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From the article:
“Opposing streams of traffic create really incredible potential in terms of a guaranteed wind source,” Oberholzer says.
His research is aptly timed—wind is rapidly gaining attention as a sustainable power source with serious potential to feed America’s insatiable appetite for energy. General Electric, a leader in the industry, is experiencing unprecedented demand for its turbines, and although North America has been slower to adopt the technology than Europe, its wind industry is growing at an average rate of about 17 percent each year. “The United States is catching up very quickly,” GE Energy’s Robert Gleitz says. “I think if the country continues to install around the rate of three or three-and-a-half gigawatts per year, it will become one of the leading countries in wind.” In response to the corresponding need for trained professionals, the School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science in Toronto’s Centennial College launched the Centennial Energy Institute last October to educate students in developing and maintaining systems for power generation using the resources of the landscape.
“I’m interested in cities,” Oberholzer says of the inspiration for his design. “In Houston our landscape is highways.” The ability to harness wind in an urban environment—where buildings impede airflow and installing 260-foot turbine towers isn’t exactly an option—makes his project particularly inventive. “There are places where it simply makes sense to employ a renewable,” says Herb Sinnock, an energy specialist at Centennial. “The idea is to do that wherever possible. If we take those smaller contributions and add them up, we take a big chunk out of our energy-supply problem.”
[url=http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=2466:6eff5]Click through[/url:6eff5] also to see a diagram of an elevated LRT, which Oberholzer says could be powered by these Jersey barriers. (Well, ok, maybe we don't have that kind of volume, but Vancouver might...) "I love the idea of siphoning off electricity generated by private transportation to run public transportation,” he says. An added benefit of running LRT (in part) from this traffic-generated wind energy is that you use the energy where it's harnessed, need less added-on infrastructure, and avoid loss of energy that occurs when you siphon it off to the grid.
It could actually give some bigger purpose to the "rush hour":
Oberholzer’s model benefits from the urban schedule as well as its urban location. “The peaks of traffic flow more or less coincide with those of energy use,” he says, suggesting that rush-hour chaos on the highways could actually help power the commute for public-transport users. Given the opportunity to prototype his turbine barriers, Oberholzer just might put a positive spin on our busy roadways.
Of course it would only work if the highways aren't so clogged with cars that the traffic can actually rush and produce wind. Otherwise, it'll just be hot air!
