What niggles ME is that over 11 years ago when I worked for a company that made pay-and-display machines, I made a proposal for a very similar device so that ticket machines could be located in areas without an electricity supply, and after being pooh-poohed by the management, I never investigated the patent situation on the concept!
That company already manufactured rising-kerb security barriers, so it wouldn't have taken a great deal of modification to try-out the basic idea.
:-(
In my opinion, if the entry and exit lanes and the positioning of the 'plates' is designed correctly, the energy is indeed pretty-much 'free':
Site the plates so that they extract energy from the car at a point where the driver would have his foot off the gas and likely be braking, and there's no additional fossil fuel used - the plates just relieve the car of some of the energy its brakes would otherwise have converted into heat.
Mind you, for a few ticket machines we wouldn't have needed anything like the kilowatts of power that are being mentioned in this article.
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What niggles ME is that over 11 years ago when I worked for a company that made pay-and-display machines I made a proposal for a very similar device so that ticket machines could be located in areas without an electricity supply
That would seem a reasonable use for that sort of thing....
In my opinion if the entry and exit lanes and the positioning of the 'plates' is designed correctly the energy is indeed pretty-much 'free': Site the plates so that they extract energy from the car at a point where the driver would have his foot off the gas and likely be braking and there's no additional fossil fuel used - the plates just relieve the car of some of the energy its brakes would otherwise have converted into heat.
My last point, indeed - if the "road" surface affects drivers in an unexpected way (they didn't expect to slow down, or they did but the "plate" was non-functiuonal) there could be consequences.
Note, there's only "free" energy in the circumstances you mention, i.e. from slowing the car down (if the driver accelerates to avoid slowing down, the energy isn't "free".).
I still think it's blinkin' silly in this application.
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Metals plates & rainwater - bad news to motorcyclists. Won't go there then.
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Their energy statement is nonsense. KWatts are not energy. They are an indication/measure of the rate of flow of power!
You measure energy by the power flow over a period of time. Zero time, zero energy.
A convenient way of expressing it is in Kilo-Watt-hours. One KWH is equal to 1 KW flowing for one hour, but it could equally be, 0.5 KW flowing for two hours, or 10KW flowing for a tenth of an hour, etc. In this case the flow is spasmodic and to get a figure you need to integrate the contributions (add them up).
There are many other energy units that can be used, calories, joules; to name just two.
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"Sainsbury's believes will produce about 30kW of energy an hour ? about 25 times the amount consumed by a typical household and enough to operate checkouts and other power-hungry devices such as freezers."
- Sounds like a load of cobblers, 30kW an hour is not a valid measurement by any stretch of the of the imagination. Maybe they could install Open Hat blacktooth on customer's mobile phones which could be used like bluetooth but with a range of up to a mile and a speed of broadband Web 2.0 and actually beam the energy to the checkouts using MMS?
Edited by Hamsafar on 15/06/2009 at 20:33
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why cant they put solar panels on there vast roof spaces?
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The trouble is with solar panels as in Photovoltaic cells is that they take 25 years to produce the amount of electricity it took to make them including obtaining the materials. They rarely last that long, so are only of use in remote areas where this is offset by not needing to connect them to a grid.
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The trouble is with solar panels as in Photovoltaic cells is that they take 25 years to produce the amount of electricity it took to make them including obtaining the materials.
Sainsbury in Barnstaple, North Devon had not long finished a huge extension when they ripped of say 15-20% of the slate roof to install panels of some description. I guess Solar. Great saving eh!
MD
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Given that Sainsbury's probably attracts the kind of customer who gets a little kick out of being SEEN to do something for the planet this is most likely a gimmick.
The same people buy organic milk, not realising that the special organic feed concentrates for the cattle often have to be hauled huge distances to the farms, thus negating any envirtonmental benefits because it adds to the "food miles". However it gives them a nice warm glow when they pour the stuff over their organic muesli to think that they're doing their bit for the environment.
Cynical; moi? ;-)
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I am quite convinced more energy could be gathered from the constant screaming and tearing round the aisles of badly parented small children at weekends than by the bump bump of cars entering and leaving the carpark. They ought to set up some huge instore treadmills first...
Even better, a treadmill for slow and dimwitted customers, whereby failure to produce means of payment (where DID I leave my wallet/purse/store/Nectar/debit/credit card??? It´s not as though I've ever been shopping before...) within 15 seconds of being asked for it requires the customer to walk briskly against a moving belt on the floor. 30 seconds after that, the customer and his/her infernal shopping is hurled to the back of the queue to start all over again.
