I'm seeing a lot of comments saying "Why not just put the turbines on the cars?" 🤦♂Well, if we are going that route, we can just skip some steps and make a gas-powered turbine 😀
But it would not have a transportation function. I always wanted to do such thing with my bike. Conventional bike generator takes power from your wheel and directly slows you down. A small windmill on the front bar could provide some power from the air that would otherwise just hit your body. I am still wondering how much sense the idea makes.
A few years ago I've already seen an idea of implementing this turbine at the train station platform. It solves your doubts, because the train is fast by its nature; the train is planning to stop anyway, so it won't be "taking extra energy from the train"; don't have to worry about the safety due to the proximity, as the train is moving on a rail (never get hit).
Why turbine when electric trains already have regen braking? A lot of energy is already returned to the grid when possible each time an electric train slows down.
The issue with using these with trains is that they would produce power very infrequently... depending on the line/system once every few minutes to over an hour between trains. Less frequently at night. If you need to get it close to the train, then most likely it will then be shielded from regular steady wind.
A fusor is something a high school student could build. Hell, if regulations allowed it, I'd build one with my students. But, like this windmill, it is horrendously inefficient. Energy harvesting is a nice idea, but in many cases the effort necessary to harvest waste energy outweighs the gain.
Muon catalyzed fusion falls into the class of cold fusion. And it happens all around you it's just exceeding rare and there aren't enough cosmic ray generated muons and muons generated from particle accelerators take too much energy for the number of muons and the number of fusion events they can possibly catalyze before decaying into simple electrons.
@@XerosOfficial Poe's law. Also, English isn't my native language and in this particular case, I wasn't completely sure if I didn't use the word "clear" incorrectly or something.
The energy generated by the turbine will never be greater than energy stolen from all the cars that passed it, making it more energy theft. Id rather have the concrete barrier which at least offers safety
2:43 I think putting them in between two opposing lanes it greatly reduces the effect of energy loss for the traffic (the traffic would have gotten more wind resistance of the opposing traffic anyway). So that setup might even reduce the opposing air displacement. Still looks legit to me.
Stronger still, lets put those turbines between two opposing trains, frequent and mostly very well timed opposite air displacement (at least in the Netherlands, our trains run on a very tight schedule). Edit; you can put them at a point where the train needs to slow down anyway, it'll loose energy quicker AND save the brakes..
Disagree: I get your idea and it seems intuitive, that its kind of "sucking" air from the oncoming traffic, thus apparentely reducing air resistance. BUT you forget that the turbine would have to speed up for that process in the first place, which it only does by using additional air drag from a theoretical "first" car. And even if those things were engineered in a way to optimally divert air flow from two opposing vehicles (which I think would be impossible, since the cars would need to align just in a perfect spot, whereas in reality the car timings are random in traffic), you still forget that the turbine itself is connected to a generator, thus taking energy from the system. What you're doing in a nutshell is, to take one form of energy (kinetic) and convert it back to electric, with never 100% level of efficiency, always a lossy process. If you were to install them on a mass scale, you'd get electric energy, yes. But you'd also increase overall fuel consumption by a fraction that will always be greater than the power you get out, under no circumstance you would get a net gain, always a net loss and in a perfect hypothetical world at best a net zero.
@@GreyHunter49 I agree100% I came to think of regenerative braking. This former mentioned premise is stupid. Apologies for my tangent mind. Thank you for making me see the error(s). I just think that conservation of energy should (maybe) be converted into something useful in (future) mechanics. Not into heat (ergo brake-discs). I thank you (and respect) your feedback, this was a brain-tangent for me.
@@GreyHunter49 You see correctly that turbines take energy away from the system and that randomness can cause problems. However, randomness can be greatly reduced by using a flywheel mechanism. And because freeways are quite rarely still for a long time, you can decrease the "turn-up" energy to a tiny fraction of total energy lost. Also, you neglect the fact that turbines aren't the only thing taking energy away. By placing the turbines there, you just make it visible. Normally, the wind meets in the middle and starts doing spins and other funny things, which heat up the air. This warmer circulating air then leaves through the top of the freeway and takes the energy with it. I don't think this is a discussion about having to put more energy in, it is just the matter of determining whether taking energy from the air makes more resistance than leaving the air as it is.
@@somtu3780 Yes, but still, a turbine itself is a resistance, especially since connected to a load (i.e. the generator). Even with a big inertia it still needs energy from the whole system and therefore creates additional turbulence/drag. The turbulence/"air spins" created by two opposing vehicles would therefore cause even more drag on formation. While for the right condition (i.e. two vehicles just in the perfect timing) it would maybe reduce the drag of those particular vehicles, for other cars it wouldn't. Consider that it wouldn't speed up in the first place if not for added drag/turbulence. I agree though, that theoretically you could harvest the energy, once the air itself got warmer. However the temperature gradient is probably so low that no heat exchanger (again rather low level of efficiency) could effectively get energy out of it. What I am usure about is whether you could harvest the energy from turbulent spins further away from the car, if they'd still impact car air resistance. My intuition tells me that it's the same still, only further away and therefore with fewer impact, but still the same (non-efficient) process. Very interesting discussion though.
I remember seeing these discussed decades ago and thinking they were a great idea. I've always wondered what happened to the concept. I'm happy to see them being explored, and although disappointed to learn that they're not effective, glad to be better informed.
I instinctively knew this would be practically possible, but exceedingly difficult to reach a net gain before someone crashes into it or there is some other mechanical failure.
Yeah, just look at how many people crash into guardrails and barriers on the highway. If you have delicate wind turbines alongside a busy road they'll get ruined far more often than they'd generate net power.
This is the big one for me. In the US, those concrete barriers, guard rails, and many other items get damaged on a fairly regular basis. Imagining having to replace not only the barrier, but like 2-3 turbines at ground level makes this idea a non-starter for me.
Yesterday while driving on the highway I noticed a bike on the back of someone’s car had one it’s wheels low enough and tilted just enough that the wind from under the car was spinning it continuously. Found it pretty interesting and so seeing this video uploaded today was quite a coincidence!
If the turbine in placed in the middle of the road it may prevent different lanes of wind from combining and interfering with each other, or prevent one lane of wind being pushed to the other side of the road by a breeze. This could improve the efficiency of cars as crosswind from oncoming vehicles could be a significant source of drag.
I was looking for similar comment. 👍. This guy concluded with one tini-wini experiment that vertical turbine are not that effective..!!! What a great way to prove your self an idiot. Ironically, he included a clip of vertical turbine which were about 4-feet long and were installed on median which got reqd air push from traffic from both directions. Plus in both directions ONLY buses were moving which are least aerodynamic and this circular motion of turbine will surely help rather than increasing air resistance.
Traffic turbines would also have a lot of the same drawbacks as solar roadways: high maintenance costs; frequent service interruptions due to accidents; heavy transmission losses; etc.
@@seasong7655 I was thinking more of all the dust and gravel that will be continually flung at them. I wouldn't be surprised if the blades had to be replaced every year.
@@seasong7655 Considering you'd need millions of them to get make any significant amount of power, you'd have millions of moving parts. Would be way better if you just made them way, way bigger so you'd need less of them and placed them somewhere naturally windy instead of highways, but this might just be a stretch, who knows?
@@seasong7655 Wind mills maintenance costs often stretch high enough that some projects get abandoned if they break and left standing, nonfunctional, as the cost of demolition is even higher. Putting them on a roadside would directly expose them to even more significant problems as others have said.
