Exploiting the traffic of cities to realize energy? It is possible thanks to piezoelectric materials put under the roads where vehicles pass every day. The so-called “piezoelectricity” is the capacity to produce electric current when subject to a mechanical stress, i.e. the movement of vehicles on the road. The company Innowartech, which launched the innovative idea, is now making test road in Israel.

The innovative system, relying on a “parasitical collection of energy”, could highly contribute to solve the energetic global crisis in an environmental-friendly way. Indeed, normally the total amount of mechanical energy produced by millions of vehicles moving on the roads all over the world is practically wasted .

A coat of piezoelectric crystals which produce electricity when these are crushed is installed under the first asphalt layer. Piezoelectric generators collect energy and accumulate it on batteries located along the road edges. This energy could be used by people, houses, offices etc.

According to Innowattech, the electric generator Piezo (the IPEG) should be able to produce 200 KWh, thus a four-lane road produces about 1 MWh of electricity, enough to supply energy to 2500 families. Considering that Israel has about 250 kilometers of roads where it is possible to install this type of technology and considering the traffic volumes and their increasing trends, we can adfirm without any doubts that a great amount of energy could be produced in this way.

The same technology could also be applied on runways in airports and on railways. The system could also provide real-time information on weight, frequency and speed of vehicles passing over and also the distance between them.

The system was revealed for the first time last year, and it is now one of the really exciting projects the bigger corporations for green power and the environmental organizations are examining and evaluating. What it is most interesting in this energy production system is that, in spite of other systems, this one does not require to build new infrastructures (i.e. poles for the production of wind power, solar panels).

Lucy Edery-Azulay, the project manager, says that the technology is based on piezoelectric materials which allow the conversion of mechanical energy exercised by vehicles’ weight in electric power. Therefore, this way of producing energy relies only on existing roads and exploits mechanical energy that otherwise would be unused and wasted.

Related articles

• http://it.emcelettronica.com/produrre-elettricit%C3%A0-mentre-si-guida-utilizzando-i-materiali-piezoelettrici http://www.innowattech.co.il/

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According to the project description, Contrail turns your bicycle into a paintbrush leaving a temporary mark of your bicycle’s path.

You attach it to your bike and as you ride, it leaves a colorful line behind you. When many people ride with Contrail, the result is a colorful path which illustrates where bicycles are riding. We envision artists, non-profits and community organizations using our product to create art, promote their events and celebrate shared spaces.

Contrail uses washable, non-toxic chalking fluid made from eco-friendly pigments. Like a jet’s contrail, the lines on the road will fade with time and rain.

The developers of Contrail are launching a small production run of 2000 parts half of which will be donated to bike related non-profits.  Cool!

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The answer came with the “3D Coach Express”, a revolutionary concept bus which is set to crisscross Chinese cities without engulfing the streets at all, simply because it rides over them. Designed by the Shenzen Huashi Future Parking Equipment and presented in the 13th International Beijing high-tech fair – Chitech -, this enormous suspended bus exploits the space between regular-sized cars (high less than 2 metres) and bridges thus saving construction costs for new infrastructures as well as minimizing congestion impact by allowing vehicles to drive underneath its upper level.

The bus – which is 5 metres in height and 6 metres in width – is expected to travel up to 60 km\h and it will be completely powered by a combination of electric and solar energy, thus embracing China’s “green” commitment. The ultra-modern bus will carry about 1200-1400 passengers on its upper level, allowing its designer to forecast a 20-30% reduction in road congestion.

The construction of the first 185 kilometres track of the 3D Coach Express is set to start in the end of 2010 in the Beijing’s Mentougou district, with an estimated cost of 500 million Yuan (round 58 million Euro) for a 40 kilometres track, far less than any subway.

How far this technology can be easily transferred to Alpine cities’ context is hard to clear out, but it would be undoubtedly premature to underestimate the breakthrough that a successful application of 3D Coach Express could mean for the future of sustainable transports.

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Founding NuRide, Rick Steele aimed to address the many-sided problem of traffic congestion by encouraging carpooling or greener trips. Face to a decreasing trend in sharing the car to get to work, NuRide has offered since the 2005 discounts and rewards to the members which have registered on line for free and traced their routes travelled by carpool, public transportation, walking or biking. NuRide, at present developing its market, has already achieved great results, counting more than 47,700 members and having reduced 4 million car trips saving 4,763,000 gallons of gas in the past six years.

Jodie Wu conceived the core business idea which is leading Global Cycle Solutions while a student at MIT’s D-Lab. The company aims at improving developing countries technological endowments, by creating small devices such as mobile phone charger or other more curios objetcs – for farmers powered in an inexpensive manner. The particular feature of these tools which are attached to the back of a bicycle is that only the pedalling power is exploited, without need to rely on electricity or fuel. The production was launched in Tanzania and now they intend to address the China or India markets, also creating further bike-powered attachments, including one to grind corn into flour.

