The story : Wind turbines are so efficient in producing clean energy that the U.S Dept of Energy is hoping to create enough wind-farms by 2030 to meet 20% of the country’s energy needs. The only big drawback with wind farms is the transmission of the energy produced. Often placed in isolated areas, the energy generated can only travel so far… meaning urban zones are often neglected by this clean energy.
The idea : Create ‘windy’ cities everywhere; lots of wind, night and day.
There are 136 million registered cars in the US, of which there’s obviously a higher concentration in and around towns and cities. A car is designed to drive, to move; they’re a high energy consumer, but they could also be used to generate a lot of energy, too.
By installing ‘barrels’ into the road that would look very similar to speed-humps, and attaching them just like wind-turbines, to a generator, we could create electricity day and night with each passing of a car. This way the energy generated would be directly linked up to the electric network of a building; a school, a town-hall, a public baths, a hospital… They could even serve the supplementary purpose of speed-humps to slow traffic.
The com’ : A public information campaign to prevent drivers from taking these ‘Macadam Turbines’ at anything more than 15MPH 
Please excuse the cringe-worthy aesthetics of the car, if I was a better artist it would be a Maserati:-)
Copyright Sophia Burnett 2010
