Slashdot Mirror
New Jersey Turnpike As a Power Source?
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."
I'm not a physicist, but won't the turbines cause a drag effect on the cars, resulting in the cars burning more fuel? Is so, aren't they just moving the problem from one place to another? There's no such thing as free energy, right?
Truly curious - I'd love an explanation if someone knows why this isn't the case.
Finally something I have to be proud about in NJ besides the Devils....
y replacing sections of solid concrete with Darius turbines, they might be able to harvest enough energy to power a light-rail line.
That's boring. Wake me up when they can power a light rail gun.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Oh wait, there's a traffic jam!
This might work until somebody decides to use the barriers for their original purpose(separating traffic). When the Powers That Be realize that the only thing separating two lanes of traffic moving at each other at 140 mph is a few turbines they may decide that this is a Bad Idea.
If you put a light rail right in the middle of a high traffic freeway how do people get on or off? Fly?
**Life is too short to be serious**
...this will create a good excuse when pullled over for speeding . You were only trying to do your part to power the light-rail line.
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.
How outlandish would it be to embed efficient magnets within Interstate roadways while installing similar magnets within cars and trucks? This is just a late-night idea but couldn't that generate a sizable amount of electricity? Perhaps it could be realistically considered once cars are fitted with a workable system for auto-navigation, a system that might require the installation of specialized equipment in existing roadways and therefore offer a justifiable economic solution (as well as an opportunity); one of those kill-two-birds-with-one-stone approach.
Before everyone decides to start bashing good ole NJ. I would like to point out that the actual article says nothing about the NJ Turnpike. The current concrete barriers are called Jersey barriers, and all we have here is a new barrier with turbines...thus the name "NEW" Jersey Barrier.
Wrong answer. Too many little turbines not generating enough energy each. Worse, gearing a number of turbines together when they don't get uniform wind pressure means some of them are just sources of drag.
Progress in wind turbines has been through scaling them up. The 50KW - 100 KW machines of the 1970s never paid for themselves. Somewhere above 500KW, the economics start to work, and farms of megawatt and up machines are quite profitable. Here's General Electric's 2.5 megawatt wind turbine, which is typical of current large wind turbines. Total worldwide wind generation capacity is about 75 gigawatts. Wind power is now a serious energy source because, at last, the units are big enough to generate serious power.
This is a serious question: since virtually all energy comes from the sun, and we have an extensive infrastructure for transporting electricity as well as extensive technology for storing electricity, why are we wasting time on road-side turbines and hydrogen fuel? Obviously, you make adjustments for average cloud cover, available real estate, etc. But it seems silly to me to research hydrogen or whatever scheme Shell and BP (who are completely unbiased research firms) propose rather than leverage existing technology until they provide a real solution.
Wouldn't it make sense to say that all parking lots should be covered at least partially by solar panels? This would not only add juice to the grid but help reduce the local heating problem with asphalt, reduce temperatures inside cars (thus reducing energy used to cool them), and provide a convenient place to plug them in.
Would it cause to much pollution to make that many panels? Are electric cars truly that much more expensive? Or are lobbyists once again trying to ruin our chances of survival so we are nearly forced to keep spending money at their gas/hydrogen/soybean oil stations?
But the cars are the wind generators, not the turbines. If a turbine generated any significant wind itself, then it wouldn't be a very effective generator, would it?
The stream of cars generates an air motion along their path. Like geese (though through a different mechanism) the leading cars reduce the amount of air drag experienced by following cars. This improves their fuel economy. (The phenomenon is even more pronounced with semi-trucks. "Drafting": following another truck closely to save even more fuel, is a common practice.
A smooth central barrier separating the two directions of traffic improves the situation by letting the two sides of the freeway have separate airstreams traveling in opposite directions. The barrier reduces energy lost to turbulence, improving the airflow.