The company Mobis Transport has born in 2008 from a long–term non profit company. As a consultancy, it helps clients in conceiving, developing and managing bike stations for favouring multimodal transportation systems. The bike Station are usually build near public transit hubs, offering services for bicycles such as secure parking, repairs, changing rooms, and storage lockers. Mobis by now has helped develop 14 Bikestations in the U.S., mostly located in California, and it intends to install from 15 to 20 this year.

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“Espansione”, the monthly magazine of the newspaper “Il Giornale” dedicated to the economy, has always been focusing on the issues of energy, waste and eco-sustainability. The forthcoming event, organized in cooperation with other relevant partners, addresses the media, opinion leaders and citizens’ attention on such themes as well as to ease networking among stakeholders.

The event schedule includes a conference, welcoming all the stakeholders from public institutions, utilities, research, manufacturers etc. Moreover an exhibition will take place aimed at increasing the awareness of citizens for eco-sustainability, disclosing newer electric vehicles which will be launched on the market in the upcoming months.

The participation in the event is free of charge but seats are limited and registration is compulsory. To register, click here.

Join the event and move a step in the world of sustainable mobility!

Related link

• newspapermilano.it
• ilgiornale.it/espansione_pdf
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People enjoying winter holidays in the mountain generally come home with a beautiful tan, because of the stronger impact the sunbeams have on their skin due to the weakest filter exerted by the atmosphere. Today, a project from Fredrik Hilten – a Swedish industrial design student at Lund University – explores new ways of using this natural delight.

Taiyou is a solar cell powered lift system prototype, designed to be a potential replacement for the already existing gondolas that transport people in the mountains. The lift is powered by solar panels placed on the roof, and the batteries inside each gondola can store enough energy to complete the ride when there is no adequate sunlight. The ropeway moves on two wires, ensuring a better wind stability and also allowing to increase the distance between the towers. In Hilten’s concept, the usage of self-propelled pods will allow the system to operate also with few gondolas and therefore to have a low energy consumption compared with standard lift systems, which require lots of gondolas to be energy efficient.

Taiyou’s passengers travel on two-seat pods, equipped with security harnesses, and a sliding floor under the seats will provide balance depending on the lift’s tilt when is going up and down the mountains.

It is worth remarking here that further studies are certainly needed concerning the feasibility of this project and the concrete possibility to build such an infrastructure in a specific mountain location. It might be interesting to explore technical and financial requirements of this innovative system, and assess the environmental advantages which may result from the application of this technology at a certain scale. SWOMM 2008 already introduced the issue of ropeway lines as a peculiar public transport means for mountain towns. A further discussion on the topic would be welcome also in the incoming 2010 edition of the Workshop.

Will mountain lovers enjoy the beauty of the landscape looking out from this attractive and futuristic concept vehicle’s open sides in the future? Such a nice question absolutely deserves a credible and sound answer from the experts’ side.

Links to the related articles in the following websites

• www.tuvie.com
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• http://psipunk.com
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• www.trendhunter.com
• http://techonova.com
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Margrethe Sagevik, of the International Union of Railways (UIC), addressed the issue of railways in mountain areas during her presentation at the CSD18 SWOMM Side Event.

The UIC is the Worldwide Association representing the Railway Sector, counting about 200 members from all continents. The scope of UIC mission is promoting the rail transport at a world level, in order to meet challenges of mobility and sustainable development.

The association is pursuing this goal in various ways. In particular, they act as providers, making available know how, technical/operational expertise as well as solutions, regulations, standards, best practises. Moreover, they may fulfil the role of facilitators, by exchanging platforms, proposing new ideas and concepts, protecting the members common interests as well as supporting development policies for key infrastructure projects. Furthermore, they accomplish developing tasks by proposing specifications, standards, interfaces, studies, interoperability for international rail corridors. Finally, UIC is also involved in forums, seminars, conferences, congresses organization (i.e. WCRR 2008, UIC Highspeed, Global Rail Freight Conference).

Thanks to all these actions, UIC supports cooperation as well as partnerships among interested parties, thus bringing the existing gap with regards to solutions for addressing climate changes and sustainable development (i.e. the SLoCAT, Partnership on Sustainable Low carbon Transport).

Filled in low carbon performance, the railway is a means of transport strongly sustainable oriented. It is also safer than others and it preserves from traffic congestion.

