Free energy gathered from our major highways

I just got off of the phone with my buddy Shannon and another idea cropped up...powering stop and street lights through alternative means. This power could come from a couple of sources, both solar and wind. Here's the idea:

• On overpasses or specially designed housings that are contructed on major, high-speed thoroughfares, have wind accumulating turbines, along with solar panels, that gather the kinetic wind energy produced by the passing vehicles. See the article for "German Patent DE 4232186" which describes the invention. If these types of devices were installed onto our cities major overpasses and along our major highways, they would gather a large amount of free energy, including both wind and solar. With this type of installation, it would gather more than enough energy to provide free "plug-ins" to power the near future release of both hybrid and electric-only "plug-in" vehicles at most major parking lots, including your place of employment. The abundance of energy could also be used to compensate for the power, paid by the municipalities, used for stop and street lights.
  

• I found an website for a company that has a hydraulic "carpet" system that gathers wasted kinetic energy from decelerating vehicles, though, it also assists in slowing the vehicle down. This system would be great near highly traveled "epicenters", such a highway exits and the like.

• Solar power plants: If Germany can do it, why can't we? I'm sure there are plenty of areas that we can utilize as Solar Parks. What about lining the roadways, medians, etc., with solar panels. Some people complain about the panels being unsightly, but if they're arranged in a tactful way, I bet they wouldn't even be noticed.
  
  The biggest problem is that there should definitely be a law passed to encompass all 50 states of America and its territories that requires power companies to purchase electricity generated by companies or individuals who utilized alternative energy methods to produce the electricity at the standard market rate. Can your imagine if this would happen the type of growth there would be in the alternative energy? Companies would form just to produce alternative energy. (This is one avenue that the government needs to step into and pass laws. There's definitely too much "him-hawing" around at Capitol Hill. This is the problem where we have too many lawyers in the government and not enough scientists or people willing to act! Talk is great, but make some decisions already! There definitely needs to be some limits to lobbying and filibustering, in my opinion.)

Here's a couple of other ideas, which are not necessarily a part of the highways, but other sources to gather alternative energy:

• Wind farms: This is an idea that I would like to do, if I just had the capital and time.....create a wind farm. Buy some cheap land out in the middle of nowhere, or near somewhere, and start putting up wind turbines, both large and small. The downfall is part of point #3, requirements to make the power companies buy back the energy! If a law would be put into place under point #3, also have benefits for the traditional farms to add wind turbines, cheaply, onto their property. It would be a win-win for them! They get free electricity to power their homes, and possibly machinery (this would be reason to have farming equipment that was solely ran off of batteries/electricity, or at least hybrid,) and could still grow their crops. Maybe investors could provide the equipment to the farms, we'll call this "eco-generation sharing", and by doing so, provide the farmers with electricity for the shared usage of their land to generate electricity.

• Hydro farms: Cities/towns that have an abundance of rivers with semi-swift currents could utilize the kinetic energy from these rivers to produce electricity. This could be done without having to dam up the river, utilizing inlet pipes and turbines. There is also tidal power and wave power. See the hydro-power page on Wikipedia for a complete list.

Our country definitely needs to look into these method, regardless of how large our small, government funded, privately funded, etc. We really need to open our eyes to these to these sources!

Landfills and recycling

I wanted to emphasize and reiterate on the previous posting from my good friend Shannon, aka "Tom O'Bedlam", which had mentioned of the county landfills and how they could be cleaned up. There are still many people in this country that don't recycle and haven't even given it one thought. Some of this thinking, on their parts, could be changed if they became aware of the benefits to recycling, though, I'm sure not everyone will jump on-board the train, at least not immediately.

I'm going to list a few ideas that I've been debating over that I feel could reduce the "mountains" of trash, create jobs, help alternative energy programs, offer community service alternatives, and provide a means for cheap, prison labor. If a revamping of our policies and a plan, which I'm going to outline, could be put into effect, I guarantee that a LOT of issues could be solved.

Ok, so picture this...within 15 miles from my home is a landfill. Every morning and afternoon, I pass by it while driving to and from work. It stinks! I can't help but notice and think about it every day. It's been there most of my life, maybe even longer, and has grown in size....it's massive.

Within the last couple of years, I've realized the types of things I've thrown away and what I've seen others throw away, which eventually ends up in this same landfill. I'm trying to change my habits, as, luckily enough for me, and most other people in the same area, I have a local recycling center. Some nearby cities are very lucky to have recycling as part of their trash service, which I'm sure they automatically pay extra for, and I feel that those people should utilize to its fullest, especially if they're paying for, but if they think about it, the "ease of use" and not having to pay for the transportation to "go" to their local recycling center easily pays for this convenience! This is my first point, most people have a way to recycle on a daily basis. The "places" are there, you just have to find them!

By recycling, this will reduce the amount of trash sent to the landfills by 45%, according to a 2006-2007 study by the Midwest Assistance Program Inc. Can you imagine, 45% of materials in the landfills are metals, paper, plastics and glass? In this same article, they hypothesize that the 1.9 million tons of recyclable materials over a year, just in Missouri alone, have the potential economic commodities value of approximately $208 million dollars! If you take that same number and multiply it by all 50 states, that total calculates to 95 billion tons of recyclables times $208 million equals, well,... A LOT OF MONEY!!! Do you understand the scale that I'm trying to convey, and that's just in one year? This money could create millions of jobs and fix a huge problem that the U.S. currently has and for some reason, what that could be, can't fix!

Now for my next point....Yes, this could generate a LOT of money and create a LOT of jobs, but a lot of the workers could be retrieved from the following resources: Community Service Programs, Prison Labor Programs, Welfare-to-work Programs, and the list goes on. This proposed recycling program could fix a huge, national problem, but at the same time generate LOTS of money. I can think of a MILLION places that this money could go, and I'm not talking about lining someone's pockets......Alternative energy research, Schools, Healthcare.....the list could go on and on!

My whole point is that we can fix a lot of our problems internally through the wise re-use of our own "trash"!


Just take a moment to think about it! After you think about it, do something about it....start recycling your own trash!

Coming Soon: A Post-American World?

This morning, my wife and I were watching CBS News Sunday Morning and they had a really interesting story that discussed how America is falling behind.....whereas other countries like China, Japan, India, Brazil, and South Africa are growing at an enormous rate, economically. "It's happening because the rest are rising, and it's happening because the natives have gotten good at capitalism.", said Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and the best selling author of "The Post-American World".

I feel that the best part of the whole story was the very last sentence, "But Zakaria worries that one day historians will write about how the United States globalized the world, but forgot to globalize itself. " This says a whole lot of things that I believe is totally true, the U.S. government and some of its "well-off" citizens have forgotten about our own country. I feel that these same people have their noses too far in the business of other countries, that they've forgotten about our own problems. How can we, as a country, help out others, if we can't even help ourselves?

These other countries who are now striving, we, at one time or another, have helped. I say we let "them" pick up some of the slack and redirect our focus onto ourselves. It's just good business practices!

Please take a moment to read over the story and think about it!