The sustained buzz surrounding plug-in hybrid technology remains one of the few bright spots for the auto industry these days, and while way greener than your average gas guzzler, plug-ins aren’t pollution free.
To recharge their batteries, they hook up to the nation’s overwhelmingly coal-powered electrical grid. But what if our cars could produce energy too?
They can, according to Israeli engineering firm Innowattech, developer of technology it claims can harness the energy expelled by any moving vehicle – cars, trains, airplanes – as they ride across any surface, and convert that energy to electricity, writes Daniel A. Begun at HotHardware.com.
Innowattech’s system uses piezoelectric generators, which when stuck under a surface, be it road, rail line or runway, get pressed down by the weight of the vehicles moving over them.
Piezoelectric material converts the energy from that pressure to electricity. The heavier and faster moving the vehicle, the more energy gets transferred to the generator, and the more electricity gets produced.
Innowattech says a 1-mile stretch of piezoelectric roadway could generate 0.5 megawatts (1 megawatt is enough energy to power about 1,000 homes).
Not everyone’s buying in just yet, though. Lloyd Alter of the environmental blog TreeHugger – published by the Discovery Company – calls the technology “highway robbery.”
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Green Technology by BusinessWeek