Not as stupid as energy generating speed bumps though
Which are another greenwash standby you see all the time - only worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/feb/08/alternative-energy-speed-bumps
Because sure, a 1.5 tonne car driving over a speed bump generates a bit more energy than a footstep but putting a speed bump in the road affects the behavior of the car and it's driver too. It probably slows down from 22mph to about 18mph before it hits the bump, slows a little more as it goes over the hump itself to 15mph and then speeds right back up.
So, assuming that the bump generates 20 times as much as the pavement -160w perhaps, for half a second or so - that's a whopping 80 joules in the bank. But that energy generation is dwarfed by the amount of energy the car uses to navigate the hump itself. If the 1.5 tonne car accelerates back from 15mph to 22mph between humps then its velocity changes by 3.1m/s. Just the change in kinetic energy is 7.35kJ. Assume a car is 40% efficient at turning dinosaurs into kinetic energy and the speed bump is the worst energy laundering system in the world.
Assuming my fag packet maths are right (and I'm assuming someone will correct me if they're not), you need 18,000 Joules of dirty energy to make 80 Joules of clean energy.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
