Electricity Generating Car Pads?

Now you're talking. Could probably compress air the same way.

If you burn gasoline in the car to make it go, then when you remove energy via these pads the car will stop...unless you add more gas to offset the drain of the pads.

No free energy. This is an idea that needs to die fast

These days Everybody is wanting Something for nothing

"There is no free lunch".

CR4 ought to sponsor more links on:

ENTROPY-CONSERVATION OF ENERGY-PERPETUAL MACHINE

and REDISCOVERY OF THE WHEEL

I agree.

I guess you would've had to have seen the show. It didn't look to me like the cars rolling over the pads lost much, if any, of their speed. I am no expert, but when you consider the 3-4000 pound weight of most cars, and all the rolling momentum that weight imparts at the high speeds they can go, I don't think these pads were costing much in the way of forward speed. A very slight toe on the gas would regain the maybe 2 km/h they might have lost, and they said that each pass generated about 10 kilowatts of electricity, which seems like more than the energy required to regain any slight speed loss.

Again, I'm no expert, but when I consider that this technology WAS invented by an engineer, I find it hard to believe that he overlooked the idea that his pads were costing more energy than they produced. The pads are already in production, and a few of them are already in the ground powering the lights at intersections in England. How would they have gotten that far, all the way through the conception, design, prototype, and finished product phases, without somebody having raised and answered the question of energy loss to the cars? It must have cost a fortune to develop this idea, and many qualified people worked on it, so how could it have gone so far if the idea wasn't fundamentally sound?

Remember, 50% of all engineers were in the bottom half of their class. The medical profession does not have a monopoly on quacks.

Two points.

>>I don't think these pads were costing much in the way of forward speed.

Well, no - and it's not your gas - which is the point, really. This is an undeclared, unauthorized tax. As tolls go, pretty subtle. Damn sneaky in fact.

>> I find it hard to believe that he overlooked the idea that his pads were costing more energy than they produced.

Say whaaaat? He's not overlooking anything. He's simply enabling the municipality to spend your money to pay their bills. Actually, not likely even thinking about that - just figures its cool to make the machine; what someone else does with it is not his problem.

I agree with earlier comments: bad idea. One location, no big deal, but cities would install this kind of thing every block to power traffic signals, then street lamps, then generate money from sale to hydro... just imagine your fuel consumption then. If they want to tax, let 'em ask the public to do so, rather than weasel it out of us.

<they said that each pass generated about 10 kilowatts of electricity, which seems like more than the energy required to regain any slight speed loss.>

We must not mix up the two

• Kilowatt( an instantaneous POWER Phenomenon -maybe twice on a car pass) and
• Energy (kilowatt x Hour)

If a car passes the bump in 400 to 800 milliseconds and say 2000 cars pass in 24 Hours, you get as per your own data:

10 KWX 500 msec.x2000=10Kwx1000 Seconds.=3 KW-HR in 24 hours

That 3Kw-Hr you can buy from the Utility company for less than 1$ !!!

hey let me know if you ever found out about this video and the info in it form Discovery Channel I emailed lets see if they get back in touch but email me back if you see this sevendell7@yahoo.com

thanks

At home we were always taught to make the "Complete-Calculation": Cars using their weight to press a mechanical generator will probably use some more gas doing so.

However, how about an electric (or Hybrid) car, driven by DC motors which can return surplus energy to the battery when the car is run downhill or on brake?, this way the motor couples as a generator at the flick of a switch.

Gas motors known as having a general 35 percent efficiency compared to DC electric with 85. How you create the initial battery charge is what really matters. Do you go fossil, wind, solar, gravitational (waterfalls), or nuclear?

Yo Aircooled. I'm with you. I just don't think the rest of them have grasped the idea.

As I see it the pads are set in the road and as a car passes over them the downward force compresses say air in the pad which is forced through a turbine spinning it to create power. This power could be used to light streets trafic signals etc.

You could even have a number of these along the road so they light lights only when they are needed ie a few hundred feet in front of you and then they switch off as the turbines stop producing power. Like the old Dynamo torches you use to be able to get pump the handle and you got light for a couple of seconds. At Least that was until your hand got tired! lol

what a wicked idea no real effect on the cars power useage as the downward force would normaly be lost in the earth.