Fun little trial. But... in large applications, imagine all the chunks of turbines and the magnets all over the road. Be sure to have the windshield replacement company and tire shop in your contacts. And get all those randomly collected magnets off the underside of your car at least every 3000 miles.
My understanding of the point of these was for street lighting or as shown, tool booths. Not for like city power generation. Local generation for local use. Either way, solar and a small battery is probably better in almost every case this would be used.
I think these turbines could be well used near high speed trains in urban or wooded areas (aka areas of track that already get environmental air resistance)
@@J.RomeroLuna It's the idea to turn an asphalt road surface to solar cells, to use the road area for energy production. It works, yes, but the installation cost is like 10x higher than regular solar cells, the energy output is much lower as there is a thick glass/plastic surface on top and you can't put it at the optimal angle towards the sun, and the everyday wear and tear kills it within 5 years whereas regular solar cells hold 20+ years. It's as uneconomic as throwing money out of the window.
Yes the only reasonable idea was making a solar covered roof over the parking lots, instead of the parked cars being heated from the sun, you actually create a shade for the parked cars and use the energy to create electricity and also reduced emmisions and fuel consumption because people dont need to crank the AC to the max when they get back to the cas as the car is in shade so its not heated as extremely even though they would still get warm from the surrounding air but by far not as much as on a direct sun.
It heavily depends on the application. Sometimes people argue that replacing batteries is far more costly than having a solution like this (energy harvesters) for powering standalone wireless sensing systems.
These would definitely be most beneficial on downhill sections of road. But, emissions-wise, I can't imagine the manufacturing of these paying off for themselves in just a few years.
I actually worked on this idea for my interstate robotics competition, and got 1st prize in the segment, we actually tried to implement these on the tracks of high speed rail to generate electricity
@@----Jay---- i actually did that , we were getting a net gain of about 8-15% in efficiency depending on the weather etc. The total cpst of the project was coming slightly on the higher end , but with optimal use the cost was getting recovered within 9-13 months of usage, plus the maintenance was costing about 12% of the cost of the electricity it produced per month. Overall it was profitable in the long run (5-10 years). We realised that Implementing on roadside wasnt so much applicable and also wasnt efficient , but as trains carry high momentum,they aint gonna get slowed down that much due to the increased air friction of the turbines , plus there is no risk of a train colliding with it as it is on a roadside.
@@paramveersingh4730because national saw the flaw in the design you would be better off just running the turbine by fuel i.e. an electric generator running on gasoline. We already have those.
@@timetraveler_0 what? The whole point is for it to capture some of the energy of the moving air from the train, they could’ve just lost nationals because there was a better project
@@timetraveler_0 i guess you are smarter than the scientist, phd holders who were judges at state level competition who gave us 1st rank. You can read my comment above , we were getting significant amount of efficiency gain even under non ideal circumstances
Why nobody in comments realize that its basically harvesting the energy of cars, specifically the energy that they carry in their fuel tanks. You pay for it. It inefficiently translates to some wind turbine energy on road -> you pay more for gas. Whats the point when you can harvest a standard wind? The only practical application I see is some kind of low power remote road infrastructure that normally utilizes solar power.
Man I was just thinking this morning how I'd love to watch a video on a traffic turbine. :-P In all seriousness, this was an amazing, very interesting video, and sponsor free! It's a topic I never would have thought about, but you went above and beyond just showing it works by talking about its minor effect on car efficiency and the possibility of real world use. Excellent content!
The question to ask is not if this resistance is negligible or not. Whatever the amount of resistance it adds, the real question is : will the electricity created by those turbine be SUPERIOR to the electricity we could burn with the additional fuel that cars will have to burn (or electricity they will have to use in the case of EVs) as a consequence of this resistance ? In other words, will the added fuel/elecriticity used by the car be worth the energy generated, or wouldn't it be more useful to use this fuel/electricity directly ? The answer seems to point towards an obvious answer : those turbines are a bad idea.
They'd have more success developing a microgenerator that runs on sound waves. Traffic is loud, and developing a sound barrier that actually converts the sound into electricity will make cities quieter. It won't affect the efficiency of traffic like the turbines (in fact, creating walls to help direct the wind/turbulence in the direction of traffic will increase efficiency). And a sound power generator will be solid and durable and less prone to damage than a turbine.
@@westonding8953 Same tech as here, magnets passing over coils. Only with a sound generator you'd create a magnetic membrane that vibrates with the sound, passing back and forth over the coil. The amount of electricity generated by each one would be incredibly tiny, so you'd need to build thousands/millions into highway sound barriers to collectively generate a significant amount.
2:43 *NO WAY... when driving at high speed, they are likely to get crush 99% of the time; and if they are high up due to a concrete wall, the wall would be too close to vehicles causing danger to the trafic.* nonononononono...
That was a brilliant video! I think this could be very useful on the deep-level lines of the London Underground (Trains with flat fronts in claustrophobically small tunnels entering platforms at 30mph). Just place one at the beginning of every platform and then you could power... something...
I tried explaining this on Facebook a few years ago and was ridiculed until I deleted my comment. I'm glad someone out there understands. Wish I had this video to help explain back then. Thanks.
Could you repeat the experiment at the Sunset Max Station where it exits the tunnel? You would likely get a sustained rush of air that might travel more linearly, rather than spreading out?
@@Gatitasecsii Yep i can see this as an option maybe only for some off grid applications where solar isnt option and its not trying to pose as a form of green energy. Maybe some meteo stations or emergency lights or something of that sorts.
I almost didn't watch the video because I knew the end result that it would just be stealing the energy from traffic. Your test at the end with the superconductor was beautiful. Thank you.
Thanks for using our old Wind Turbine in such an amazing experiment! =) You rock and this is an incredible video showcasing the power of Wind! Well done!! - PicoSolutions Team
This might not be practical on freeways, but a larger, similar, possibly more sophisticated device might work if it were installed in the water, off shore, to harness the energy of tides coming in and out from the ocean to the shore. There should be enough energy to power more substantial devices. Thanks for the content. Keep up the good work. בס'ד
You mentioned that theoretically the lamp-posts and other structures on the side of the road also add resistance. So (depending on hom much is going on inside) you could place a turbine in all those necessary man-made objects nexxt to the road, like lamp posts or power lines. There would be other commplicating factors i'm sure, but that's an idea.
The effectiveness of the turbines depends on how much energy they're draining from the wind. That is, the worse it is for cars, the better it is for the turbine. It would probably use less fuel simply to use a gas-powered generator to create the same electricity.
Very clear, well done building it from basic parts, gets the point across in a way that even a 6yo would understand! It's really splendid how you keep the presentation respectful and level headed, and show the energy hypester startups for what they are.
In my opinion it would be great for this turbines to be used near lampposts or traffic lights as resistance is already provided by those and it will great for areas with less sunlight
Love that you're playing with superconductors.. handling it with bare hands... i remember as a child reading about superconductors and the dream at the time was to be able to create room temperature superconductors (get as close as possible to room temperature), as compared to near absolute zero superconductors....
I believe that traffic turbines are not a bad idea at all, but the question is: Would they make a significant impact? In my opinion, while these turbines may be suitable for smaller applications like traffic lights, their effectiveness in addressing big energy savings is unclear.
