frank @ May 4th 2007 12:04AM]

This is actually an incredible idea because it makes use of the wind "waste" that vehicles produce when moving. The driver is not going to notice any difference in the operation of the vehicle because it has nothing to do with the driver. It's just a form of making use of the draft created by an object moving through the environment. In response to someone's comment about these creating more draft and forcing the vehicle to waste more energy - where does that logic come from? ALL MOVING OBJECTS ON EARTH ARE GOING TO CREATE DRAFT. This system just makes use of the draft you create. It's not like those silly generators people put on their bicycle tires that use the friction created when pedaling (and making it more difficult to pedal as well) to power the lights.

The fact that people think this is a terrible idea is astonishing to me. Is it a fear of change or something different? I think ideas like these are great because it creates use out of the waste everyone and everything creates anyway. We'll never stop inefficiency and waste but we can try and do something with it.

[JayBandit @ May 4th 2007 9:18AM]

Actually, the amount of drag put on the cars would be essentially zero. The air is being moved by the cars anyway; therefore this would not waste more gasoline, but actually harness energy that is usually wasted.

[Brent @ Apr 30th 2007 10:26AM]

One question: will these new barriers still function as originally intended? If I happen to crash into one of these things, is it going to stop my car the same way a concrete barrier would? Plus, if such a collision occurred, what kind of costs would be associated in replacing this thing? I'm not really sold on this whole idea.

[Wil @ Apr 30th 2007 10:39AM]

Brent had the same thought I did...the cost of replacing one of these barriers when they're damaged is probably going to quickly outstrip any electricity generated. The other thing to consider is how often they have to be replaced. On any typical Southern California freeway that you travel on a daily basis, if you're paying attention you can always spot fresh damage to the center divider.

[sam @ Apr 30th 2007 10:40AM]

I imagine there'd be piles of bird parts forming on the road under the overhead turbines. Organic speedbumps.

[Rob @ Apr 30th 2007 12:47PM]

FYI:

Bird death by windmill isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/common_misconce.php

[McHoffa @ Apr 30th 2007 10:42AM]

the barriers seem like a bad idea... I think the barriers tend to get hit often (i.e. tire marks are all over them around here)...

the overhead turbines seem like a good idea though, if done right... we need more thinking like this...

[David Balogh @ Apr 30th 2007 10:43AM]

Please guys, this is ingenuity at its finest. Don't decide that these are the end-all be-all, take it that someone's thinking of ways to improve our climate. All the details will be worked out, of course they're going to take into consideration crashes, etc. Electricity from gasoline? Gas ain't going away soon, sadly, but if we can use it more efficiently like this, than more power to it (no pun intended, I guess…), not to mention electric cars or fuel cell cars or whatever technology that comes beyond gas will have the same effect on these: motion! They can be placed onto train tracks as well, or even subways… the possibilities go on and on. Keep your thinking caps on, and be hopeful that our country is starting to move in the right direction. I sure hope we are.

[GalaXy @ Apr 30th 2007 11:39AM]

I have to agree completely. The environment is a big problem, which is not going away any time soon...and sad to say, neither is oil dependency. Not too mention the fact it is a concept, and not something yet being put into place. Plus regardless of the fuel the car consumes, the turbines would be able to create energy. So even when cars that consume little, or even no gas (eventually), pass by they would be creating energy.

[Peter @ Apr 30th 2007 2:36PM]

The question is to what degree harvesting wind energy from traffic would lead to increased gasoline consumption caused by increased wind resistance from turbulence in the air stream over and around the highway. We need a fluid dynamics expert to weigh in.

[nate @ Apr 30th 2007 5:42PM]

I think the idea of placing these within subway tunnels where a larger quantity of air is displaced more frequently would be the best use of this idea.

[beanspants @ Apr 30th 2007 10:44AM]

hopefully, any crashes into the barriers would electrocute the crasher to death. less people equals less energy used, and we probably wouldn't be losing anyone of value.