It's a shame our Learned friends cant see that.

P.S. before anyone picks on my spelling i'm saving energy and typing fast as it's time to go home.

to the last Guest that replied:

I hadn't thought of that, I think you're point about the rolling friction all vehicles encounter when in contact with the road is very valid. All these pads do is cause the car to travel over a SLIGHT bump, increasing that rolling friction for just a small fraction of a second, as the pads are quite short. There's no way it would have a noticeable impact on fuel economy. Do you get out of your car and examine every ripple in the road surface and factor it into you cars' economy? Of course not.

So what even if rolling over a pad does cost me a FRACTION of a PENNY at the pump? I live near Toronto, and every morning and every afternoon, hundreds of thousands of cars travel the roads in and out of the city. Let's say I encountered 100 pads during my daily commute, and each pad costs me 0.1 cents at the pump. I doubt it would be even that much, but let's just say.

Well then, Big deal. That would work out to a big fat dime each day, and at 10 kilowatts a pass that would generate 1000 kilowatts per day, from EVERY ONE of those hundreds of thousands of cars!! That would be a HUGE help to the power supply, it would be very green power since the vehicles are being driven anyway, and all it would cost us is a dime each per day. I would call that the smallest tax for the biggest gain in history, so I'd happily cough up the dime.

Sigh.....

It appears that the bottom half of the Engineering class has shown up,,,, they are all screaming "No Free Energy".

The concept behind "free" energy is not the creation of new energy, but rather the conversion of existing untapped energy sources into something useful. Passive solar is a good example. The sun will shine regardless of whether or not you choose to raise the blinds and allow it to help heat your home. A river will flow over a waterfall regardless of whether or not you choose to stick a water wheel under it.

In this case in particular, automobiles are inefficient. The new hybrids are one example of how converting the wasted energy expended while sitting at idle can increase gas mileage.....

I see the flaw, clever engineers would arrange to have their wheels bounce over the uphill part of the bump and land on the downhill side = downhill coasting = free ride. This would have to come from somewhere, so other would have a harder hill to climb. In time the free loaders would ruin it.

Good Lord, man. With an outlook like that, why do you even get up in the morning? :)

I sleep so getting up is downhill. Then I get into my unpowered car to ride downhill to work. Walk downstairs to my desk. At days end I walk downstairs to my car and take a different route downhill to get home and downhill to bed.

You are making the assumption that a speed bump is involved here. Does anyone have a link to this device?

Consider the safety pad/zone pad/pressure pad that is placed in front of a machine for the operator to stand on. Splitting the pad up into relatively small cells and giving it added rigidity would allow you to create a wave effect as your car drove across with very little motion in the pad. If the pad is flush with the road, the resistance does not need to be greater than that of driving across asphalt (which is already a course surface). The pad could simply absorb some of the shock normally absorbed by your tires.

can you imagine the cost and maintenance of this device, compared to the energy out.

Let us say a tractor trailer loaded with 80 tones of live pigs locks it's brakes while on the pad, how much energy could you get from the squeal of the brakes +pigs?

And how strong would this pad need to be to avoid being ripped off the road?

You are going down>down>down

Watch out!

you goblin you, don't mind them, they just don't get it.

Hello Folks

Dropping 10kW each time you roll over one of these devices (as someone suggested) would be certainly be noticable, it'd be like hitting a brick fence.

The most probable reason for using such a device would be the convenience of not having to run a mains power supply to the traffic signs. It could be used at accident sites etc, hence the funding and government interest.

Jeff

The way you describe it, it's just a kind of a tax, shared by the gas of participating traffic, to run the sign system.

It would then advisable to install the thing on downhill going traffic to avoid additional gas-loss trying to climb the darn thing

Saw this one too. The posters who sed that it takes energy from your car engine are correct. On flat or slight grades where cars are accellerating, it amounts to a tax.

However, think of installing these pads in areas where people are braking all the time anyway. Typical installations could be on long down-grades or corners. The system would take energy that would be wasted anyway and improve safety by requiring drivers to brake less.

I know I am very late on this subject but pa lease give me a break toward all the negative comments towards aircooled , you wanna talk wasted energey with so called road friction, ok here's a real idea just install them on street hills hmm how many street hills are their in the world , tons