I Like this Idea: Electricity from gravity. DUH why didn't I think of this !

phys.org...

The technology consists in a system that integrates a ramp-step (elaborated with polymeric material similar to the ones used in the manufacture of tires) that elevates to five centimeters above the level of the street. When receiving the impact of the vehicle, this ramp exerts pressure over a bellows.

This artifact contains air that is expelled at a certain pressure through a hose; later, this element travels to a tank where it is compressed and relaunched to an electricity generating turbine. Macías Hernández also said that the accumulation of electric energy is proportional to the flow of cars over a determinate spot; however, in places with low vehicular flow, several ramp-steps could be placed to multiply the impact of every individual vehicle.

I could see this working in cities and slow speed traffic If the bellows idea provides enough for the turbines ? If you think about all the forces wasted without effort to recover them this might be a grand plan. Better than ocean wave electric generation IMO .

reply to post by 727Sky


I like it too. A lot better than this. Which they want your money to help produce.

Sort of 'inappropriate technology'.

May as well do the same thing on every urban sidewalk, and doorway.
Every major highway and thoroughfare could have these or something similar installed every several car lengths for a steady production.

individually such small scale devices might not mean much, but, cumulatively, and over time, any major urban area could very well cut down on cost of energy consumption.

It's a nifty idea.

Cost to implement might cause some civil budgets to pass on implementation until they have real world success stories to model, but, this could very well be something worth watching.

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


You've made a good point about adapting this potential technology to pedestrian traffic. Not only would it help increase energy efficiency in urban areas, rural towns and villages that have far fewer automobiles could stand to benefit as well.

reply to post by 727Sky


I have often pondered on the use of ambient energy. Back when I authored threads, I had several that discussed ideas similar to this.

One that I still think should be explored is the usage of nanogenerators that can utilize various frequencies such as Schumann Resonance, which generate minute amounts of electricity individually. But if you had billions embedded within building materials......

The problem is, it takes some power/fuel to compress this air. Too little power sapped from a car and the device cost outweighs the benefit. On a sidwalk too much power being sapped from the feet will make it feel like walking in sand and people will avoid it.

It would be better to have rollers connected to a generator at stop lights and have people not holding the break down. Idling wastes fuel if you are not moving.

Its not really free energy though.

but its not free energy, its using kinetic energy supplied by your car powered by fuel....

It makes the vehicles burn more fuel than you get back from the system. By far.

XL5
The problem is, it takes some power/fuel to compress this air. Too little power sapped from a car and the device cost outweighs the benefit. On a sidwalk too much power being sapped from the feet will make it feel like walking in sand and people will avoid it.

It would be better to have rollers connected to a generator at stop lights and have people not holding the break down. Idling wastes fuel if you are not moving.

Its not really free energy though.

If you use nanogenerators, you are essentially just capturing kinetic energy that is already being sent through the asphalt/concrete. The wind hitting the side of your house could be another source. All the traffic noise if you live in urban areas would be another source.

There is no shortage of ambient energy. From the audible to the completely inaudible. We just need to get the correct wavelength in the capacity off the generators levers to be able to tap into that ambient energy.

Bedlam
It makes the vehicles burn more fuel than you get back from the system. By far.

you may be correct but in city traffic I find it hard to believe a five centimeters above street level would out weigh the cost of fuel burn. If that is the case from the little electric speed bumps then IMO pave the whole street with the cells in a continuous smooth overlay.

I would think Improperly inflated tires sage more than 5 cm together and while true there is some fuel efficiency loss it is not noticeable to most drivers . Guess we will have to wait and see who installs this setup which may be Mexico city and look at the numbers it produces.

Bedlam
It makes the vehicles burn more fuel than you get back from the system. By far.

Thank goodness at least one person can see through the charade, which your reply implies but doesn't spell out specifically that the power comes from fossil fuels (if that's what powers the vehicles), and not from gravity.

So it's not energy from gravity, it's energy from fossil fuels and the drivers filling up their gas tanks are paying for it.

727Sky
you may be correct but in city traffic I find it hard to believe a five centimeters above street level would out weigh the cost of fuel burn.

Bedlam is absolutely correct and that is true whether you find it hard to believe or not.

Don't feel bad, I find it hard to believe that Squares A and B are the same color, but it's true. It's a good thing we can use science to tell us what's true even when our brains find the truth hard to believe.

Guess we will have to wait and see who installs this setup which may be Mexico city and look at the numbers it produces.

What's that going to tell you? Just the output. You still won't quantitatively know the input and how much extra fossil fuels people burned to create that energy. You can easily calculate that or measure both in a lab today without waiting. Even if the process was a generous 50% efficient, you've still got twice as much energy going in as is extracted, and I'm reasonably sure it's much lower than 50% efficiency.

reply to post by 727Sky


I think the mention of the piezoelectric tiles is really ridiculous--unlike people, cars don't ambulate.

