French town to power street lights via energy-absorbing sidewalk

[Paul_in_Maryland]

article here.

 

[fyrstormer]

I was so hoping the second half of the thread title would be "...with the souls of the damned." I mean really, talk about a waste of energy, letting them suffer endlessly in the afterlife instead of doing something useful with them. It's just another example of what a wasteful, throw-away society we've become.
















(why yes, I AM crazy, thanks for noticing. )

 

[TriChrome]

Things like this have been out for at least 10 years. Nevertheless it's very cool and I've never seen one installed in a town though.

 

[blasterman]

With all the fat people here in the U.S. (especially the upper midwest where I live) we would likely have an energy surplus and could export extra power to Canada.

 

[carrot]

Clever... they should harness this energy at nightclubs.

 

[clg0159]

With all the fat people here in the U.S. (especially the upper midwest where I live) we would likely have an energy surplus and could export extra power to Canada.

Thats if we could get them on the sidewalk

 

[RepProdigious]

They should secretly do this with normal roads and power speed cameras that way, that would be a brilliantly ironic and evil way to steal energy from cars!!!

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

Hmm, just imagine a car where you get in, buckle up, and stab an IV into one of your fat stores. "gettin' kinda' tubby there, Bo" "Naw, I'm just tryin' to fuel up for that big road trip"

 

[blasterman]

I just a read a link not too long ago where some college kids had come up with an energy storage system much like a hybrid car braking system, but where the suspension system on a car stores kinetic energy and converts it to battery power. I got the impression from the article it was more than a trivial amount of energy and they were ready to put it into a trial production.