There's a reason wind turbines are built so big; Cost efficiency. Bigger turbines generate more power for the price than smaller ones do. There's no way the tiny amounts of wind generated by highway traffic would outweigh the huge amounts of wind created by nature. It's interesting to explore the idea, but only for scientific curiosity.
@@TheSeanUhTron Definitely quite true, but arguably the smaller ones are several times cheaper by comparison, so it's kinda like a quality vs quantity type deal. Just depends on how willing we are to maximize space for efficiency.
I think they should put light fixtures on top of these turbines, like on some highways, where the center barrier in between the two sides of the highway has light fixtures. Maybe the light fixtures can even run off of these turbines... who knows 🤷
Thing is that were using a very inefficient method of converting energy lost to friction into electricity instead of reducing the friction in the first place
it is interesting to point out that in the middle of the road, where in each side the cars are going in opposite directions, the reduction of the wind speed is beneficial for the reduction of the drag (the wind caused by a car in one direction slows down the car in the opposite direction), and also it would take energy from cars going at high speeds in both sides of the road
What if traffic turbines were only used in areas of deceleration? These turbines could be "deceleration tunnels" of sorts because they would increase the rate of deceleration.
This would make sense but what would be such areas of deceleration? Also it takes a bunch of energy to produce and maintain such generators while the lifetime is limited.
@@mostlyguesses8385 If the change of wind properties (i.e. different resistance) or the addition of several turbines next to the landing area causes just one accident...
the other big problem with adding these to highways is that you NEED to have an emergency/pull-over lane so you can only realistically put these on one side of the road, usually the inner lane. This also further reduces its efficiency because there are a lot of highways that ban large trucks from using the inner-most lane, so you wouldn't get the big boosts from them.
Also, imagine if these turbines lined up on a highway for miles. It would create a lot of hazard and inherently slow down traffic. Still, it was neat to see an idea like this tried out!
Why slow down traffic? I think that actually by having a wall dividing the two opposite directions could force drivers to only look in their line and make them pay more attention, resulting in (maybe) faster reaction time, therefore less traffic
@@somtu3780 I think they're talking about the psychology of driving. People tend to have a natural tendency to slow down in more cramped looking areas, and freeways by default feel much more open and safe for being speedy. It's basically subconscious for the most part.
This reminds me about something my dad was wondering. He was wondering if solar panels might have a negative effect because they do take some of the energy from the sun that would otherwise be converted to heat and perhaps other energy types. I figured that all the energy would be converted to heat at some point and it wouldn't matter, but it might be an interesting experiment if no-one has ever tried to see the other effects of solar panels in an environment.
I know solar panels are useful to reduce the need of AC, as they absorb and partially reflect solar energy on building in highly illuminated locations. Basically they shade the underlying building if placed on the house, at sufficient distance from the roof to let air flow underneath it.
Anytime a spacecraft uses a planet to slingshot so it can go faster that planet will rotate a little slower each time. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
I can imagine the application for this concept would be highly effective if it were to be used in underground rail systems, like the London Underground or the New York Subway. Down there stood by the platform, you can experience some tremendous gusts pretty much every time a train comes and goes.
Which is why they are looking at running trains through tubes under a vacuum. They can save more energy doing that than they could reclaim by using turbines next to the train.
Do you not understand the concept? It takes energy to accelerate the air. So if you use the accelerated air to power a turbine, then the train has to accelerate additional air.
Energy transforms - it doesn't appear or dissapear. As the energy transforms it dissapates into non-usable forms. Think a wheel on the road. Sure, you get kinetic enegy - but friction against the asphalt generates heat, which is energy effectively wasted. Every form of man made energy transformation has loss, and this subway-turbine mind experiment is no different. It is explained very practically in the video. From a little plastic fan to the largest turbine available, the laws of physics stay the same. Conversion has a cost. Nature supplies us with daunting amounts of energy which we apply in different ways, but as of 2023 there exist no pheasible way of energy converting without loss. The traffic wind turbine is an excellent thought-experiment to demonstrate this concept. That is why I enjoy the action lab so much. Simple lessons, that do not feel teachy nor patronizing, that are always backed up with a hands-on lab to SHOW the concept. He is open to "wrong" ideas and uses experiments to show why they do not work. His way of sneaking knowledge into the curious is gleeful at times. A Science Ninja!
This will work more effectively by the side of railway track if there is heavy traffic. That happens on local train routes-NY-NJ in USA, all local routes in Mumbai India.
I once saw a documentary about this traffic wind turbines a few years ago and thought of the exact same problem you just described. Thanks for "proving" my theory.
One thing I’ve noticed is that with cross winds my truck gets less fuel mileage than when there is a slight head wind, and so I think wind turbines would actually help my mileage by reducing the crosswind. But that is just my situation, and also it would make sense to not do this just from the maintenance perspective, there would be a lot to maintain
As soon as I saw these turbines in your video, the next second I thought, the inventors didn't understand there is no free energy. If they want to use the turbines to get electricity to offset CO2 that comes from the cars then this plan is like sitting on a sail boat and using a fan to blow into the sail. 😅
That's an awesome video. Not only it poses a valid question that is crucial to determining whether side road turbines have any place at all in the modern world but it contains a superb demonstration as well. The experiment set up is brilliant in its simplicity. Well done for bringing up this topic and showing what the problem is. There are many people out there that believe that free energy exists. What I would add is this: the principle certainly doesn't work when turbines are installed on the side of the road ,in my opinion, but what if they are installed on the median, between the two opposing traffic lanes? In that position there are two opposing air streams (gusts) generated by the opposing currents of traffic each of which impedes the traffic flow in the opposing direction. What if the turbines installed there were designed and implemented in such a way that the two opposing air streams could be directed upwards and in doing so, extract some of that energy and at the same time preventing it from obstructing the traffic in the other sense? Could that possibly work or would it, again, oppose both senses of the traffic?
and he dont make super long videos with the actual interesting part being near the end or super far into it. he summarizes his plan quickly, does it right away and summarizes the results and his thoughts and done. i hate the ones that make 30 minute videos and only 30 seconds of the interesting part being in the last quarter of the video.
Ideally it's between oncoming lanes as shown at 2:45 Since the wind coming off of one direction of traffic is opposite of the other direction of traffic. So slowing down the air would decrease the air speed and make the cars MORE efficient. Potentially.
The traffic technology that I think actually is useful is generators in the cars, for when they are going downhill to recapture some of the energy that was put in going up. This is already implemented in a lot of cars, right?
A generator is also a motor if you didn't know. Many people who are ignorant of such things keep going on about putting an alternator into electric cars.... Boggles the mind
I would invest here is why there is traffic also coming the other way but putting a barrier there will reduce the amount of turbulent air coming from the other side.
On a larger scale, I’m not sure the energy require to make and manufacture the turbines would net us more energy than was required to produce them. Though in some areas they might be good for powering things like street lights or traffic signals
The set up you made was based on the wind creating forward momentum which is different from the blowing air being a by product and a resistance to the moving object. You'd have to recreate a scenario in which the moving object is the creation of the wind. RC car with an ohm meter or something attached to detect the change in resistance.
I saw something similar on a highway in Italy. It was a way to recharge warning lights for a road work site. It was a spot that rarely gets sunlight and it was on a highway
I offered this idea to my local electric company ten years ago when attending a solar panel information on power generation. The guy didn't seem impressed when I brought it up to him. A busier highway would like my area should create a better airflow, even tunnels or bridge overpasses would help with focusing the air on the turbines.