When a person walks, muscles push against the ground moving a person forward and lift the leg (kinetic energy) against the pull of gravity and the elevation achieved is gravitational potential energy. When the foot hits the ground, normal force resists it and some energy is lost to friction, compression of the surface material, etc. Some energy is recovered in the leg by compression of the muscles (soles of shoes, etc). Cars don't move by lifting the tires and putting them back down.

As one poster remarked, there is a limit to something like the floor tiles as well but as long as the contact forces between the foot and the tiles are equivalent to those of walking on a normal floor, there's no extra energy required by the person walking to generate electricity.

A car requires additional energy to travel up a gradient, even a small one like a speed bump. Here's an idea to harvest waste energy from traffic that I think is better than this by a mile (pun intended):

Why not place wind turbines on the sides of busy interstates? Ever have a tractor trailer roll by you at 65 mph? It displaces enough air that in close proximity the flow of air can knock you down.

Similar ideas have been around for a long time. The exact same scenario has been proposed using piezo technology as a direct generator of electric power, then storing the electricity. Doesn't really matter, as long as there is a way of reducing to some degree the need for fossil generated electrcity at the power stations.

Ford motor company developed a car in the 1930's(?)
that levitated by placing magnets spaced apart in the
road and magnets in the car essentially doing away
with fossil fuels.

Why don't we have them today?

No money for TPTB in 'free energy' devices!

reply to post by Bedlam


Not sure I see why. Presumably the extra fuel consumption would be occasioned by the car engine having to compensate for the momentum lost to the obstacle that is formed by the 'lip' created when the bellows compresses under its wheels?

This could be avoided by installing the bellows on a downslope. It would then act as a kind of moving step to lower the car from one level of the road to the next. Any momentum lost would then be made up by gravity acting on the car.

Bumpy ride though.

Astyanax
reply to post by Bedlam

 

Not sure I see why. Presumably the extra fuel consumption would be occasioned by the car engine having to compensate for the momentum lost to the obstacle that is formed by the 'lip' created when the bellows compresses under its wheels?

Thing is, these ideas are not a waste of time, so I can see where you are coming from. The OP's link says nothing about free energy, it's just to strive against unmitigated waste, and to help toward a more sustainable energy use. Absolutely nothing is a free exchange of energy. Debating over the 5 centimetre ramps is nit picking when nobody is talking about free energy anyway. There are probably more potholes, and uneven surfaces on roads, safety ramps and junction reminders, than there would be of these ramps, all wasting energy with no return whatsovever.

Come to think of it, there is probably far more energy waste in the amount of food dumped in the world.

There is a very, very SIMPLE rule in physics:

*** Energy cannot be created, it can only be transformed ***

This alone is enough to disregard the entire idea, as "nicely" it may be described in the post.

Whatever the mechanism, whatever the practical implementation, when the system "produces" energy this energy comes FROM SOMEWHERE, it is taken from somewhere. In this case, the cars obviously who need to provide this energy.

Now..someone tell me where the benefit is? Because rather than "magically" having a system in place which would in some mystical way create free or cheap energy, the energy is simply created out of the pockets of the drivers who use this system! From their money they need to spend on more gas, that is.

NoRulesAllowed
There is a very, very SIMPLE rule in physics:

*** Energy cannot be created, it can only be transformed ***

This alone is enough to disregard the entire idea, as "nicely" it may be described in the post.

Whatever the mechanism, whatever the practical implementation, when the system "produces" energy this energy comes FROM SOMEWHERE, it is taken from somewhere. In this case, the cars obviously who need to provide this energy.

Now..someone tell me where the benefit is? Because rather than "magically" having a system in place which would in some mystical way create free or cheap energy, the energy is simply created out of the pockets of the drivers who use this system! From their money they need to spend on more gas, that is.

It's not about free energy, it doesn't even mention free energy.

reply to post by NoRulesAllowed

There is a very, very SIMPLE rule in physics:

*** Energy cannot be created, it can only be transformed ***

This alone is enough to disregard the entire idea, as "nicely" it may be described in the post.

Simple it is, but it doesn't apply here.

This isn't free energy; it's an attempt to be more energy-efficient, to get more useful work out of an internal combustion engine without having it burn any more fuel. It may turn out to be impracticable, but it is not absurd on the face of it.

reply to post by Astyanax


Exactly.

Basic science.

But on the other hand, things like wave power are
legitimate ways to 'capture gravitational potential'
(the sun is the main source of energy for Earth, but
the moon's tugging on the Earth gravitationally
does cause waves).

It certainly is just providing a preferred path for
entropy, but that's pretty much how directed
energy production works.

KPB