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Turning road traffic into electricity?

  2. vavavicky
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There is a gent in Oakland, California named Terry Kenney who is determined to turn road traffic into electricity.

'It took him eight years to get a working prototype, but now there's one working at the Port of Oakland which Kenney calls the "Dragon Power Station". Special plates are set on the road, and as big trucks drive over them (about 2,500 of them per day at the port), they compress a tank of hydraulic fluid under the road, which in turn creates a series of pumping actions that turns a generator to produce electricity.
By June, the Dragon should generate about 5,000 to 7,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each day, or enough to power up to 1,750 homes. Not bad for a prototype.'

Of course one has to recognize the energy is being generated by massive trucks that are simultaneously burning fossil fuels, but this is a step in the right direction. There is an ongoing conversation going- questioning the feasibility of this prototype and some prodding questions regarding the plates and the results Mr. Kenney first made public- join the conversation and submit questions on the link.

Also- if anyone happens to know Mr. Kenney's contact info- slap it down there in the comments section so we can find out more about this worthwhile project.
vavavicky

17 responses // Turning road traffic into electricity?

  • I've been kicking this around for sometime, but since I was unlawfully forced out of business and threatened with murder by corrupt California state employees in Los Angeles (that's another story entirely) - I've not been able to pursue any of my own ideas.

    The plates need to be placed on hills where gravity and the need to slow or control speed are a factor so as not to increase fuel consumption for the trucks to overcome the increased resistance of running over the plates.

    I proposed this and other ideas to a couple of our Congress people here in California sometime back. Seems I wasn't the only one with the idea.

    There are many other ways to use traffic to generate electricity easily enough.

    Eventually, we'll realize we don't need to oxidize anything to excite atoms in order to move things, do work - I'm referring to the internal combustion engine.
    VoyagerFilms
  • We might as well try to take advantage of the situation when we can't eliminate it (driving). Imagine putting this under every road, every highway, and what about runways? It would probably generate tons of electricity.
    NcSchu
  • ive been saying to my parents that we need to find a way of generating electricity from all the traffic, and they have been looking at me as if im a nut.

    but yeh, it is a great idea, and the thing about ''massive trucks that are simultaneously burning fossil fuels'' i mean, whether or not we implement this system of energy creation, the trucks will still be there, so we might as well do it.. so if we can put this type of thinking onto every road, once the car companies stop killing the electric car dream, we will be well on the way to ceasing the need for excessive fossil fuel use!

    go team!
    R7
    • R7
    • 4 months ago
  • We really need to get all the trucks off the roads. There is no reason to have them there when the same freight could be moved more efficiently by rail. Not to put truckers out of a job - they would still be required to deliver to and pick up from the rail roads.
    VoyagerFilms
  • Its great to see these amazing innovations happening. Without them I think we would be long gone. As for the trucks; it'd be great to have electric powered trucks that can generate electricity!
    ipodrulz
  • My father was always inventing and came up with an idea he got stuck on.. and I wonder if he had something. He kept saying that there is so much power in the wind that goes over cars that it should be harnessed. He put his hands out the window of the car and felt the power there. He kept trying to figure ways to harness it..like maybe a pinwheel type of device. He invented a net similar to the airbags that was tripped off in accident 40 years ago... Also low flow toilets in our basement which we always thought were very gross..but we would like them now.

    He passed away a couple of years ago and was asking engineers he knew until he got sick and passed at age 90.
    CarolynGillis
  • http://www.cfkassociates.com/about_tk.html
    I found this when I googled his name...
    hollyg
  • Brilliant!! This needs more coverage. Someone call Daily Planet!
    Elligirl
  • Anything you attach to a vehicle increases it's wind resistance or drag, proportionately increasing the amount of energy (i.e., fuel w/ an internal combustion engine) required to push it through the air.

    There is so much technology that has already been developed - that is curiously not in use.

    Do you know that due to the divots on golf balls reducing wind resistance or drag, they travel as much as three times the distance of a ball without the divots. The principal holds true on every surface subjected to a fluid flow - atmosphere being a fluid in the sciences. There is soooo much that can be done with this it isn't even funny.

    This can be applied to air craft, cars and trucks and trains for example for a similar reduction in drag.

    I submitted a variety of designs to a big company involved in aircraft flying Mach speeds and the sort - and around about a year later after nearly being forced into bankruptcy by "accounting errors" on the part of Wells Fargo, and another year later "framed" and in a legal battle with death threats.

    Not saying it's connected, not suggesting "conspiracy", not saying it isn't either, but the patents could be worth a few hundred million dollars - or nothing at all.

    We're at work on a documentary on the whole story. I'll let you know when it's done - because lord knows, I like to talk about myself, and if you've read my skill level self-assessment, you'll know how modest I am. LOL
    VoyagerFilms
  • Voyagerfilms,

    That's a very interesting idea....:)

    Don't worry about the Congressman...doesn't seem like too many of them are actually very creative or imaginative:(
    PatrickEdwardMurray
  • R7,

    I never understand folks:)

    Some time ago, I called my Republican Congressman, Jim Greenwood's office about Light Pollution.

    Seems that he and I have a mutual friend so I heard back from my buddy.

    They thought I was nutty...

    Well, turns out it's becoming mainstream.

    I know Greenwood is some type of Lobbyist.

    I think it's time to write him an e-mail...I don't expect an apology but I think it's time to show these Phoney Congressmen that they don't know anything anyway!
    PatrickEdwardMurray
  • Just looked Greenwood up and turns out he is President and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry in Washington D.C.

    Funny how these folks end up getting paid for things that they dissed early on in their careers?
    PatrickEdwardMurray
  • I look very forward to that story/documentary Voyager!
    twodee
  • Sounds like Enron!
    keeesha
  • What is nice about this is it is a step up in efficiency, and whether or not it requires trucks to burn fossil fuels, it could would take nothing to adapt this kind of electrical production to be supported by electric vehicles.
    Varex_Sythe
  • Yeah, I like to make money too! And save gas.
    keeesha
  • wow...
    unbeliveable
    TrafficKills

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