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/

Related articles

• Piezoelectric MEMS boosts vibration harvester by ten times (nextbigfuture.com)
• CA Highways could be a source of green energy (reviews.cnet.com)
• Calif. highways could be source of green energy (reviews.cnet.com)

Finland plan to build the first green highway was strongly advertised and made public last month. We also gave notice of it through the SWOMM website.

In a recent post, Bengt Magnusson, Editor-in-chief and Europe correspondent for the ERA magazine, in the Euractiv blog, introduced  a green highway project implemented by Sweden and Norway, which would now take the first place alongside the Finnish project on our ideal podium of innovative transport projects.

The Sweden and Norwegian Green Highway, in fact, stretches from the Atlantic to the Baltic, connecting Norwegian town Trondheim with Swedish town Sundsvall. The green Highway and the electric car project is one part in the effort of the Sundsvall-Östersund and Trondheim municipalities cooperation aimed to develop infrastructure and valid communications. The project is examining the feasibility of establishing filling stations for environmentally friendly fuels and charging poles for electric vehicles along the SÖT axis. Web-based map solutions and other information material aimed at marketing sustainable mobility solutions should emerge in the end together with other concrete final outcomes. The Municipality of Trondheim has already purchased 23 electric vehicles and several workshops on the theme had already taken place. Green Highway and the electric vehicle project form part of an European Interreg project started in 2008 and still ongoing.

According to the SWOMM mandate, we cannot but welcome more and more “green highways” including plans to promote the use of sustainable solutions for mobility, such as electric charging points or less polluting fuels… Thus… Are there other green projects which have the ambition to raise to the challenge?

Related links

• http://euractiv.blogactiv.eu/
• http://www.greenhighway.nu
• http://www.swomm.info

Related articles by Zemanta

• 300 Miles in an Electric Wheelchair: Norwegian Couple Protests Rail Restrictions (treehugger.com)
• 300 Miles in an Electric Wheelchair: Norwegian Couple Protests Rail Restrictions (treehugger.com)
• AutoblogGreen for 09.21.10 (autoblog.com)
• Taking the Next Step in Creating Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (ecogreenhotel.com)
• GE and Better Place Partner to Accelerate EV Infrastructure Deployment (eon.businesswire.com)

“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
• comune.milano.it

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
• www.thedesignblog.org
• www.greenmuze.com
• www.funiforum.org
• http://psipunk.com
• www.igreenspot.com
• www.trendhunter.com
• http://techonova.com
• www.solaripedia.com
• www.gizmodo.com.au

Related articles by Zemanta

• Solar glazing chases sun from dawn until dusk (innovationtoronto.com)
• solar pixel (designboom.com)
• Kia introduces concept hybrid vehicle that utilizes solar energy | Cooler Planet News (solar.coolerplanet.com)

The Senseable City Laboratory researches are focusing in particular on new means of transport and mobile technologies to be applied to people as catalysts as well as providers of spatial intelligence.

Mr Dal Fiore illustrated the case study of the so called Copenhagen wheel, an innovative bike’s back-wheel, designated to store energy and information while pedalling. The bike delivers a boost for uphill riding, while not releasing any pollutant in the air. It also allows a new open air tourist experience in mountain environments. According to the researchers, the bike’s information and connectivity capabilities are strongly attracting younger generations, i.e. the future inhabitants and visitors of mountainous regions.

Mr. Dal Fiore, afterwards, dealt with the case study of Currentcity, a system concerned with suitability to mountain environments, useful to monitor crowd presence through anonymous mobile phone data. The system allows regional and tourist planners to measure how many people visit different areas and when. It also enables emergency authorities to know how many people are where, in case of natural calamities. Moreover, it could be useful to measure how successful a new infrastructural investment has been, in term of amount of people who benefited from it.

Such researches and technologies may be successfully applied to mountains territories, in order to provide smart solutions for a more effective spatial planning.

Filippo Dal Fiore
Co-head of partners’ relations and technology transfer at the Senseable City Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Co-founder and managing director of Currentcity, a R&D foundation dedicated to exploring the applicability of digital data analysis to urban monitoring. Dal Fiore’s background is in social sciences, and he has focused on the transversal topic of information technology’s (IT) implications on human behavior. He has published the textbook edited by Mc-Graw Hill on “E-learning” and another one concerning Communities vs networks of innovation, for the “American Behavioural Scientist”. In the 2010 autumn, he will be defending his PhD in Applied Economics, carried out in partnership with the Free University of Amsterdam, MIT and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

www.swomm.info/Docs/dalfiore.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.

Related articles

UPS is the Green Truck Leader

Hybrid Trucks: What You Need To Know

“The Green Mile” by Marco Beghetto (Partners – The official magazine of the Italian Chamber of Commerce of Toronto, p. 18-21)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Energy Efficient Diesel Engines Noted For Future Energy-Savings Potential (eon.businesswire.com)
• FedEx to introduce its first electric truck in US (sfgate.com)
• Eaton Hybrid Systems Achieve 30 Million Miles of Service Worldwide (eon.businesswire.com)
• FedEx Introduces First All-Electric Trucks To Be Used in the U.S. Parcel Delivery Business (eon.businesswire.com)
• FedEx to introduce its first electric truck in US (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

The compressed air car, for instance, appeared several years ago and has been presented as a possible revolution in personal mobility but, as of yet, it has not turned out into reality and, on the contrary, many doubts persist on some technical aspects and on its energy efficiency.

Recently, a study published on the last number of the “Environmental Research Letters” states that the compressed air car beside having an extremely low energy efficiency, requires electric power to compress air and, therefore, its carbon footprint appears to be bigger than conventional fossil fuel cars.

However, last year the MDI, company that produces compressed air cars, introduced the concept named AirPod, whose production license has been purchased by the Indian giant Tata Motors and has announced its launch on the market by 2009.

Will we see soon a small “bubble” emitting air from its exhaust pipe or will there be another delay? Reality or chimera? What do you think?

Other articles you might enjoy!

News on AirPod
Compressed air cars

Related articles by Zemanta

• People Power Announces “Unplug for Earth Day 2010″ Campaign on Facebook (prweb.com)
• Turning gas-guzzling properties into models of energy efficiency (guardian.co.uk)