Eco Factor: Kinetic energy-harnessing speed bumps for London.
Recently we saw some students at MIT develop energy-harnessing shock absorbers that could generate electricity for your electric car whenever you hit a bumpy road, and today we have a similar technology that doesn’t generate electricity for your car, but from your car.
Peter Hughes is the brain behind the innovative speed bumps that can harness kinetic energy of cars passing over bumps. Whenever your car cruises over these speed bumps some metal plates are displaced and a system of complex electronics harnesses this and converts it into useful energy. The bumps cost anywhere between £21,000 and £55,000 depending on their size but Peter believes that the energy generated can bring that investment back in a year.
The Dark Side:
£50,000 for electricity-generating road bumps is just too much. Eco technologies like this are just made for developed nations, but it’s actually the developing and the underdeveloped parts of the world that are more in need of such technologies.
Via: GreenPacks/Guardian