I would have thought the car's energy produced by combustion is being transferred into pushing the air, the car is already passed when the turbine starts spinning capturing that energy. I don't see how that would affect or "steal" energy that wasn't already produced by the car.
It might be beneficial under overpasses. The pillars create turbulence and a series of turbines between pillars might actually help the air along. It might work especially well if the overpass has pillars between the high speed lanes.
2:51 maybe -0.001mpg or something for an object that size. Unfortunately when somebody sticks a rod in the ground and hooks it to a transformer near high-power lines they call it stealing electricity.
2:56 We're not TAKING POWER from the cars. The cars ARE NOT LOSING power as a result of putting this contraption on the side of the road. We're GENERATING POWER from the cars.
In the middle of the road, as the commercial ones shown, it does take from both sides while stopping the air from one side increasing the drag on the other side, so it's efficiency penalty could be canceled out, plus it's closer to the faster cars (but further away from big semis)
There's already a British start-up called Alpha 311. They have produced the concept of attaching the turbines to lamposts on motorways. That way, the majority of airresistance caused by the turbines was already there. On top of that, the majority of the infrastructure for feeding the energy back in to the grid is also already there. The other alternative is to put a battery into every lamp post and have it store the energy for night time, thus reducing the energy consumed by the light over night. Personally, I think they are a good idea, though it does depend on how much the turbine costs to produce versus maintenance and power generation.
I love this video along with all your videos just one thing, now that when ever in in a car or anything moving past a tree or road barrier I’ll know that it’s losing efficiency, I’ll never be able to sit in a car peacefully again.
Another approach could be having coils installed inside the roads, and cars having magnets at the bottom, positioned in a way that when a car is moving on the road, the magnet moves above the coils in the road.
Great Video! Whenever I heard of these, I immediately thought that it didn't make a lot of sense. If energy is spent making the wind, you wouldn't be able to get it back. At best, you would barely be able to break even as your project demonstrated.
I had an idea for a thermoelectric generator based on the siebeck effect, if you were to have two different metals on a structure thats sitting in water where the bottom half is finned and submerged and painted white to be cold, and the top half is painted black and easier to heat up, so using the temperature difference of the water vs dry air + the sun heating up the top half, I imagine you could make a railing structure along coastlines that generate power from the temperature difference
If you're using the sun already it inherently makes more sense to use the photovoltaic effect (as in a solar panel) though. It's cheaper, less complicated, and doesn't require water or waterborne structures.
4:38, if those turbines were spinning less air would be ricocheted off the turbines, furthermore the magnet still made more progress with the turbines there, then when there was no airflow at all. So I think there is probably a net power gain.
I’d prefer a overhanging roof. Add as much solar that you can, especially near exits to help power charging stations. Shade protects the road surface from some sun and rain. Less accidents, less air conditioning. Good stuff
wouldn't traveling at Mach 1 maybe in an ocean tunnels or the bullet trains not be elected by the turbines, since the vehicle would be faster than the air bouncing off the blades
You could minimize that air resistance installing the wind turbines only on the downhill sections of the highways to add the gravity force to the equation.
Maybe it's a pipe dream to get energy from the cars passing by, but the roads do get a lot of crosswinds, especially on bridges, and perhaps that is worth tapping. One idea is to make those concrete railings more sail-like and hollow so that the wind can be redirected to their interiors. Each railing can act as it's own generator, and they can be strung together like Christmas lights (in parallel) so that crashing into one or two wouldn't cause a sudden outage.
2:30 that or a way to control the airflow... maybe in a tunnel... one good place I can think of is a tunnel where trains pass, there will be a lot of air flow there
4:20 you could have made the experiment better if the plastic pieces representing wind turbines were not placed on the area where the fan also blows air. The plastic pieces force the blowed air to their sides (even reflect some of it back) and the main slowing force for the moving object might have come from that. If you place the "turbines" on the other side of the disk so that they are not in front of the fan, then you might get a different the outcome.
Excellent experiment. Although you should repeat it with a turbine around 3 feet tall if placed on the road in order to get the full effect of the wind created by the body of the vehicles. Yours being that low is missing most of the wind. Otherwise, if you could find a section of highway where the cement divider, or side cement barrier, has no shoulder, then you can place your current model on top of the divider or side barrier. They should work on sections of highways with no shoulders where vehicles travel at least 60mph, and especially so above 70mph. Spaced properly apart they won't make any difference on the vehicles.
02:45 /thread. THANK YOU for pointing this out. There is no such thing as free energy. These turbines cause aerodynamic friction. In aggregate, this causes traffic to be less energy efficient, and then you have losses on top due to entropy and conversion. Even if you can't measure it for a single car because the amount is so small, taken all together, the energy still comes from the cars driving past. These things are a horrible idea, unless you put them at highway exits exclusively (which is where cars always have to slow down either way).
I'm seeing a lot of comments saying "Why not just put the turbines on the cars?" 🤦♂Well, if we are going that route, we can just skip some steps and make a gas-powered turbine 😀
😂😂😂
In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
I suppose that if you just deployed them when you were braking, it might make sense.
But it would not have a transportation function. I always wanted to do such thing with my bike. Conventional bike generator takes power from your wheel and directly slows you down. A small windmill on the front bar could provide some power from the air that would otherwise just hit your body. I am still wondering how much sense the idea makes.
Hey, look! A mobile power plant.
A few years ago I've already seen an idea of implementing this turbine at the train station platform. It solves your doubts, because the train is fast by its nature; the train is planning to stop anyway, so it won't be "taking extra energy from the train"; don't have to worry about the safety due to the proximity, as the train is moving on a rail (never get hit).
Why turbine when electric trains already have regen braking? A lot of energy is already returned to the grid when possible each time an electric train slows down.
@@bltzcstrnx Yes and don't all train stations already have mains power?
The issue with using these with trains is that they would produce power very infrequently... depending on the line/system once every few minutes to over an hour between trains. Less frequently at night. If you need to get it close to the train, then most likely it will then be shielded from regular steady wind.
This is going to be helpful only when stopping
I can guarantee you that the turbine at that train station will never recoup its cost.
Can't wait for this guy to build a cold fusion reactor in his backyard.
Or get hit by traffic, apparently lol
he never will.
😆
A fusor is something a high school student could build. Hell, if regulations allowed it, I'd build one with my students. But, like this windmill, it is horrendously inefficient. Energy harvesting is a nice idea, but in many cases the effort necessary to harvest waste energy outweighs the gain.
Muon catalyzed fusion falls into the class of cold fusion. And it happens all around you it's just exceeding rare and there aren't enough cosmic ray generated muons and muons generated from particle accelerators take too much energy for the number of muons and the number of fusion events they can possibly catalyze before decaying into simple electrons.
The one spot there they could work is at intersections or speed limit reduciton points, since they help slow the car down
Excellent demonstration. I didn't expect something so "simple" (with the right tools) and yet so clear.
It’s plastic, so it’s not so surprising to be clear.
@@lucbloom I meant the magnet (clear - understandable).
@@AKuTepion I think ma boi was making a pun
@@XerosOfficial Poe's law. Also, English isn't my native language and in this particular case, I wasn't completely sure if I didn't use the word "clear" incorrectly or something.
The energy generated by the turbine will never be greater than energy stolen from all the cars that passed it, making it more energy theft. Id rather have the concrete barrier which at least offers safety
2:43 I think putting them in between two opposing lanes it greatly reduces the effect of energy loss for the traffic (the traffic would have gotten more wind resistance of the opposing traffic anyway). So that setup might even reduce the opposing air displacement.
