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Re:Move over, solar: The next big renewable energy source co... by theandrewbailey on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @08:55AM (#12796031)
> Harvesting energy from cars is also a non-starter. Any energy you harvest there is added as a load on the engine of the cars, which are all powered by fossil fuels. It's a really inefficient way to turn a car engine into an electric generator.

The vast majority of cars already have a small electrical generator installed. Plugging things into a cigarette socket to access that electricity causes 0 extra load on the engine.

Re:Move over, solar: The next big renewable energy source co... by todd8 on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @02:38PM (#12799181)
My daughter missed a high school physics problem that seemed obvious to me until I understood her reasoning. The question was does playing the radio in a car reduce fuel efficiency, true or false? She didn't realize that the electricity to run the radio came from a rechargeable battery plus generator system. She had seen me replace a car battery and assumed that it was like an ordinary flashlight battery that provided electricity until used up.

The generator in a car doesn't run for free. It is powered by the engine and it's operation while charging is felt as a braking effect on the main engine. This additional drag is produced by a phenomena known as back electromagnetic force (back emf) that causes the generator to resist turning while generating current to power electrical devices in the car or recharge batteries.

Another way to realize that using electricity in a car isn't free is to consider why it wouldn't work to add a number of these generators and then use them to power electrical motors to propel the car. There is no free lunch.

On the other hand (and not really related to the points I'm making above), stopping a moving vehicle reduces the overall energy of the system because the kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the vehicle's velocity. Due to conservation of energy this energy has to go somewhere. Conventionally, this stopping energy is dissipated through heat (and to some extent breaking down a bit of the the brake pads). Some vehicles, like a Tesla, are able to capture a portion of this kinetic energy during braking, but its complicated, see [1].

[1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/magic-tesla-roadster-regenerative...

Re:Move over, solar: The next big renewable energy source co... by cesarb on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @09:33AM (#12796286)
> The vast majority of cars already have a small electrical generator installed. Plugging things into a cigarette socket to access that electricity causes 0 extra load on the engine.

No. Your use of energy from the generator through the cigarette socket manifests as a braking force in the generator. The more energy you use, the more it brakes. The car's engine has to work harder to overcome that braking.

Re:Move over, solar: The next big renewable energy source co... by ericmo on Thursday October 27, 2016 @08:49AM (#12804637)
What about regenerative braking?