[ph @ Apr 30th 2007 11:09AM]

"less people equals less energy used, and we probably wouldn't be losing anyone of value."

Yeah, hitler said something like that too.

[Dirty Sloth @ Apr 30th 2007 10:49AM]

" One 1.8 MW wind turbine at a reasonable site would produce over 4.7 million units of electricity each year, enough to meet the annual needs of over 1,000 households, or to run a computer for over 1,620 years. " - http://www.britishwindenergy.co.uk/ref/faq.html#efficient

Assuming the design passes safety standards, if those 2 turbines delivered even half that, id say it would easily pay itself off in a couple of years.

[Bob Mills @ Jul 16th 2007 10:49AM]

R.H.M. 14 July 2007
If wind turbines are so efficient, why do we need 4 to do the job of one.
If a turbine is running on average at 25% of its capacity, you need another 3 turbines to produce 100%. Instead of throwing millions of pounds into wind turbines spend it on tidal Barrages on estuaries, these produce constant power and don't stop when the wind doesn't blow.
To many people making big money from Euro Grants for wind turbines, so efficiency doesn't come into it.

[Trojan @ Apr 30th 2007 10:49AM]

These aren't the crash barriers/guard rails, they're the sound barriers further back from the road (usually seperating residential areas from the freeway).

[Dirty Sloth @ Apr 30th 2007 10:49AM]

"since that "windmills" are running on cars generated wind, that's turning the car's gasoline into electricity. why? shouldn't we use cleaner energy sources?"


what if we all had electric / hybrid cars? we are still moving thus creating wind....

"that "mills" will slow down the air over or at the side of cars, making them consume more gasoline.
maybe I am missing something..."


ummm, i think that for the .5 of a second you drive pass it , the SLIGHT resistance it would make really wouldnt be that noticeable...

[PDubNYC @ Apr 30th 2007 10:49AM]

That is sooo photoshopped.


just kidding. I think this is a cool idea that should be explored further. Good point regarding how they might change airflow over cars and make them less efficient, but maybe they wouldn't. Why not traditional vertical windmills on the side of the road. Highways are already an eyesore, might as well keep the eysores together.

[Trojan @ Apr 30th 2007 10:52AM]

Hrmm, or not. Seems they 'ARE' proposing putting them into the concrete crash barriers, which is stupid. Don't see that one flying, it would compromise the integrity of the crash barriers. The overhead turbine should work fine.

[bob the builder @ Apr 30th 2007 11:04AM]

well its a smart idea . they would also collect eenrgy from regular wind and you wouldnt have to put the huge wind turbines in a seperate spot...just combine them all on to the motorways/freeways.

[James @ Apr 30th 2007 11:10AM]

This would cause more drag on cars. I like the idea of pressure pads on exit ramps that create power form the braking autos - this makes more sense seeing as to how the car is trying to dissipate energy. In any case, I'm waiting for a study to show how much wind turbines are changing the environment.

[NovaLand @ May 6th 2007 2:12PM]

Yeah, U should have fans instead in tunnels that makes the car go faster with less gas and eliminate all these small ineffective engines. Instead using some clean powersource. This will only steal money from the drivers!

[josh @ Apr 30th 2007 11:17AM]

"but we're sure that government subsidies should be able to to lend a helping hand."

Not to be the cynic, because I am all for alternate forms of energy, but that government subsidy is already earmarked to help the poor unfortunate oil companies that are making record profits.

[Acceptable Risk @ Apr 30th 2007 11:19AM]

"what if we all had electric / hybrid cars? we are still moving thus creating wind...."

That seems to beg the question, why bother converting electricity into locomotion just to clumsily and inefficiently convert it back into electricity?

Energy isn't free. It comes from somewhere. And when you take energy out of one system to power another, you nearly invariably lose some in the exchange. That's exactly the kind of waste these supposed green technologies are supposed to prevent. These car-powered generators are just a semiinvisible tax on the people who don't understand how the world operates.