Still looks legit to me.
Stronger still, lets put those turbines between two opposing trains, frequent and mostly very well timed opposite air displacement (at least in the Netherlands, our trains run on a very tight schedule).
Edit; you can put them at a point where the train needs to slow down anyway, it'll loose energy quicker AND save the brakes..
Disagree: I get your idea and it seems intuitive, that its kind of "sucking" air from the oncoming traffic, thus apparentely reducing air resistance. BUT you forget that the turbine would have to speed up for that process in the first place, which it only does by using additional air drag from a theoretical "first" car. And even if those things were engineered in a way to optimally divert air flow from two opposing vehicles (which I think would be impossible, since the cars would need to align just in a perfect spot, whereas in reality the car timings are random in traffic), you still forget that the turbine itself is connected to a generator, thus taking energy from the system. What you're doing in a nutshell is, to take one form of energy (kinetic) and convert it back to electric, with never 100% level of efficiency, always a lossy process. If you were to install them on a mass scale, you'd get electric energy, yes. But you'd also increase overall fuel consumption by a fraction that will always be greater than the power you get out, under no circumstance you would get a net gain, always a net loss and in a perfect hypothetical world at best a net zero.
@@GreyHunter49 I agree100%
I came to think of regenerative braking.
This former mentioned premise is stupid.
Apologies for my tangent mind.
Thank you for making me see the error(s).
I just think that conservation of energy should (maybe) be converted into something useful in (future) mechanics.
Not into heat (ergo brake-discs).
I thank you (and respect) your feedback, this was a brain-tangent for me.
@@GreyHunter49 You see correctly that turbines take energy away from the system and that randomness can cause problems. However, randomness can be greatly reduced by using a flywheel mechanism. And because freeways are quite rarely still for a long time, you can decrease the "turn-up" energy to a tiny fraction of total energy lost.
Also, you neglect the fact that turbines aren't the only thing taking energy away. By placing the turbines there, you just make it visible. Normally, the wind meets in the middle and starts doing spins and other funny things, which heat up the air. This warmer circulating air then leaves through the top of the freeway and takes the energy with it.
I don't think this is a discussion about having to put more energy in, it is just the matter of determining whether taking energy from the air makes more resistance than leaving the air as it is.
@@somtu3780 Yes, but still, a turbine itself is a resistance, especially since connected to a load (i.e. the generator). Even with a big inertia it still needs energy from the whole system and therefore creates additional turbulence/drag. The turbulence/"air spins" created by two opposing vehicles would therefore cause even more drag on formation. While for the right condition (i.e. two vehicles just in the perfect timing) it would maybe reduce the drag of those particular vehicles, for other cars it wouldn't. Consider that it wouldn't speed up in the first place if not for added drag/turbulence.
I agree though, that theoretically you could harvest the energy, once the air itself got warmer. However the temperature gradient is probably so low that no heat exchanger (again rather low level of efficiency) could effectively get energy out of it.
What I am usure about is whether you could harvest the energy from turbulent spins further away from the car, if they'd still impact car air resistance. My intuition tells me that it's the same still, only further away and therefore with fewer impact, but still the same (non-efficient) process.
Very interesting discussion though.
I remember seeing these discussed decades ago and thinking they were a great idea. I've always wondered what happened to the concept. I'm happy to see them being explored, and although disappointed to learn that they're not effective, glad to be better informed.
I instinctively knew this would be practically possible, but exceedingly difficult to reach a net gain before someone crashes into it or there is some other mechanical failure.
Yeah, just look at how many people crash into guardrails and barriers on the highway. If you have delicate wind turbines alongside a busy road they'll get ruined far more often than they'd generate net power.
*Theoretically* possible.
Practically useless.
It's impossible to get a net gain. You will always be getting less power out of it than the extra energy the car is putting in.
This is the big one for me. In the US, those concrete barriers, guard rails, and many other items get damaged on a fairly regular basis. Imagining having to replace not only the barrier, but like 2-3 turbines at ground level makes this idea a non-starter for me.
@@notcorrect In practice it would be like adding a small additional tax to the drivers.
it's like a little additional hidden energy tax for the drivers xD
Yesterday while driving on the highway I noticed a bike on the back of someone’s car had one it’s wheels low enough and tilted just enough that the wind from under the car was spinning it continuously. Found it pretty interesting and so seeing this video uploaded today was quite a coincidence!
A bicycle wheel is low resistance, so it wouldn't take must wind to spin it.
If the turbine in placed in the middle of the road it may prevent different lanes of wind from combining and interfering with each other, or prevent one lane of wind being pushed to the other side of the road by a breeze. This could improve the efficiency of cars as crosswind from oncoming vehicles could be a significant source of drag.
I was looking for similar comment. 👍. This guy concluded with one tini-wini experiment that vertical turbine are not that effective..!!! What a great way to prove your self an idiot. Ironically, he included a clip of vertical turbine which were about 4-feet long and were installed on median which got reqd air push from traffic from both directions. Plus in both directions ONLY buses were moving which are least aerodynamic and this circular motion of turbine will surely help rather than increasing air resistance.
Traffic turbines would also have a lot of the same drawbacks as solar roadways: high maintenance costs; frequent service interruptions due to accidents; heavy transmission losses; etc.
Not necessarily. It's only a generator and the blades. There's few moving parts, which means low maintenance costs.
@@seasong7655 I was thinking more of all the dust and gravel that will be continually flung at them. I wouldn't be surprised if the blades had to be replaced every year.
@@seasong7655 right... And then the enormous amount of infrastructure required to get that somewhere useful
@@seasong7655 Considering you'd need millions of them to get make any significant amount of power, you'd have millions of moving parts. Would be way better if you just made them way, way bigger so you'd need less of them and placed them somewhere naturally windy instead of highways, but this might just be a stretch, who knows?
@@seasong7655 Wind mills maintenance costs often stretch high enough that some projects get abandoned if they break and left standing, nonfunctional, as the cost of demolition is even higher. Putting them on a roadside would directly expose them to even more significant problems as others have said.
Fun little trial. But... in large applications, imagine all the chunks of turbines and the magnets all over the road. Be sure to have the windshield replacement company and tire shop in your contacts. And get all those randomly collected magnets off the underside of your car at least every 3000 miles.
My understanding of the point of these was for street lighting or as shown, tool booths. Not for like city power generation.
Local generation for local use.
Either way, solar and a small battery is probably better in almost every case this would be used.
I think these turbines could be well used near high speed trains in urban or wooded areas (aka areas of track that already get environmental air resistance)
You absolutely nailed it on this one. All these traffic wind turbine startups will go bust sooner or later, just like the solar roadway startups.
What are these solar roadways you're referring?
@@J.RomeroLuna It's the idea to turn an asphalt road surface to solar cells, to use the road area for energy production. It works, yes, but the installation cost is like 10x higher than regular solar cells, the energy output is much lower as there is a thick glass/plastic surface on top and you can't put it at the optimal angle towards the sun, and the everyday wear and tear kills it within 5 years whereas regular solar cells hold 20+ years. It's as uneconomic as throwing money out of the window.
@@ProjectPhysX never heard of it, sounds crazy expensive and inefficient, thanks for replying
Yes the only reasonable idea was making a solar covered roof over the parking lots, instead of the parked cars being heated from the sun, you actually create a shade for the parked cars and use the energy to create electricity and also reduced emmisions and fuel consumption because people dont need to crank the AC to the max when they get back to the cas as the car is in shade so its not heated as extremely even though they would still get warm from the surrounding air but by far not as much as on a direct sun.
