Archinect : School Blog Project : Arizona State University (Joe) : Here goes (please comment)
The highway system that dissects Phoenix is expansive. While connecting
515 square miles of the Sonoran desert to support our sprawling
culture, the valley freeways divide communities. My catalyst proposes
to retroactively collect royalties on the land taken from social
interaction. The design is a retrofitting replacement of the horizontal
steel tube that currently holds freeway signage. The replacement will
house two horizontal axis wind turbines (Quiet Revolution designs) that
will be powered by the turbulence created from the passing cars.
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.
technorati tags:wind, farm, road
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