Want some kinetic energy with those fries?
It's been criticized for contributing to the obesity epidemic and condemned by PETA, but now a Burger King franchise in the New York metro area has announced that it wants in on the green movement. The high-traffic restaurant in Hillside, N.J., will install a speed bump designed to harness the kinetic energy produced by the hundreds of cars that pass through the drive-thru daily.
As they wait for their Double Whopper, customers will roll through a section of the drive-thru lane lined with metal plates that move down and up as cars head to the next window. The MotionPower technology developed by Burtonsville, Md.-based New Energy Technologies, could harness and capture the energy twice daily, the company reports.
"More than 150,000 cars drive through our Hillside store alone each year, and I think it would be great to capture the wasted kinetic energy of these hundreds of thousands of cars to generate clean electricity," said Andrew Paterno, co-owner of 12 N.Y. metro-area Burger Kings. In its report, New Energy Technologies said it is partnering with BK for "durability testing," so it may be awhile before energy is actually captured and put to use. Once active, it's possible that the energy would be routed directly to the power grid.
So how is Burger King benefiting from this? It's unlikely one "green" speed bump will attract more customers (unless it relieves the guilt of an unhealthy meal). Instead of offsetting the restaurant's already wasted energy, BK should focus on the many ways it can reduce its energy usage in the first place. For example, recycling used vegetable oil, installing solar panels on the roof and windows, or transporting their proteins on low-impact trucks, such as this one.
Will an energy-producing speed bump eclipse Burger King's bad rep with environmentalists? Probably not. But I'll give them credit for playing guinea pig. New Energy Technologies, which develops other renewable energy, has a larger plan to install speed bumps in toll booths, streets, border crossings, and other high-traffic areas.
Sharon Vaknin is the CNET Labs' go-to intern. When she's not testing MP3 players, blogging, or making the lab look presentable, she can be found playing computer games. Sharon formerly worked for Best Buy and is currently studying journalism at San Francisco State University. E-mail Sharon. 
There is no such thing as a free lunch - to "capture" energy with this bump you must, by definition, be taking energy away from the cars. Which then has to be replaced by running the engines harder. Which burns more fuel.
How is Any of this better for the environment?
But the other suggestions are just as much of a joke. Put solar panels on the roof? So they can pay 10x as much to cover 1% of their power usage? Right.
As for the environ-whackos, nothing short of shutting down and returning to the dark ages will fix the "bad rep" with them. No amount of sacrifice will ever be enough: notice it's not better efficiency for the same or increased productivity they call for, but flat out ever-decreasing outputs (and as a result, quality of life). Grinding poverty or bust!
Joanna: From the crippled children?
Peter Gibbons: No, that's the jar. I'm talking about the tray, the pennies for everybody. We're basically doing the same thing only we take it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple of million times.
Oh wait, they already do, and the amount keeps increasing :-)
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I threw up a little in the back of my throat when I read that one. Yeah, 3,000 pound cars idling through a drive-thru lane is really "clean". All they're doing here is finding a way to steal electricity from their customers. It seems a common theme lately, rape the customer and sell them on the idea that it wasn't an act of aggression and hatred, but an act of love instead.