@@J.RomeroLuna It was a meme a few years ago... If you search youtube for solar roadways you may find some content to appreciate for itst cringe
It heavily depends on the application. Sometimes people argue that replacing batteries is far more costly than having a solution like this (energy harvesters) for powering standalone wireless sensing systems.
Oh you were the lunatic on the freeway.
These would definitely be most beneficial on downhill sections of road. But, emissions-wise, I can't imagine the manufacturing of these paying off for themselves in just a few years.
I actually worked on this idea for my interstate robotics competition, and got 1st prize in the segment, we actually tried to implement these on the tracks of high speed rail to generate electricity
@@----Jay---- i actually did that , we were getting a net gain of about 8-15% in efficiency depending on the weather etc. The total cpst of the project was coming slightly on the higher end , but with optimal use the cost was getting recovered within 9-13 months of usage, plus the maintenance was costing about 12% of the cost of the electricity it produced per month.
Overall it was profitable in the long run (5-10 years).
We realised that Implementing on roadside wasnt so much applicable and also wasnt efficient , but as trains carry high momentum,they aint gonna get slowed down that much due to the increased air friction of the turbines , plus there is no risk of a train colliding with it as it is on a roadside.
Although we got 1st in the state competition but unfortunately did not win in the nationals
@@paramveersingh4730because national saw the flaw in the design you would be better off just running the turbine by fuel i.e. an electric generator running on gasoline. We already have those.
@@timetraveler_0 what? The whole point is for it to capture some of the energy of the moving air from the train, they could’ve just lost nationals because there was a better project
@@timetraveler_0 i guess you are smarter than the scientist, phd holders who were judges at state level competition who gave us 1st rank. You can read my comment above , we were getting significant amount of efficiency gain even under non ideal circumstances
Imagine connecting police lights to one of this turbines
So it's basically a very convoluted way of burning fossil fuel to generate electricity, but hey, at least someone else is paying for the fuel!
lol...
Why nobody in comments realize that its basically harvesting the energy of cars, specifically the energy that they carry in their fuel tanks. You pay for it. It inefficiently translates to some wind turbine energy on road -> you pay more for gas. Whats the point when you can harvest a standard wind? The only practical application I see is some kind of low power remote road infrastructure that normally utilizes solar power.
Thanks for your dedication and consistency. We wish you all the best.
We?
You, not we.
@@maanman3573 probably because the main comment is a bot, you can be mean to them it doesn't matter.
Well, instead of placing them for large scale, energy sources, make it more applicable for selective areas for like an application use
Man I was just thinking this morning how I'd love to watch a video on a traffic turbine. :-P
In all seriousness, this was an amazing, very interesting video, and sponsor free! It's a topic I never would have thought about, but you went above and beyond just showing it works by talking about its minor effect on car efficiency and the possibility of real world use. Excellent content!
The question to ask is not if this resistance is negligible or not. Whatever the amount of resistance it adds, the real question is : will the electricity created by those turbine be SUPERIOR to the electricity we could burn with the additional fuel that cars will have to burn (or electricity they will have to use in the case of EVs) as a consequence of this resistance ?
In other words, will the added fuel/elecriticity used by the car be worth the energy generated, or wouldn't it be more useful to use this fuel/electricity directly ?
The answer seems to point towards an obvious answer : those turbines are a bad idea.
They'd have more success developing a microgenerator that runs on sound waves. Traffic is loud, and developing a sound barrier that actually converts the sound into electricity will make cities quieter. It won't affect the efficiency of traffic like the turbines (in fact, creating walls to help direct the wind/turbulence in the direction of traffic will increase efficiency). And a sound power generator will be solid and durable and less prone to damage than a turbine.
Do we have such a technology yet?
Yeah, power from sound?
@@westonding8953 Same tech as here, magnets passing over coils. Only with a sound generator you'd create a magnetic membrane that vibrates with the sound, passing back and forth over the coil. The amount of electricity generated by each one would be incredibly tiny, so you'd need to build thousands/millions into highway sound barriers to collectively generate a significant amount.
@@jerotoro2021 the cost and carbon emissions caused to manufacture that would probably not exceed the gains.
@@westonding8953 The gain of being cool is worth any cost my dude
2:43 *NO WAY... when driving at high speed, they are likely to get crush 99% of the time; and if they are high up due to a concrete wall, the wall would be too close to vehicles causing danger to the trafic.* nonononononono...
That was a brilliant video! I think this could be very useful on the deep-level lines of the London Underground (Trains with flat fronts in claustrophobically small tunnels entering platforms at 30mph). Just place one at the beginning of every platform and then you could power... something...
I tried explaining this on Facebook a few years ago and was ridiculed until I deleted my comment. I'm glad someone out there understands. Wish I had this video to help explain back then. Thanks.
Could you repeat the experiment at the Sunset Max Station where it exits the tunnel? You would likely get a sustained rush of air that might travel more linearly, rather than spreading out?
Connect a water turbine to your rain gutter next!
Great experiment! "There's no such thing as 'free' energy"
yeah but there's also ways to increase efficiency by catching waste energy
@@bradhaines3142 This ain't it though.
@@Gatitasecsii Yep i can see this as an option maybe only for some off grid applications where solar isnt option and its not trying to pose as a form of green energy. Maybe some meteo stations or emergency lights or something of that sorts.
Rather than wind
we may use the traffic sounds to generate electricity for charging phones
I almost didn't watch the video because I knew the end result that it would just be stealing the energy from traffic. Your test at the end with the superconductor was beautiful. Thank you.
Thanks for using our old Wind Turbine in such an amazing experiment! =) You rock and this is an incredible video showcasing the power of Wind! Well done!! - PicoSolutions Team
This might not be practical on freeways, but a larger, similar, possibly more sophisticated device might work if it were installed in the water, off shore, to harness the energy of tides coming in and out from the ocean to the shore. There should be enough energy to power more substantial devices.
Thanks for the content.
Keep up the good work.
בס'ד
For tides, they use a system in which floats rise with the wave and then pull on ropes to turn a turbine when the wave falls.
Nice demo with the superconductor! Loved it.
You mentioned that theoretically the lamp-posts and other structures on the side of the road also add resistance. So (depending on hom much is going on inside) you could place a turbine in all those necessary man-made objects nexxt to the road, like lamp posts or power lines. There would be other commplicating factors i'm sure, but that's an idea.
The effectiveness of the turbines depends on how much energy they're draining from the wind. That is, the worse it is for cars, the better it is for the turbine.
It would probably use less fuel simply to use a gas-powered generator to create the same electricity.
but dont forget, those are mechanical parts, think about the cost! It'd hardly be cost effective even without considering the maintenance cost
@@tikki1411 are u the guy from csgo ttt?
A traffic turbine is technically power from petroleum and non renewable
Very clear, well done building it from basic parts, gets the point across in a way that even a 6yo would understand!
It's really splendid how you keep the presentation respectful and level headed, and show the energy hypester startups for what they are.
Just because it's a startup trying innovative ideas doesn't mean they're trying to scam people into buying something that won't be beneficial.
3:30 *casually busts out super conductor*
In my opinion it would be great for this turbines to be used near lampposts or traffic lights as resistance is already provided by those and it will great for areas with less sunlight
I thought about that. But even then, solar panels and batteries are probably cheaper.