Way better energy gains can be had by simply gradually improving aerodynamics of the automobiles we have. The new Civic gained something like three miles per gallon simply by improving its coefficient of drag.

How someone can sell these things and claim they save energy with a straight face is beyond me.

[David Balogh @ Apr 30th 2007 12:16PM]

Yes, you would have a point, except for the fact that you're using WIRELESS (batteries/gas, or how about this one… solar powered) energy to put energy BACK into the grid while at the same time getting from point A to point B.

We're going to have elctric/hybrids/gas/fuel cell cars, so why NOT take left-over energy that isn't connected to the grid, and recycle it into the grid? It's like having a USB-powered light connected to your laptop that's not plugged in, and only needs a few hours to charge (ok, maybe batterire aren't totally efficient yet, but what if you had a laptop or car that could go for 10-20 hours on a 3 hour charge?!)

Here's another idea, have the cars be electric powered via the actual road somehow, and then yes you're on the grid, but it could be metered just like your house, plus you put back into it via the wind or solar power, causing a never-ending loop of recycled energy! Ok, nuff ranting.

[Matt @ Apr 30th 2007 5:38PM]

Your comment makes no sense. The only way you would have a point is if we were able to make perfectly aerodynamically efficient cars, that is, they displace no air whatsoever when they move. As it is, the displaced air is an unavoidable side effect of vehicular travel, and these efforts are merely trying to return some of that wasted energy to the power grid.

[Brian @ Apr 30th 2007 11:20AM]

These things could be made to generate energy even when there are no cars below. Concrete and asphalt usually heats up faster in the sun than the surrounding area, so there's usually a thermal updraft above the pavement. It may not be a lot, but it's something else to factor into the efficiency equation.

[Rick Lyon @ Apr 30th 2007 11:27AM]

Excellent idea. However, in cities with TOO MUCH traffic, the cars would be moving too slowly to generate such wind correct? This would only work where the cars are moving at a decent clip? Chicago is the windy city, they should just have these everywhere without requiring cars, just use pure wind.

My only consumer driven concern would be, if this did work, would we see any cheaper power bills? Would we as citizens directly reap any benefits aside from a cleaner earth while we power local government facilities?

[Ladderless @ Apr 30th 2007 11:48AM]

This idea was investigated about 15 years ago in Detroit (they wanted to put them along 696).

You only reach effective energy generation when there is vehicle after vehicle going by the generation unit. One vehicle will not generate enough movement to do anything significant (you have to over come static friction -- Once it's moving, kinetic friction and blade momentum create efficiencies)

These generation units eliminate much of the "draft" efficiency that you get with the vehicle after vehicle traffic pattern. Think about the air around the freeway being pushed along by the vehicles... They "ride" in this current, and therefore are more fuel efficient (lower wind resistance).

No current, lower efficiency. Great -- You generate some electricity, but each vehicle consumes more fuel. And the system losses dictate that the additional fuel consumed ends up generating less electricity than would be generated by dumping that fuel directly into a power plant.

In Detroit, once they factored in everything, they all decided that these power generation units didn't make sense. I guess it's time to go through the excercise again...

[nikster @ May 1st 2007 1:41AM]

To all 'o you who say this is causing cars to slow down, consider the ideal case:
== No turbines: Car zooms by. Air is set in motion by moving car. Air moves.
== Turbines (idealized): Car zooms by. Air is set in motion by moving car. Air powers turbine and transfers all its movement to turbine.

So we'd have no wind around highways, and electricity instead. No drag on cars. While it would be impossible to get perfect turbines that suck all of the energy out of the wind, I think it would be easy to design the turbines in such a way that they do not add any drag to the car.

Ok?

[beanspants @ Apr 30th 2007 11:56AM]

15 years ago, gas was at $15 per barrel and the SNES was high technology.

[Chuwei @ Apr 30th 2007 11:57AM]

Energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.
Be wind my friend!!

