One of the thoughts I did have was the challenge of locating the horizontal turbins in the zone of the air distrubance. I immediately invisioned a close encounter between the turbines and an overheigtht load, like a piece of construction equipment on a trailer. ICC regulations would be a constraint.

Still love the concept.

As I said, you would be better off taxing the gas and reduce the driving in the first place than to implement this idea. However, if you could find a way to harvest energy that isn’t useful (like waste heat) then you would have a beneficial idea. This isn’t beneficial, even if it might be implementable. What you have here is an idea that lower gas mileage of cars, creating pollution and carbon dioxide in exchange for minimal energy generation.

Worse yet, this idea isn’t even innovative. I have seen it in many forms over the years, turbines near roads, pressure bladders under the roads to pump hydraulic fluid to generate power, etc. They all suffer from the same ignorance of the laws of thermodynamics. Just like perpetual motion machines, they get people excited but are fundamentally misleading. I for one don’t think that is inspiring for anybody.

The designer can’t be blamed for not understanding the physics behind the idea. But I do hope he learns the lesson that you don’t often get something for nothing.

Regardless of what people say it is a good idea. This project was done by Joe who’s background is in architecture. The time and everything that goes into calculations takes funding and money. So if someone wants to help fund this feel free otherwise it still is on the drawing board.

The initial thought is the key. Maybe above highways is not the best spot. Heck maybe if we turn then 180 and make them horizontial be better. If we can put a man on the moon, invent hybrid cars turn thermal energy leving a car into battery stored to improve gas mileage, or even invent the dam Sham Wow….trust me it is more than possible.

Don’t come to this forum and rip the project to shreds. Constructively criticize it think of ways that could make it better or even use the idea as a basis for a whole other idea.

This is what the basis of design whether it is architecture, engineeering, landscape, interior, industrial, etc. job to do. Come up with something that betters our life from scratch or build upon an existing product, theory, or thought.

I am not denying in anyway shape or form this project is fairly flawed. However, what I do recognize the power of the effort, thought, creativity, and all around innovation this could spark if we push the project in the right direction or inspire someone to reinvent the wheel so to speak. Don’t cut it down encourage it. Use this idea as a basis and platform for something else if your imagination allows you too.

If you had some idea to harvest waste heat (which really is waste) then I would listen. Otherwise you would get a much bigger benefit to society by just imposing a gas tax.

And to #18 (Alex) – I am a practicing engineer too, and you and your physics friends are wrong, regardless of how many degrees you collectively have. If you could find some steady wind (instead of turbulence) you could spin a turbine, but there would be no net gain in energy.

It is the initial thought that is 90% of the work. 5% is the engineering and the other 5% is fine tuning.

Then, shouldn’t an EROEI calculation (including the embodied energy) be trivial? Please provide one.

I am not denying this idea could use revamping to improve upon it, however, just the thought alone is the initial generating idea which is what a lot of people are overlooking with these project. It is the initial thought, likelihood of the project being tangible, and whether not it does more harm than good.

I think adding a fly wheel to it would solve the problem of keeping enough kinetic energy a lot of the time once their are large breaks in cars passing. Maybe they get place just after over passes so the pressure differential can cause more gusts than breezes. There are a bunch of different ways to do it. Key is having the initial thought.

If no one would have thought of the automobile there would not have been the first debate whether to be electric or combustion engineer. When Henry Ford started mass producing cars for Americans he actually had both electric and combustion engineers. As we all know what one and now everyone is trying to convert to “greener” cars. So as I said and thought. It is the initial thought that is 90% of the work. 5% is the engineering and the other 5% is fine tuning.

Great job Joe. We are still proud of you at the College of Design sir.