Nuke is where the energy is at, everything else is stupid and a waste of precious resources
Love that you're playing with superconductors.. handling it with bare hands... i remember as a child reading about superconductors and the dream at the time was to be able to create room temperature superconductors (get as close as possible to room temperature), as compared to near absolute zero superconductors....
I believe that traffic turbines are not a bad idea at all, but the question is: Would they make a significant impact? In my opinion, while these turbines may be suitable for smaller applications like traffic lights, their effectiveness in addressing big energy savings is unclear.
There's a reason wind turbines are built so big; Cost efficiency. Bigger turbines generate more power for the price than smaller ones do. There's no way the tiny amounts of wind generated by highway traffic would outweigh the huge amounts of wind created by nature.
It's interesting to explore the idea, but only for scientific curiosity.
@@TheSeanUhTron Definitely quite true, but arguably the smaller ones are several times cheaper by comparison, so it's kinda like a quality vs quantity type deal. Just depends on how willing we are to maximize space for efficiency.
I never would have thought that something like a light pole actually affects the efficiency of airflow. Super interesting.
I think they should put light fixtures on top of these turbines, like on some highways, where the center barrier in between the two sides of the highway has light fixtures. Maybe the light fixtures can even run off of these turbines... who knows 🤷
That wouldnt be of benefit
Thing is that were using a very inefficient method of converting energy lost to friction into electricity instead of reducing the friction in the first place
I liked the way you designed your magnet model to be sensitive to the perturbations produced by the pieces of plastic you put around.
it is interesting to point out that in the middle of the road, where in each side the cars are going in opposite directions, the reduction of the wind speed is beneficial for the reduction of the drag (the wind caused by a car in one direction slows down the car in the opposite direction), and also it would take energy from cars going at high speeds in both sides of the road
What if traffic turbines were only used in areas of deceleration? These turbines could be "deceleration tunnels" of sorts because they would increase the rate of deceleration.
This would make sense but what would be such areas of deceleration? Also it takes a bunch of energy to produce and maintain such generators while the lifetime is limited.
The amount of energy produced would never be able to cover the cost of the turbines, let alone the cost of connecting them to the grid.
@@DoubleBob ... Turbines could be put by on airport landing zone. Or use cable like aircraft carrier. Of course it's not really worth it....
Or right beside a long downhill?
@@mostlyguesses8385 If the change of wind properties (i.e. different resistance) or the addition of several turbines next to the landing area causes just one accident...
the other big problem with adding these to highways is that you NEED to have an emergency/pull-over lane so you can only realistically put these on one side of the road, usually the inner lane. This also further reduces its efficiency because there are a lot of highways that ban large trucks from using the inner-most lane, so you wouldn't get the big boosts from them.
Also, imagine if these turbines lined up on a highway for miles. It would create a lot of hazard and inherently slow down traffic. Still, it was neat to see an idea like this tried out!
Why slow down traffic? I think that actually by having a wall dividing the two opposite directions could force drivers to only look in their line and make them pay more attention, resulting in (maybe) faster reaction time, therefore less traffic
no more than the supprts that hold up the armco do can that even be measured?
@@somtu3780 I think they're talking about the psychology of driving. People tend to have a natural tendency to slow down in more cramped looking areas, and freeways by default feel much more open and safe for being speedy. It's basically subconscious for the most part.
This reminds me about something my dad was wondering. He was wondering if solar panels might have a negative effect because they do take some of the energy from the sun that would otherwise be converted to heat and perhaps other energy types. I figured that all the energy would be converted to heat at some point and it wouldn't matter, but it might be an interesting experiment if no-one has ever tried to see the other effects of solar panels in an environment.
I know solar panels are useful to reduce the need of AC, as they absorb and partially reflect solar energy on building in highly illuminated locations. Basically they shade the underlying building if placed on the house, at sufficient distance from the roof to let air flow underneath it.
I would like to see a test with colored smoke to see how the air behave as it is moved by the car and make the turbine turn.
Anytime a spacecraft uses a planet to slingshot so it can go faster that planet will rotate a little slower each time. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
I can imagine the application for this concept would be highly effective if it were to be used in underground rail systems, like the London Underground or the New York Subway. Down there stood by the platform, you can experience some tremendous gusts pretty much every time a train comes and goes.
Which is why they are looking at running trains through tubes under a vacuum. They can save more energy doing that than they could reclaim by using turbines next to the train.
Do you not understand the concept? It takes energy to accelerate the air. So if you use the accelerated air to power a turbine, then the train has to accelerate additional air.
How much, is the question? Will it add up to disrupt the flow?
@@TimothyFish it’s very difficult to create a vacuum that big and there probably are safety concerns.
Energy transforms - it doesn't appear or dissapear.
As the energy transforms it dissapates into non-usable forms. Think a wheel on the road. Sure, you get kinetic enegy - but friction against the asphalt generates heat, which is energy effectively wasted.
Every form of man made energy transformation has loss, and this subway-turbine mind experiment is no different.
It is explained very practically in the video. From a little plastic fan to the largest turbine available, the laws of physics stay the same.
Conversion has a cost. Nature supplies us with daunting amounts of energy which we apply in different ways, but as of 2023 there exist no pheasible way of energy converting without loss.
The traffic wind turbine is an excellent thought-experiment to demonstrate this concept.
That is why I enjoy the action lab so much. Simple lessons, that do not feel teachy nor patronizing, that are always backed up with a hands-on lab to SHOW the concept.
He is open to "wrong" ideas and uses experiments to show why they do not work. His way of sneaking knowledge into the curious is gleeful at times.
A Science Ninja!
2:15 How about placing it near railway tracks? (Where the traffic is more). As trains are long & displace large amount of air.
This will work more effectively by the side of railway track if there is heavy traffic. That happens on local train routes-NY-NJ in USA, all local routes in Mumbai India.
I once saw a documentary about this traffic wind turbines a few years ago and thought of the exact same problem you just described. Thanks for "proving" my theory.
This might actually be worth it for things like traffic signs.
One thing I’ve noticed is that with cross winds my truck gets less fuel mileage than when there is a slight head wind, and so I think wind turbines would actually help my mileage by reducing the crosswind. But that is just my situation, and also it would make sense to not do this just from the maintenance perspective, there would be a lot to maintain
As soon as I saw these turbines in your video, the next second I thought, the inventors didn't understand there is no free energy. If they want to use the turbines to get electricity to offset CO2 that comes from the cars then this plan is like sitting on a sail boat and using a fan to blow into the sail. 😅
It's a truly terrible idea
That's an awesome video. Not only it poses a valid question that is crucial to determining whether side road turbines have any place at all in the modern world but it contains a superb demonstration as well. The experiment set up is brilliant in its simplicity.
Well done for bringing up this topic and showing what the problem is. There are many people out there that believe that free energy exists.
What I would add is this: the principle certainly doesn't work when turbines are installed on the side of the road ,in my opinion, but what if they are installed on the median, between the two opposing traffic lanes? In that position there are two opposing air streams (gusts) generated by the opposing currents of traffic each of which impedes the traffic flow in the opposing direction. What if the turbines installed there were designed and implemented in such a way that the two opposing air streams could be directed upwards and in doing so, extract some of that energy and at the same time preventing it from obstructing the traffic in the other sense? Could that possibly work or would it, again, oppose both senses of the traffic?