[Marshall @ Apr 30th 2007 12:12PM]

Perhaps this is not the best idea ever for a number of reasons, but the concept of utilizing this "unusable" space above and around freeways is still higher in my book than taking up land that could serve other purposes (farmland, recreation, houses, etc.) for massive windfarms. Placing turbines on top of existing signs and lightposts might be a better idea (these are chipping away your perfect air currents already, so the effect on fuel economy should be minimal). Perhaps placing turbines around train tracks would be better too (though the ownership/easements on tracks can be a headache).

Also, why design these to generate from the wind off vehicle movement, don't other people get plenty of natural wind on the roadways that these could be designed for?

[TVGenius @ Apr 30th 2007 12:14PM]

That's a Phoenix freeway! I know it!

[James @ Apr 30th 2007 12:33PM]

Can somebody with some CFD (computational fluid dynamics) experience weigh in on this? Are we talking zero-sum game here, or what? I mean, is the turbine capturing energy that would otherwise be wasted, or is it creating exactly as much additional drag on passing vehicles (and therefore lowering engine efficiency) as it is "free" electricity?

[TomC1234 @ Apr 30th 2007 12:39PM]

Can someone explain to me how this causes more drag on a car anymore than a regular concrete barrier would? A car zooms by leaving "wind" above and to the sides of the car. Then the turbines will supposedly use this wind to generate electricity. But the car is long gone... why would it cause more drag? Even if the wind somehow bounces back and causes turbulence or whatever drag for other cars... how is that any different from the current concrete walls?

[bob the builder @ Apr 30th 2007 1:08PM]

thats what i thought .

[sam @ Apr 30th 2007 1:11PM]

Actually, the article implies that these turbines may kill lots of birds:
"small blades, low surface area, lots of dead birds possible; very big blades, with large surface area exposed to wind, very few dead birds."

[Grant @ Apr 30th 2007 1:20PM]

it would be nice to have something make our super-inefficient cars become a little more clean.
Seriously, look up the efficiency of current gas motors, it's something like 20% power, 80% waste. anything to harness those by-products would be great.

[weslebsack @ Apr 30th 2007 1:21PM]

Is that picture in Tucson, AZ at the I-19 onramp?

[dwaede @ Apr 30th 2007 1:33PM]

Road barriers = bad idea

Above the road turbines, rather smart.

Don't argue that taking the energy from cars and converting it to electricity through wind mills is bad for fuel efficiency. If you use your brain for a minute, you will realize that when you drive, you are constantly pushing the wind forward. Physics says energy is not created, but that refers more to the gas in your car burning to move the pistons. If you want to get really technical it mostly applies to atomic changes like nuclear power. Otherwise there are so many variables that they can't all be measured. Wind absorbed by a turbine overhead will not affect gas mileage.

Driving on the freeway does not produce a wind stream to cruise in. Have you ever driven behind a civic and moved to an open lane? If you are riding his ass there is moderate drag change, but everyone out there does not follow directly behind semis. You would think some of these people have never actually driven in a city.

The main genius behind this proposal is that the biggest problem with wind farms is the cost in tieing them back to the grid. Building along highways means easy access to the grid, also known as power lines. Power companies would probably front most of the cost in order to sale this back to the consumer as green energy.

[Four0four @ Apr 30th 2007 1:51PM]

As much as I think this is a great idea - I can just envision all the traffic nightmares now - from people slowing down to look at these things. :-D

[Steve C @ Apr 30th 2007 1:53PM]

Not to mention that more modern cars are inherently more aerodynamic as some of the most cost efficient development dollars spent for fuel economy are those spent making a car more aerodynamic, creating less drag.

So what? More aerodynamic cars = less air turbulence = less "wind" attribuatable to the cars themselves.

Dumb idea for that reason, unless the freeway happens to be in a windy location.

[Jon Graft @ Apr 30th 2007 2:07PM]

I think this is an extremely good idea...