California eyes unusual power source: its gridlocked roads (xpost from CA group)

[KamaAina]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/California-eyes-unusual-power-source-its-9283647.php

All those cars on California's famously gridlocked highways could be doing more than just using energy - they could be producing it.

The California Energy Commission is investing $2 million to study whether piezoelectric crystals can be used to produce electricity from the mechanical energy created by vehicles driving on roads.

The commission is in the process of choosing a company or university to take on small-scale field tests. It will study how the small crystals, which generate energy when compressed, could produce electricity for the grid if installed under asphalt....

"It's not hard to see the opportunity in California," said Mike Gravely, the commission's deputy division chief of energy research and development. "It's an energy that's created but is just currently lost in vibration."

Might it be better to put them on busy railroad tracks like BART or the NYC subway? Much less surface area to cover, and lots of weight going over them.

[ColemanMaskell]

1. Good thinking.

[KamaAina]

2. A good place to start: the weigh stations that are on every major highway

Heavy trucks go through them at slow speed.

[hunter]

3. Um, what?

That would increase the rolling resistance of the road surface and make vehicles use MORE energy!

The only possible use I can see for this technology is to power road sensors and the like.

[cprise]

4. Exactly. This looks like junk science/engineering.

Like the idea of putting small wind turbines next to busy highways. It saps the energy exerted by vehicle motors, reducing their MPGe. And without special classification and accounting it would considered theft.

So, something is off-kilter at the California Energy Commission...

"No longer is driving just the act of using energy. Maybe it's also part of the process of generating it," said Paul Bunje, a scientist at a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that funds technological developments and the former founding director of UCLA's Center for Climate Change Solutions.

...and UCLA, too. And the CA renewable energy fund will piss away $2million on trash because of physics illiteracy.

There is only one condition under which this kind of energy capture could sort-of be considered legitimately useful: On segments of roadway where drivers will almost certainly be trying to slow down, such as on the downslope of steep hills. As you recover potential energy from the descending car, the wear on its brake pads is actually reduced. But that's only "sort-of" because cars with regenerative braking would be getting robbed of useful energy.

Actually, the idea is bad enough that it should be classified alongside perpetual motion machines.

[drm604]

6. Yeah, this is pretty bad.

I'm guessing that the "California Energy Commission" consists of political appointees rather than scientists.

[cprise]

5. Highway Robbery: Piezoelectric Roadways

http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/highway-robbery-piezoelectric-roadways.html

BTW, this tech scam is patented by some company in Israel named Innowattech. So this $2million spent-for-nothing will be a nice gift for them.

Seriously, if you can't even get a state Energy Commission to consider the conservation of energy (one can simply ask, "Where does the energy really come from?&quot before spending money then they should be replaced with people who are less stupid or corrupt.

[kristopher]

7. Are asphalt roads highway robbery?

Roads compress and flex as a matter of routine, don't they? So wouldn't you say that short of a careful study proving a significant change in in the road's structural rigidity - one that would negatively affect the economics of driving a car - that the idea on it's face is (if not a game changer) valid and potentially exploitable as one tiny wedge of the move away from carbon?

These might inform the issue a bit:
Special Issue of International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
International Conference on Electronic Design and Signal Processing (ICEDSP) 2012
Energy Harvesting using Piezoelectric Materials
http://research.ijcaonline.org/icedsp/number4/icedsp1037.pdf

Piezo-Smart Roads
Priyanshu Kumar
Electronics Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh, India
http://www.erpublications.com/uploaded_files/download/download_08_07_2013_08_37_20.pdf

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. But Innowattech has gone into liquidation

From your 2nd link:

This revolutionary new surface uses piezoelectric crystals
embedded in the asphalt to generate up to 400 kilowatts of energy from a 1 kilo meter stretch (a design, devised by Haim
Abramovich, a developer at the Teknion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel) enough to run eight electric cars.
...
Prof. Haim Abramovich and Dr. lucy edery azulay “Innowatech Energy Harvesting Systems” Technion city, Technion I.I.T,
Haifa 32000, Israel.

But from the SFGate article:

Most notably, an Israeli company whose pilot test attracted global attention in 2009 is now in the process of liquidation, and the project was unsuccessful, according to the Israeli roads authority.
The company, Innowattech, also had plans to install its devices under a section of Italian highway but pulled out, according to Salini Impregilo, the Italian construction company involved.
It was the Israeli project that inspired California lawmaker Mike Gatto, a Los Angeles Democrat, to ask the energy commission to fund pilot projects in California.
Gatto submitted a bill to the Assembly in 2011 and has lauded the Israeli project in several news releases since.
He told The Associated Press that he didn't know the project apparently failed.

[kristopher]

9. Apples and oranges

The topic I addressed was the "stealing energy" meme, which appears to be bogus. I don't see the link between that and your post.
From the literature this appears to be a technically valid concept. Your point seems centered on proof of concept and economic viability, which I agree is unproven.