Signal 2: Not letting energy go to waste
We complain that we need more energy, but the fact is that we are already generating it in copious amounts; it’s just that we are not using it productively. After my first signal, I continued exploring this. I thought that if so much energy was generated by just the movement of people, then cars might be able to do a lot more.
It turns out that such a pilot program has already been started by the California Energy Commission(CEC). The research behind this was inspired by Route 4 in Israel where a 10-meter asphalt patch covers the piezoelectric generators that turn mechanical energy(vibrations) into electricity which generate 2000 watt-hours of electricity.
California has some of the busiest freeways in the States and they plan to scale this project up to a point where the energy generated from 10 miles of 4-lane roads can power the entire City of Burbank, having 1,05,000 residents.
An average petrol car is only about 20–30% efficient while the rest is lost to friction and heat. While the friction generated with the road is not humongous, it is still sufficient to make an impact if you capture even a fraction of it and convert it into usable energy especially when it’s a matter of tens of thousands of vehicles daily. This project should be replicated across the busiest routes around the globe in order to make better use of wasted resources and produce green energy.
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