really stupid

That's because Putin is in complete control of the country. He's a very strong leader. Very strong. And he rides a horse and wrestles bears with his shirt off so you can see his muscles. Obama doesn't ride a horse. Jerry Brown doesn't even wrestle bears.

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Grizzly H.

Oh boy.. this was in our local paper about a week ago.

I did push some numbers around.. a 30 ton truck coming down from the (perhaps)

10 meter high bridge depending on timing there was ~1kW potentially available.

Still it's silly.

George H.

Indeed, it's energy theft. To the extent that it worked (which I'm doubtful of) it would have to increase rolling resistance, causing the vehicles to use more fuel.

Sylvia.

At last the USA can have it's own popular strong man.

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John Devereux

There are many areas where government spending was required to get an idea off the drawing board and into prototypes. I am not opposed to the idea in general. That said, I think this is not a winning idea.

I recall visiting the patent office once when they were having an exposition of inventors. One included a similar idea involving walkways. In that case it used levers to turn a generator or something similar and the inventor didn't seem to understand this would tax the walkers. But if the walkers wanted exercise, then we have truly free power. So stair steppers in gyms need electric generators which get used mostly during peak energy demand so it's a win-win! Maybe the exerciser could get paid for their efforts at the prevailing energy rate. Likely not enough to even buy a coke at the end of an exercise session, but by the end of the month it might be enough to buy a burger.

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Rick C

How do you know what people do behind closed doors?

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Rick C

html

ssion lines are still intact.

sts on wasting 2M dollars, perhaps we need to get rid of him.

y proposal. It's a simple matter of conservations of energy: nothing waste d and nothing gained. The drag created by such device would increase auto fuel consumptions and create more smog. It would cost motorists more money than a simple road tax. Please save the 2M dollars from the tax payer.

ut

be

it

ive. If it's cost effective, then auto makers will put them in without gov ernment intervention.

m t 2M public money to figure out if it works.

someone reasonably fit can probably do something like a few watt/kg for hal f an hour on a bike

not making the generator is probably going so save more energy than it'll make in its life time

-Lasse

Not if the loss of energy to the device is no more than it would be to the soil it replaces. Roads flex under the weight of cars and *trucks* and transfer that flex to the soil. As it goes deeper it spreads out and dissipates. In theory, the energy device could replace part of the soil and take no more energy than the soil would dissipate.

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Rick C

Seems to me that the device would have to extend down to the bedrock, otherwise it will still transfer energy to the soil, and then steal some as the vehicle moves away.

Sylvia.

Californians often have trick shocks in their cars that make them jump. And otherwise, maybe encourage them to have sex while waiting for traffic to move, and harness the energy when the car's a'rockin. Remember, Californians don't screw in light bulbs - they screw in hot tubs and traffic jams!

I have an idea for an energy saving device. A front-mounted telescoping tether with a strong electromagnet that attaches to the truck in front of you. Then turn off the engine and have him pull your car. Cars behind you could do the same and the truck could pull a whole train of cars!

Paul

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

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Rick C

Wrong way round. Put the piezo generators in the car and use the power to run an electric motor. Adjust speed using the radio volume control.

Cheers

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Syd

Here ya go.

Stick a whole load of rare earth magnets removed from old hard drives, directly to the front of your vehicle, with a computer controlled "keeper" plate in front to vary the amount of flux flowing forward, that itself governed by strain gauges measuring the attraction between your car and the one in front.

How much attraction can you have to save say 5% to 15% off your fuel bill without the fellow in the car in front noticing?

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Adrian C

Nonsense. Government is great at picking and backing losers, though.

The solar panel plant in Buffalo is certainly a great investment (someone is getting rich, anyway). Of course Cylindra was such a winner, too.

Not just government, of course. Industry is pretty bad too.

Just consider how many acquisitions go titsup, and how many revolutionary new products sink withoot trace.

Common sense is not all that common.

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RoRo

Sure, but they're not playing with my money and distorting the entire economy doing it.

Who cares? It's their money. Lose, go broke. No problem. The government just prints more money.

When they finally get a system to harvest the energy from stationary vehicles, someone will notice that they collect more energy from moving vehicles, so they might just put their effort into improving the transport system so gridlocks do not occur.

That would be an advantage.

Meantime one could probably save as much energy as you would ever harvest just by turning off the engines in a few vehicles, while they wait for the traffic to start moving again.

But no, that would make the harvesters unhappy.

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Regards, 

Adrian Jansen

Yes they are:

1) they waste the money they suck out of the government; see any number of IT failures in any country you choose.

2) their going bust f*ucks pension plans, and the government (a.k.a. me) has to bail them out

So, I pay /twice/ when large companies go bust. Firstly in a reduced pension, and secondly to bail out the pension fund.

TANSTAFFL, in government or in private ownership.

And what about "too big to fail" companies? When /they/ fail the government prints more money. Damn the large companies.