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New Jersey Turnpike As a Power Source?

Posted by kdawson on from the woke-up-this-morning-got-myself-a-generator dept.

New Jersites writes "New Jersey, home of the eponymous Jersey barrier, is considering wind turbines powered by the breeze generated from traffic on the Jersey Turnpike. The wind turbines won't be built on the side of the highway. They will be built inside — what else? — the Jersey barriers. By replacing sections of solid concrete with Darius turbines, they might be able to harvest enough energy to power a light-rail line."

4 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Drag? by arivanov · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Absolutely. This is not a free energy at all. What I find more interesting is that the system uses the same turbine design as Quiet Revolution turbines. AFAIK this design is still under a couple of patents so they will have to shell out a very sizeable license fee. Pity Quiet Revolution is not public, this would have been a good time to play with its shares.

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/
  2. Drag's not the full story. by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The energy must come from somewhere, so it must be ultimately coming from the gas powered car. However, if it is being taken in the right way it is energy that would otherwise be converted into waste heat/sound.

    In other words, if the car drag is causing a wind of sorts, that wind would normally dissipate its energy as friction against the surfaces it blows along - causing the energy top be lost as heat. Now we're just providing an alternative energy soak that extracts the useful enrgy.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  3. Re:The barriers are supposed to be solid. by mrchaotica · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wouldn't be worried about the turbines failing to separate the cars (assuming they were built solidly); I'd be worried about cost. Jersey barriers are surely much cheaper and more durable than turbines, and I think the cost of turbine repair or replacement after the inevitable accidents would be enough to make this proposal uneconomical.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  4. Re:Drag? by dbIII · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Yes, insightful for a given value of insight - however moving the turbines a short distance away from the things instead of doing something stupid will give you both the wind to spin the turbines and no extra drag on the vehicles. Ducting is also possible to get a lot of wind to the turbines if they are far away without reflecting much back on to the vehicles.

    I know it's not exactly high school stuff but if you think of it as simple 2D water flow it still is not difficult - the ripples from an obstruction only travel a finite distance upstream.