Kinetic energy capture coming to Hillside Burger King
A trip to Burger King in Hillside could soon help power the restaurant.
New Energy Technologies of Maryland plans to capture the energy of cars slowing down at a Hillside Burger King drive-thru, the first place it said it would field-test its MotionPower energy harvesting devices. The speed bump-like gadgets capture vehicles’ waste kinetic energy and feed it into the power grid.
Critics of kinetic energy harvesting have pointed out the energy and emissions lost during the deceleration and capture process. But New Energy Technologies plans to use the devices where vehicles are slowing down anyway — at intersections, toll plazas, rest stops, parking lots and neighborhoods with traffic-calming zones, among other places.
The company says it is poised to make a good-sized renewable energy contribution: With cars and trucks driving 6.3 billion miles a day, enough energy could be produced to power half a million homes, it claims on its website. Owners of the Hillside Burger King say 150,000 customers pass through each year.
We called New Energy Technologies last week to find out when they were going to start their testing and were not given a date, but will follow up and let you know. Recently, the company announced the devices would also be tested in the parking areas of two hotels in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:59 pm
This might be THE WORST idea I’ve ever heard of.
Fast foods, corporations and cars all rolled into one big part of the solution?
Please!
Why do you even circulate this crap?
August 1st, 2009 at 10:01 am
How is this a bad idea? Cars are not going away. It is ridiculous to think so. This country is 3000 miles wide and 1500 miles top to bottom (excluding the Hawaii and Alaska), and there is not going to be a means of traversing the area within that span by another more efficient means, so every method of conserving the energy from them is a step in the right direction.
There is no single solution to making this world work better, we have to innovate in every way that we can think of. We need to start finding energy in every corner we have never looked, in approaching our lives with far greater and deeper awareness.
This idea by itself won’t fix anything, but this idea and a thousand others like it will completely alter the way the world works. If you don’t like one idea, offer a better one, offer ten better ideas to replace it.