Just wondering if anyone could help me out with some statistics? Here it goes…
If we compare the flow of traffic (not including traffic jams, just a steady stream) to the flow of water current, and, if I could effectively harness and transform the kinetic energy and replicate the mass from the traffic flow at any given point on our major highways would this be enough to operate a turbine of massive proportion? And on average how much energy/electrical current could a turbine generate using specifics like these?
Is this just an intellectual exercise, or are you proposing we harness the energy from traffic to drive a turbine? If you are, that isn’t going to work, at least it won’t provide “free” energy.
I’m not sure what “statistics” you are looking for but the energy is easily calculated by the mass flow rate as kinetic energy, i.e. KE = ½⋅m⋅v². The averaged mass flow rate of traffic on a major highway during high usage would ineed be enough to “operate a turbine of massive proportion”. As for current, this depends upon the power and voltage potential as P = I⋅V, with P as power in watts, V as voltage in volts, and I as current in amperes.
A reasonably full multilane highway would have about 10 MW going by, but (as was hinted at up-thread), any of this power you extract would be coming right out of the gas tanks of the cars, so you’d be better off just using that fuel directly.