Fifty years ago the Beach Boys had a hit with Good
Vibrations. Now Los Angeles, home city of the superstar group, is trying to
figure ways to turn its immense traffic burden into clean energy.
One promising project involves generating electricity from
crystals embedded in LA's road surfaces from the vibrations of passing
vehicles. The process uses piezoelectric crystals, which produce tiny
electrical charges when compressed. By one estimate, cars running over 20km of
charged highway could generate enough power to run the city of Burbank, home to
100,000 people. For the trial, crystals set in devices the size of a small coin
will be laid in a highway just a few millimetres apart.
Over 18 months, the performance of the electric road will be
measured to get a feel for whether the technology can deliver. In Europe, a
different tack is being taken with electric roads, one designed to keep
electric cars charged as they roam the transport network. US chipmaker Qualcomm
has devised a wireless charger for electric vehicles, which lets battery-driven
cars collect their energy from cables laid under the road surface.
With heavy investment being poured into the sector, the
cable roads offer a solution to the imminent point when electric vehicle prices
fall to the level of fossil-fueled cars and there are too many electric
machines for top-up chargers.
The technology is currently confined to test tracks and no
one has solved the costly challenge of laying cables beneath motorway lanes
that are capable of delivering a charge to vehicles speeding over them. However,
industry enthusiasts say "watch this space". Edouard Fischer, a
director at Sanef, the company that operates France's toll motorways told a
summit on the future of the car that the industry had to think about new
things. "We must prepare for what will happen in 10 to 15 years."
Source: electroad.me / NZ Herald
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