Comments on: Want some kinetic energy with those fries?

A Burger King in Hillside, N.J., will install a speed bump designed to harness the kinetic energy produced by the hundreds of cars that pass though the drive-thru each day.

[Marcus Westrup]

This is such bull.
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?

[servermaker]

no kidding ---- nice of Burger King to steal energy from their customers!

[jaguar717]

Well, if it's replacing braking then it's capturing otherwise wasted energy. So putting these at the start of the drive-thru line would be capturing the car's momentum. Putting them at the middle or end would just be resistance to the car.

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!

[kellymcgowan]

Dead on, Marcus, congratulations on hitting the nail on the head with the first post of why this is an absolutely lame idea . . . Gee let's spend capital and labor to inefficiently convert cars into 3,000 lb 10 watt generators. Burger king should just go out and buy a honda generator and put it out in the parking lot. At least it would waste less and hopefully be even more obvious that this is a dumb idea.

[cnetba11]

Peter Gibbons: Um, the 7-Eleven, right? You take a penny from the tray.
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.

[cnetba11]

Two improvements: 1) spikes. 2) jet dry and hot wax.

[Icaarus]

The problem is not the 'free lunch' as the cars are giving up the energy no matter whether they are running over a conventional or green speed bump. The real question is, after construction, installation, and maintenance, will this device produce more energy than has been invested into it. I think not. Please lets not waist the time trying to look green for the sake of publicity when the outcome is in fact detrimental.

[REOldtimer]

This is all about PR, and nothing else. Part of the misrepresentation of what is to be "green." In addition, this is not as big news as the guys that are proposing to have a kinetic system in all the highways in the USA as the mother of all solutions for energy independence. On the other hand, if they can displace some energy, is not bad regardless of the rate of the ROR on investment, since this, at least for Burger Kind, is a passive system.

[jaguar717]

What about forcing everyone to pay for the energy to grow & process ethanol, and then pay again to subsidize its costs, and then pay for it at the pump, only to turn around and get 1/3 less power, torque, and mileage?

Oh wait, they already do, and the amount keeps increasing :-)

[shinelikeitdoes]

Not sure why mentioning the extremist group PeTA has anything to do with this article.

[HeavyJim]

I think some of cnets writers love peta. Oh well, peta does not matter anyhow.

[Dalkorian]

"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.

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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.