Replacing the barrier with turbines will suck energy out of the air streams on both sides to generate electricity. The result will be to decelerate the airstreams that had been giving following vehicles an advantage.
While some of the power comes from captured crosswinds and some from capturing energy that would have been lost to turbulence anyhow, a large portion of it comes from increasing the drag on following vehicles by putting friction on the "following wind": Fuel economy for the trailing vehicles in a bunch is reduced to something near that of lone or leading vehicles.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
By the way:
There's PLENTY of power to be had WITHOUT disrupting the traffic airflow and canabalizing the fuel of the cars.
A freeway or toll road is a clear area and there will be plenty of winds ABOVE it that are essentially unrelated to the airflow near the ground. They're also faster - with energy going up with the CUBE of the airspeed.
By building a wind turbine that starts significantly above the ground the turbines can avoid disturbing the flow at traffic level while collecting plenty of energy.
Also: A Darrieus wants linear airflow THROUGH it. It would be great for salvaging power from crosswind, but rotten for snagging power from opposing winds on the two sides of its axes.
And they're a major hazard: Darrieus turbines fly at tip speeds of about 7 times the wind speed and their narrow blades experience drag loads about equivalent to a wind barrier with a cross-section the size of the swept area - reversing twice per rotation. This has tended to produce fatigue in their materials, sometimes ending with the mill coming apart in high winds some years after construction, with massive pieces flying around at a goodly fraction of the speed of sound.
A savonius-derived design (like the Sandia configuration) would be a better choice. Though it only collects about 2/3s as much power for a given swept area, it rotates at about an eighth the speed and has broad blades that can be much more solidly constructed.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This week I noticed a set of four more conventional wind turbines had appeared on a new building on the A406 North Circular Road opposite Ikea. If the intention is to use the breeze generated by cars to power them then they are doomed as the traffic generally crawls past there. Given all the stuff I've read about the viability of wind turbines in built-up areas I wonder how much good they will do anyway, but it's still a very visible bit of greenwashing.
My first thought on seeing a picture of the NJ turbines was that they would have to be increasing the fuel consumption of passing cars, if only marginally. Perhaps they could be placed where people should be slowing down, e.g. off ramps and junctions, to actually slow the cars a little. I had a thought ages ago that junctions should be on raised ground so that cars are naturally slowed as they approach uphill and gain easier acceleration as they leave downhill.
As has been pointed out already this is a stupid idea. It would make much more sense to put the turbine on the train so it's forward motion can generate electricity. That way the train is self powering. Much greener.
Lewis Black recently suggested a novel approach on The Daily Show - power cars on cognitive dissonance. Celebrities weren't using those brain cells anyway, so any extra drag you put on 'em won't slow their hypocrisy down one bit. A win-win solution for everyone, actually...
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Try again! You're right it's a modification to a Jersey Barrier, but this Jersey Barrier is in NJ on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Summary:
*New Jersey*, home of the eponymous Jersey barrier, is considering wind turbines powered by the breeze generated from traffic
Article:
*New Jersey* highways to be used as a power source, Governor made an offer he couldn't refuse
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
"Tonight at 11. Commuters leave roadways to ride new rail. Not enough power to run the rail."
If they banned television remotes and wired everyones couch to the grid, then every time someone got up to change the channel they would generate power.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Have you seen that particular "systems analysis"? I have. It's so blatantly flawed that the flaws are almost certainly intentional.
There was that one problem, where mob bosses were thinking "hey what can we do to make more money" . . . that problem was solved pretty well I think.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I love how everyone views NJ as Newark and Jersey City, boned on their experiences trying to get in/out/across via the Tunpike. Nobody seems to realize close to half of NJ is still forrested. NJ is kind of funny that it ranges for inner city, to suburbs, to abosulute hicks-ville. Of course most people I know out of state think it's all pavement jungle until they come to visit.
Wouldn't the cost of installing and maintaining all of those turbines far exceed the cost savings of the electricity generated?