The thing I like the most about Action Lab is that it explains interesting things without being boring or with important missing parts
and he dont make super long videos with the actual interesting part being near the end or super far into it. he summarizes his plan quickly, does it right away and summarizes the results and his thoughts and done. i hate the ones that make 30 minute videos and only 30 seconds of the interesting part being in the last quarter of the video.
Yes
Ideally it's between oncoming lanes as shown at 2:45 Since the wind coming off of one direction of traffic is opposite of the other direction of traffic. So slowing down the air would decrease the air speed and make the cars MORE efficient. Potentially.
The traffic technology that I think actually is useful is generators in the cars, for when they are going downhill to recapture some of the energy that was put in going up. This is already implemented in a lot of cars, right?
A generator is also a motor if you didn't know. Many people who are ignorant of such things keep going on about putting an alternator into electric cars.... Boggles the mind
I would invest
here is why
there is traffic also coming the other way
but putting a barrier there will reduce the amount of turbulent air coming from the other side.
In the example you gave at 2:44 it can make sense. There the turbines are placed in between two lanes with traffic going in opposite direction.
On a larger scale, I’m not sure the energy require to make and manufacture the turbines would net us more energy than was required to produce them. Though in some areas they might be good for powering things like street lights or traffic signals
The set up you made was based on the wind creating forward momentum which is different from the blowing air being a by product and a resistance to the moving object. You'd have to recreate a scenario in which the moving object is the creation of the wind. RC car with an ohm meter or something attached to detect the change in resistance.
I saw something similar on a highway in Italy. It was a way to recharge warning lights for a road work site. It was a spot that rarely gets sunlight and it was on a highway
I offered this idea to my local electric company ten years ago when attending a solar panel information on power generation.
The guy didn't seem impressed when I brought it up to him.
A busier highway would like my area should create a better airflow, even tunnels or bridge overpasses would help with focusing the air on the turbines.
I would have thought the car's energy produced by combustion is being transferred into pushing the air, the car is already passed when the turbine starts spinning capturing that energy. I don't see how that would affect or "steal" energy that wasn't already produced by the car.
It might be beneficial under overpasses. The pillars create turbulence and a series of turbines between pillars might actually help the air along. It might work especially well if the overpass has pillars between the high speed lanes.
Yeah designing a lightweight turbine that’s meant to hold up a bridge will work real well 🤦
@@cracker1086 Who said anything about the turbines needing to hold up the overpass?
2:51 maybe -0.001mpg or something for an object that size. Unfortunately when somebody sticks a rod in the ground and hooks it to a transformer near high-power lines they call it stealing electricity.
2:56 We're not TAKING POWER from the cars.
The cars ARE NOT LOSING power as a result of putting this contraption on the side of the road.
We're GENERATING POWER from the cars.
In the middle of the road, as the commercial ones shown, it does take from both sides while stopping the air from one side increasing the drag on the other side, so it's efficiency penalty could be canceled out, plus it's closer to the faster cars (but further away from big semis)
There's already a British start-up called Alpha 311. They have produced the concept of attaching the turbines to lamposts on motorways. That way, the majority of airresistance caused by the turbines was already there. On top of that, the majority of the infrastructure for feeding the energy back in to the grid is also already there. The other alternative is to put a battery into every lamp post and have it store the energy for night time, thus reducing the energy consumed by the light over night. Personally, I think they are a good idea, though it does depend on how much the turbine costs to produce versus maintenance and power generation.
I think better yet would be a weighted piece of the road that utilize your vehicles like a double bump in the road and everybody does their part.
I love this video along with all your videos just one thing, now that when ever in in a car or anything moving past a tree or road barrier I’ll know that it’s losing efficiency, I’ll never be able to sit in a car peacefully again.
Another approach could be having coils installed inside the roads, and cars having magnets at the bottom, positioned in a way that when a car is moving on the road, the magnet moves above the coils in the road.
Great Video! Whenever I heard of these, I immediately thought that it didn't make a lot of sense. If energy is spent making the wind, you wouldn't be able to get it back. At best, you would barely be able to break even as your project demonstrated.
I had an idea for a thermoelectric generator based on the siebeck effect, if you were to have two different metals on a structure thats sitting in water where the bottom half is finned and submerged and painted white to be cold, and the top half is painted black and easier to heat up, so using the temperature difference of the water vs dry air + the sun heating up the top half, I imagine you could make a railing structure along coastlines that generate power from the temperature difference
A nice idea but I think this effect is far too inefficient to be actually usable.
If you're using the sun already it inherently makes more sense to use the photovoltaic effect (as in a solar panel) though. It's cheaper, less complicated, and doesn't require water or waterborne structures.
4:38, if those turbines were spinning less air would be ricocheted off the turbines, furthermore the magnet still made more progress with the turbines there, then when there was no airflow at all. So I think there is probably a net power gain.
I’d prefer a overhanging roof. Add as much solar that you can, especially near exits to help power charging stations. Shade protects the road surface from some sun and rain. Less accidents, less air conditioning. Good stuff
Loved the resistance demo that was interesting
If you install a wind turbine on your car, it will consume more fuel due to air resistance. Very interesting video, thank you for sharing.
wouldn't traveling at Mach 1 maybe in an ocean tunnels or the bullet trains not be elected by the turbines, since the vehicle would be faster than the air bouncing off the blades
You could minimize that air resistance installing the wind turbines only on the downhill sections of the highways to add the gravity force to the equation.
Maybe it's a pipe dream to get energy from the cars passing by, but the roads do get a lot of crosswinds, especially on bridges, and perhaps that is worth tapping. One idea is to make those concrete railings more sail-like and hollow so that the wind can be redirected to their interiors. Each railing can act as it's own generator, and they can be strung together like Christmas lights (in parallel) so that crashing into one or two wouldn't cause a sudden outage.
Here's a better idea ... use turbines to catch natural wind.
2:30 that or a way to control the airflow... maybe in a tunnel... one good place I can think of is a tunnel where trains pass, there will be a lot of air flow there
4:20 you could have made the experiment better if the plastic pieces representing wind turbines were not placed on the area where the fan also blows air. The plastic pieces force the blowed air to their sides (even reflect some of it back) and the main slowing force for the moving object might have come from that. If you place the "turbines" on the other side of the disk so that they are not in front of the fan, then you might get a different the outcome.
We could put it near the pedestrian crossings so that they slow the cars down when needed.
Damn this is practically investigative science journalism. It's so epic, glad I subscribed lol
You can use preexisting architecture to do this. When I was 14/15 I developed a prototype for one on traffic lights.
Excellent experiment. Although you should repeat it with a turbine around 3 feet tall if placed on the road in order to get the full effect of the wind created by the body of the vehicles. Yours being that low is missing most of the wind. Otherwise, if you could find a section of highway where the cement divider, or side cement barrier, has no shoulder, then you can place your current model on top of the divider or side barrier.
They should work on sections of highways with no shoulders where vehicles travel at least 60mph, and especially so above 70mph. Spaced properly apart they won't make any difference on the vehicles.
02:45 /thread. THANK YOU for pointing this out. There is no such thing as free energy. These turbines cause aerodynamic friction. In aggregate, this causes traffic to be less energy efficient, and then you have losses on top due to entropy and conversion. Even if you can't measure it for a single car because the amount is so small, taken all together, the energy still comes from the cars driving past. These things are a horrible idea, unless you put them at highway exits exclusively (which is where cars always have to slow down either way).