However, Ms Sagevik highlighted the problem of building new railways within mountain areas, which is a quite complex issue influenced by several factors. Indeed, such investments are not directly sustainable according to a purely financial criterion. In particular, in developing countries they could also be not worth, at least in a short run. Therefore, there is a set of important aspects to be included into the cost/benefit analysis.

From a technical point of view, when new rail infrastructures are built in the mountains, the topography has relevant impact on the costs. Gradiant and curve radius, the classification of soil and rock, the need for avalanche and rock fall protection, the number as well as lengh of bridges and tunnels have to be added to other ordinary expenses. From an operational point of view, the railway reveals to be only a part of the whole solution to sustainable mobility in mountain areas. Combined transport are also needed (i.e. ROLA: Rollende Landstrasse), as well as high speed services and passenger tourism services. With regard to the financial aspects, maintenance costs have to be added to the investment costs, depending on the amount of tunnels and bridges. The environmental classification of the area is also a driver, as the existing environmental and landscape protection measures limit the range of possible actions. In addition, strategic, political, cultural and social aspects have influenced typology and costs of the activities.

Significant steps were already moved in Switzerland. The Swiss population enshrined the modal shift into the Constitution in 1994, voting for the ‘Alpine Initiative’, which is reflecting the country’s move towards environmentally sustainable transport in the vulnerable Alpine ecosystem. Measures include: two new transalpine rail links, the ‘land Transport Agreement’, the open access to the Swiss rail network for cargo traffic, increasing countrywide the mileage-related heavy vehicle fees, generating 900 million Euros in 2007, subsidies and incentives for combined traffic. Then, revenues from the heavy vehicle fee are spent on improvements and extensions to rail infrastructure, and the Swiss corridors have decreased of 16% in trucks crossing the Alps since 2000.

Future scenarios are increasingly including railway as a part of the solution for sustainable mobility in mountain areas. Priorities are, on the one hand, maintaining the existing infrastructure for ’regional’ train services. On the other hand, new infrastructure should also be constructed, mainly tunnels for high speed and heavy freight services (national and international train services). For a more efficient system, the capacity should be increased in terms of train load and time saving. Railways will play an important role in achieving sustainable mobility, especially in sensitive mountainous regions.

However, railways are not enough to avoid problems with car traffic (as traffic jams or parking space) and attractive combinations of public transport are needed. Innovative solutions may also add electro-mobility for the last mile, special solutions for the transport of baggage, optimal information to the customer about transport chains, etc.

Ms Sagevik quoted the Switzerland experience for a second time, as several car-free destination have been created within the Alpine area and they have successfully build advantages through connection by railway and other public transports (e.g. Zermatt, Ascona, Mürren).

Margrethe Sagevik
Is an environmental economist who has been the past seven years a sustainable development senior adviser in the International Union of Railways (UIC) – the global association for cooperation between and promotion of railways, in Paris. Margrethe has been working in the rail sector for more than 10 years, with a focus on how to improve the sustainability performance of rail within the rail sector – and to promote rail as a part of the solution to combat climate change and achieve a sustainable development.

www.swomm.info/Docs/sagevik.ppt

Big trucks congesting roads and towns have often been targeted as having a major impact on climate change due to the high level of CO2 and pollutant emissions they release in the atmosphere. But a closer look to the present trends in the automotive & trucking industry suggests a different figure. Truck and truckers seem are taking the green road.

Recent developments in the trucking sector regulation – especially in Canada and the US – have been introducing a new eco-friendly legal framework for new trucks: for instance, they have to be equipped with smog-free engines using diesel particulate filters that capture all but 0.1 grams of the gases’ particles, and by 2010, all diesel powered engines must in theory produce no NOx emissions.

At the same time, eco-friendly trucking technologies are spreading in the market while truckers and carriers boost the demand with their new eco-compatible vocation: aerodynamics wind-fairings and trailer skirts, or more fuel efficient wide-based tires – even though some innovations are still blocked by other regulatory barriers – are just some of them.

But the major breakthrough comes from hybrid trucks: the first medium-duty hybrid truck was presented in 2007 and an electric-hybrid semi truck entered full scale production in 2008. Since then, the technical solutions for hybrid engines and hybrid truck models are going through a steady growth, and are relentlessly conqueering market positions as well. Companies like Coca-Cola, Ups, FedEx are all investing in renovating their fleets by buying hybrid trucks for short-haul deliveries; Wal-Mart planned to increase its fleet efficiency by 25% by using big rids hybrid trucks, and is expecting fuel savings for 10.000$ per year for each hybrid vehicle compared with any non-hybrid models.
Hybrid trucks are delivering good news these days, and when this freight will reach our over trafficked mountain areas such as Alpine passes, benefits might be very tangible.

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