What about this (realistic, btw) setup:
If you live in your own house, you pay water bills for the water you consume and for the pressure of this water but never use this pressure as a source of energy. Put a water tank in the attic and install a turbine so that water will release its energy while filling the tank. The pressure of water from attic is sufficient.
This is the real case of energy harvesting that is lost anyway, and there is no robbery.
You owe me ice-cream for the idea.

Assuming the mass of a truck 10000kg and a bus 6000kg, I tried to make more accurate calculations. I used average mass 8000kg.

600 vehicles per hour means they appear with period T = 6 sec.
Distance between vehicles:
d = TV = 6 x 80000/3600 = 132m
Number of vehicles per 1000m:
n = 1000 / d = 1000 / 132 = 7.6
Frr = Crr m g = 0.015 x 8000 x 9.8 = 1176 (N)

The power expended to overcome rolling resistance:

Prr = Frr V = 1176 x 80 x 1000 / 3600 = 26133 (W) = 26 kW

The power collected from one car is P / n = 200 / 7.6 = 26 kW

This means following:

In order to keep fuel consumption intact, all 26kW should be converted to electricity (with efficiency coefficient = 1). Rolling resistance must be = 0, i.e. no tire warming up, no tire wear, no roadway wear.

It is still impossible, sorry Innowattech.
I’ve tried the best to see this technology works as promised.

I wanted to tell that the engine of a car with the mass 1000 kg driving with the constant speed 80 kmh produces only 3.3 kW to compensate Frr. This 3.3 kW is the maximum power we can utilize without increasing gas consumption. There is no way to get 4.8 kW out of 3.3 kW.
4.8 kW is the power harvested from one car to make this 200 kW per 1000 m of road claim true. This estimate was for the piezo generator efficiency coefficient = 1.
(In reality, if it is 0.5 – 0.7, we’ll need to take about 8 kW instead of 3.3 kW from the car engine which is still not so noticeable).

So my calculation were only to show their claim 200kW per 1000m of single lane without increasing fuel consumption cannot be true.

Potential Energy of gravity cannot be utilized if there is no change in altitude. The gravitational field is a conservative field (see wiki) which means the potential energy difference for a round trip (e.g. from home to work and back) equals 0.

If there was a way to utilize potential energy of a body and the earth that “sucks”, there will be no nead in oil, photovoltaic panels, wind power, etc.

I 100% agree with you, there is no science to back fossil fuel industry. Even nuclear energy (that is well developed and much cheaper) produces less pollution, but oil guys are in power.

When I mentioned swine flu, I meant the forged statistics about the mortality from it. Instead of figures for the swine flu itself, they used combined flu and pneumonia statistics just to make people pay for the vaccine (which appeared to be inefficient and even dangerous, as it contains lead and something else).

About this “researcher has announced a possible future technology”. I watched the innowattech video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW-GxSFSy3w, where the guy says “200 kWh per hour”(3:34). I speak and understand Hebrew, and he really said so; it wasn’t a bad translation. A technically educated person would say “200 kW”.

In the video they say “without adversely affecting vehicle fuel efficiency or the durability of roadway” (4:12). Of course, as you noticed, the road durability cannot be the same as in case there are no piezo blocks installed under asphalt. These separate blocks will contribute to cracks production, especially on their borders. For their purposes the words “noticeably” and “adversely” are same.

The technology will be implemented, I think, just because it is a way of making money. Research grants, good deals, etc. Who cares it will lead to increased oil consumption and atmosphere pollution.

If you are interested in knowing where this “free” energy is coming from (as I see it), I can explain, though it’s not so easy without making drawings and diagrams. I didn’t expect anybody would respond to my post, but it’s hard to keep silent when I see something is going wrong.

When I tried to post a similar comment on innowattech channel, they simply moderated it out without proving I’m wrong. It’s an indication they have no objections.

The force of rolling resistance can be calculated by:

Frr = Crr Nf

where

Frr is the rolling resistance force,
Crr is the dimensionless rolling resistance coefficient or coefficient of rolling friction (CRF), and
Nf is the normal force.
Crr for regular tire against a concrete road = 0.01 – 0.015.

If we have a car with mass = 1000 kg, the force of rolling resistance will be:

Frr = Crr m g = 0.015 x 1000 x 9.8 = 147 (N)

The power required to compensate the rolling resistance can be found:

Prr = Frr S / t = Frr V where V is the speed. For V = 80 km/h we have:

Prr = 147 x 80 x 1000 / 3600 = 3267 (W) = 3.3 kW

“About 60% of the power required to cruise at highway speeds is taken up overcoming air drag, and this increases very quickly at high speed.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient ). Let’s try to confirm this statement using a different reference.

“A car cruising on a highway at 50 mph (80 km/h) may require only 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) to overcome air drag.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics))

We can see that Prr = 3.3 kW and Pair = 7.5 kW are in good agreement with this 60% estimation. That means, we can consider the calculated Prr = 3.3 kW to be reliable enough for our farther findings.

From the original article we have 200 kW per 1000 m of one way road. Let’s find how much power is harvested from one car.
Let the following distance to be as allowed by traffic regulations 5 x CarLength = 5 x 4 = 20 (m). The simultaneously present car’s number on the 1000 m road segment will be:

n = 1000 / (20 + 4) = 42

The power collected from one car is P / n = 200 / 42 = 4.8 kW

We can see that this power exceeds the power of rolling resistance (3.3 kW) that is the only source we can take energy from without stealing. That means, even if we convert all the energy that is lost on the tire hysteresis, rubber to concrete friction, and vibrations originated by tires running over the surface of the road, there should be no more than 3.3 kW. Note that this “technology” does not utilize the air waves produced by moving cars; we can talk only about the rolling resistance. And of course, there is no efficient way to utilize the thermal energy of rubber deformation and tire-surface friction.

This simple estimate shows there is no way to get 200 kW energy per 1000 m of a piezo road without stealing from cars. If we use this technology to decelerate cars in front of stop signs only, in the future, when electric cars will be in majority, the energy that suppose to return to the battery will be stolen.

Why we won’t notice this stealing? – Just because the aerodynamic drag is almost twice greater than the rolling resistance and we have powerful engines. An additional 40-50% resistance will result in power consumption 16 kW versus 11 kW. Not a big deal, assuming a contemporary engines have 75 kW (100 horsepower) or even more power.

We are witnessing one more scam was just born, following the ones about global warming, swine flu mortality disinformation, and so on. And these previous scams were backed up also by scientists graduated from the best universities.

People will get paid to drive and get paid for parking !

The people behind it are all Ph.Ds in material science, physics etc. from some of the best universities in the world and are senior research scientists at the Technion and specialize in various aspects of Piezoelectric technology.

The pilot itself was approved by Israel’s chief scientist as well as other scientific factors who examined the data and thought it had merit.

It may yet prove to have no merit — but these offhanded know-it-all comments are beyond belief. Lets wait and see what the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) is in regards to the financial ROI and then we shall see.

There should be a 2 kilometer slab for demonstration and pricing before anything is spread and dispensed and sold both mentally and physically.

You are mistaken when you claim that the energy comes from gravity. Any energy transferred to such a system comes from the car’s movement, and that movement is created by the car’s fuel. The car must become less efficient as energy transfers to the road.