The 497 Mile Long Street (800 km)

Posted by Queuebot in Travel & Places on September 3, 2009 at 4:10 pm

Can you imagine driving 500 miles on one road? Not a highway, not a freeway, a road. In central Brazil, there is such a road.

There is a road in central Brazil that is 497 miles long. Big deal you say? We are talking about a street, one street, that stretches the equivilent of New York City to Cleveland, and then some, or from Los Angles to Flagstaff, AZ. That’s a huge freaking road.

Link – via clickable

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ninigoat.

 
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Electricity-Generating Roadways

Posted by Alex in Car & Vehicle, Science & Tech on December 29, 2008 at 2:18 pm

Israeli energy company Innowattech has created a new type of road that generates electricity as cars drive on it:

The supercharged surface is embedded with piezoelectric crystals, which transform kinetic energy from passing vehicles into an electrical current. With widespread adoption, the technology could feed energy back into the nation’s burgeoning electric vehicle grid, transforming congested roadways into a clean green source of energy.

The amount of electricity produced isn’t that much (400 kilowatts per kilometer or 645/mi), and there’s no mention on how cost effective it would be. But given the sheer amount of roadways we have (the US has over 4 million miles of roads and streets in its highway system alone), it’s an interesting albeit niche approach to generate electricity.

Link

 
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