Sorted.
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Of course they could also install small generators on the trollies, with a battery to store the power generated as you push them round. When you park the trolley, the battery is discharged into the shop's grid.
Has the advantage of making you consume more energy as you shop, so you get hungrier, so you buy more, so you have to push the trolley even harder, so you....you get the picture.
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Round our way, the cows, organic or not, tend to eat grass:) If winter feed is needed, no doubt it has to be hauled either way. Or they could use the old standby. Hay I believe it's called, as well as other arable crops. Nothing special about it. In contrast to other feedstuffs.
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In winter dairy and beef cattle will be fed concentrates in addition to forage.
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Oldnot bold supplies the correct answer, although the concentrate (or "cake" as it is known) is fed all year round in varying quantities. If dairy cows were fed on the diet you prescribe, milk would be a scarce and expensive commodity!
You're quite right, there is nothing special about it; that's why they need the concentrates!
Edited by Harleyman on 16/06/2009 at 21:46
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To get the organic label, at least 60% of the feed has to be grass derived. Concentrates are needed where cheap high output products are involved. It does cost more for organic, as the yields are lower, as are the amounts of dead animals ground into the diet, the antibiotics etc. But, if you feel its all the same, that's your decision. although I don't think you have looked into this a great deal.
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I should point out that I earn my living delivering the stuff, organic and otherwise. Organic dairy farmers use concentrated feeds; fact. It costs more because the ingredients cost more, and also for the reason I first commented on.
The concentrate is a feed SUPPLEMENT; of course they eat grass as well! As for the "dead animals" and antibiotics that's just veggie propaganda and you know it.
My original point (to steer this back to a motoring perspective) was that the amount of excess mileage involoved in the transportation of organic feeds, and indeed the finished product, reduces the environmental benefits of going organic.
Received wisdom from farmers BTW is that the organic bubble has burst now that there is less disposable income to go round.
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The trouble is with solar panels as in Photovoltaic cells is that they take 25 years to produce the amount of electricity it took to make them including obtaining the materials.
Can you provide a pointer to details on that? As far as I'm aware, they produce between about 4 and 8 times the energy used to produce them (over a 20-year period).
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www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/studies/re...l :
"According to Giacomo Bizzarri of the University of Ferrara and Gianluca Morini of the University of Bologna, the amount of electricity that can be saved over the lifetime of a domestic PV panel is about 2000 kWh per square metre for thin film modules, with an expected life of 20 years, single-crystalline silicon devices with an anticipated lifespan of 25 years fare better producing 4400 kWh per square metre. However, the initial costs are about 2.5 times the value of the electricity produced, the researchers say."
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Surely it is theft?
Like extracting a free tow by holding up a giant magnet like Buster Keaton.
You can be prosecuted for extracting power from radio waves.
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You can be prosecuted for extracting power from radio waves.
Huh?! Please elaborate!
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>> You can be prosecuted for extracting power from radio waves. Huh?! Please elaborate!
I stole some radio waves once but I think I got away with it.
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Isn't that how a crystal radio works by using the energy in the radio waves (note:- i'm 27 and haven't ever built or used one but saw one on TV last year and my dad told me what it was and how it worked).
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Must be true it comes from the Daily Telegraph!
tinyurl.com/electricity-stealing
Most stories are myth and hearsay, but anybody who has worked in a high power RF enviroment will have seen the flourescent tube demo. ( Where a hand held tube is illuminated by just waving it around in the air!)
p
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I walk to my local supermarket-will I be required to jump up and down on the plate?
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It's certainly true, and people have been prosecuted.
My point was that by analogy, extracting power from someone else's process that just happens to be there and tappable is a bit dubious.
If I put a rolling road ouside my house so that everyone driving past had to use a few extra revs to turn my generator, I'd have free electricity, stolen from passers by.
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They could apply a similar idea to gyms,all those people pumping,pedalling,rowing etc. could generate enough power to run the lighting,then they would actually be doing something useful when they workout.
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all those people pumping pedalling rowing etc.could generate enough power to run the lighting then they would actually be doing something useful when they workout.
I suspect it would be quite a feat if most of the people who use gyms did something useful while they were at work! ;-)
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Anyone who has the energy to go to a gym, or do sport, is not working hard enough at work.
That is my motto.
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