svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
The turbines won't slow the vehicles down or cause them to work harder, they're just re-capturing the residual energy from the air that was pushed out of the way due to movement; currently, that energy is wasted. It's not a free energy device, more like recapturing energy from waste heat.
The technology shouldn't be in question either. HAWT turbines are well understood in regards to construction and maintenance costs, the wind speed monitors on the roadway provide actual wind speed measurements, so as the numbers look good I can see them wanting to proceed.
But it'll be interesting to see the test results. Reality is a harsh mistress and I'm sure the first trial will somehow be a failure due to unforeseen issues. It'll be because snowplows plowed them under, birds built nests in them, you can't shut the highways down to do critical maintenance, they ice up from cars splashing them, or get sued into oblivion - but that's the point of doing pilot tests - to find those flaws no one thought of.
The technology shouldn't be in question either. HAWT turbines are well understood in regards to construction and maintenance costs, the wind speed monitors on the roadway provide actual wind speed measurements, so as the numbers look good I can see them wanting to proceed.
But it'll be interesting to see the test results. Reality is a harsh mistress and I'm sure the first trial will somehow be a failure due to unforeseen issues. It'll be because snowplows plowed them under, birds built nests in them, you can't shut the highways down to do critical maintenance, they ice up from cars splashing them, or get sued into oblivion - but that's the point of doing pilot tests - to find those flaws no one thought of.