Posts Tagged ‘energy from sleeping policemen’

There has been a lot of development of simple ways to generate electricity from things that we do every day. There are fabrics that can be made into clothes that generate small amounts electricity every time the cloth moves as the wearer goes about his daily life.

Another chance to recover wasted energy is in the doors to building where people are constantly passing through. Revolving doors with constant traffic would be an ideal way to generate a little electricity by using the revolving motion to drive a generator.

A recent development that is beginning to appear on our streets is the electricity generating speed hump. Speed humps were originally designed to slow traffic. Sometimes referred to as traffic humps or sleeping policemen, they have appeared on many roads in our towns and cities and every time a vehicle is slowed as it goes over them some energy is lost.

The energy is from the tiny amount of wasted fuel that is needed to drive the vehicle up and over the speed hump. It may be a tiny amount for each vehicle but on busy roads with constant traffic that adds up to a significant amount of energy in a twentyfour hour period.

Electricity generating speed humps are designed to absorb that wasted energy and convert it into electrity which can be used to power street lights and other street furniture at no cost other than the costs of installation.

This is a small step on the road to reducing our energy consumption but millions of small steps taken around the world could make a huge difference to our energy use and the carbon released into the atmosphere.