Getting stuck in traffic sucks, but thanks to a couple of Kiwis you might soon be feeling a little better about yourself while muttering about the brake-happy commuter ahead of you. An invention called Powertread by Justin Robertson and Brett Kemp looks to do something positive with the unending shuffling of queued cars. It's literally a series of tubes filled with water that, when run over, force their contents through a turbine to generate electricity. One car driving over one of the things generates 580 watts of electricity at 36 amps. That's not an
awful lot power, but imagine a dozen of the things lined up at a busy off-ramp, run over by thousands of impatient drivers every day, and you can see the potential. The Singaporean government does too, providing grants to fund the project and two shopping malls there have already signed up to purchase the results. Who knows whether the things will follow our favorite folk duo over to North American shores, but until then you can at least get a similar feel at
your local Burger King.
posted July 16th 2010 9:07AM
So does it feel like your car is going over a bunch of bumps every time you hit one of these? That would get annoying.
@hodedofome They could probably find less viscous fluids to reduce the "bump" effect. The energy generated shouldn't change as long as the volume of fluid moved doesn't.
Who Squashed Pac Man?
look. the cars are running on gasoline or diesel. so, the question is how much additional gas is being used to go over these tubes vs how much electricity is being generated
remember that gravity (e.g. going down-hill) and momentum also contribute to amount of energy the car is generating
if the combined energy is greater than the amount of gas lost, then this makes perfect sense
The only way this thing would truly create energy is to use it in PLACE of something that was MEANT to slow a car down and where people have the expectation that driving over the device WILL slow them down. Like a speed bump/hump. Otherwise, there are too driver reaction issues and energy conversation laws that would interfere with this working in the real world. It is a good start though.
let's not lose sight of the whole point of this thing: if cars are simply sitting still because of slow-moving traffic, then they're generating energy that'll be captured by these tubes
Okay, math geniuses get your calculators fired up! How much energy does running over one of these "steal" from the car, (I'm guessing very little) compared to how much the device produces?
@barry99705 genius, please review the 5th grade physics book - energy needed to do something is always greater than the energy that something produces due to energy losses in between.
@MiniMe I know how the physics work. I'm just wondering if it's really worth bitching about "all the power stolen" from the cars. I don't really see it taking that much power from the cars going over it. No worse than the crappy roads we already drive over every day.
@barry99705 If it takes so little energy that it doesn't matter for the cars, it will generate so little energy that it's pointless. You can't have it worthwhile on one side of the equation and not on the other. And any energy it saps will be on top of the road quality; sure, on top of goods roads this may be no worse than just a crappy road, but that still means you just degraded a perfectly good road.
Great idea!
Let those cars burn a bit more gas for this generator to generate a bit of electricity.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Judder-bars-Turning-cars-into-energy-generators/tabid/367/articleID/165995/Default.aspx I doubt this will work outside .nz .. but give it a try.
This would be wonderfull if you don't note that filling a road with this is like making a 45 degree road for the car or worse. Every time the car goes over one of this tubes it must climb into the next so it is like putting the tubes static in diagonal.
Imagine this in a concert lol... I think the people will notice it and sue the organization.
This is a pretty clever idea. I did wonder about driving over something requiring more gas, even if a very small amount, and if it translates to more savings in the end?
http://www.professorhobo.com/2010/07/16/new-car
At all, who say energy gets stolen. Sure, but you can put behind a slope where cars are rolling anyway without actually hitting the gas...
On the other hand, if it is downhill it would be good to break if something dangerous comes up. Such as a truck from the right, but those pipes would not help with that. I think, the author got a bit enthausiasitc - in my opinion, there is only use for where there is no other energy availible, but sun shines almost everywhere...
@myself: Well, if the road is crappy anyway, I take my comment back. Then it might be usefull to power street light with a battery or something. Rather a thing for developing countries/roads anyway.
I guess a lot of people here have never driven on the washboard dirt roads... Or roads in Michigan after the winter.
But installing regenerative breaks on my electric car would be better.
It's an interesting idea, but from the video it looks like a speed bump. (or speed hump)
Installing these on an off ramp could be dangerous, but it depends on the ramp. In off traffic hours someone might hit this at 40+ mph, which wouldn't be the greatest thing.
Cool idea! Not so sure i'd want drive drive on that with my motorcycle and a freeway speed....
Surely the most logical place to apply this tech would be in the pavement/sidewalk?
There, it doesn't matter if conservation of energy means its stealing from people walking by - its exercise which is good for us.
@mrklaw "There, it doesn't matter if conservation of energy means its stealing from people walking by - its exercise which is good for us."
i've thought the same thing. the only thing is that it might cause people to eat a tiny bit more, which is a drain on the environment, but i think the benefits of fitness and electricity would outweigh the costs.
@mrklaw I believe London have installed such a system for powering the streetlights in anticipation of the Olympic games.
At least I think I heard that in a report on how green the Calgary winter olympics were last year.
I also have to add, that I would be surprised if they were left like that for the final product. I imagine they would be covered in a road like substance so as to not scare the crap out of people approaching them for the first time? Also so as to make the drive as smooth as possible for the car, not increasing the effort the engine makes and simply turning the energy from the car into electricity instead of potential energy that the road is storing when the vehicle passes over it.
These are my musings for this evening. That will be all. Jeeves? Bring the car around, would you?
Throw a little snow and black ice on top of those tubes and watch the fun!
Or you could just invent regenerative braking and capture the extra energy for your own use.....oh wait, modern hybrids already do this.
I'll put my $20 down on tube / fitting fatigue failure at four hours into the first weekday.
I hear those things brake too often.
A truck? A series of tubes? Sounds like the internet.
I wonder how of then these things would break down, and how much the ensuing maintenance costs would be.
@tikigawd
*often (not of then"")
I built a prototype of this exact system back around 1990 while I was working for a R&D company in the Toronto area. We warned the customer at the time that most people would not appreciate having energy robbed from them. Like others have mentioned, it would need to be in a location that always saw vehicles decelerating.
The other option that we looked at was to have the valves lock shut while a light was green and then open during the amber and red only. This would create a hard platform that would not have any resistance to rolling through. The durability was also an issue.
@Jf Posted Jul 16th 2010 9:15AMHIGHEST RANKED
"However, they're targeting traffic prone areas, meaning people are jamming the breaks anyway."
Then they are stealing the energy your hybrid would get from braking.