Powered by Passing Vehicles

A student from Arizona State University has created wind turbine that can be fit onto a highway billboard.  The turbine is powered by the turbulence of passing cars. 

The student (Joe) describes, “Average vehicle speeds on the valley highways are approximately 70 mph. Using average annual wind speeds of 10 mph as a baseline, each single wind turbine will produce 9,600KwH of energy, annually (enough to fully power my 700 s.f. apartment). This power production estimate will increase exponentially with an increase in wind turbulence speed. I believe that the wind stream created over the freeways by our primary mode of transportation will create an average annual wind speed well beyond the baseline of 10 mph.”