Renewable Energy Concept
Have you ever been walking along a street and noticed the breeze created by a passing car? Probably. Ever wondered how much energy that breeze could generate? Probably not.
The answer: It’s extremely low, which is why the renewable energy concept described in this video is truly asinine.
Its developers claim, “It could generate as much as 1 KW of power per hour.” This is the equivalent of saying you’re driving at 40 MPH per hour. You know you’re in trouble when the developers don’t understand high school physics.
That is too heavy a structure to be effective at extracting energy from the wind. That said, a well designed vertical axis wind turbine model on the central reservation in areas with a decent mean wind speed might get an extra boost from the aerodynamic drag experienced by passing vehicles. It’s an open question as to if and how much extra aerodynamic drag passing vehicles might experience as a result of the aerodynamic effects of the wind turbine – probably a small effect but this aspect would need modeling as there would be no point in using such devices if the extra yield was not greater than increased drag.
This is true as well, though I’m willing to concede that this effect may be negligible.