FrictioNRG: Another Form of Renewable Energy

Background
Someday in early 2008, I was traveling in an SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) from Dhaka to Moulavi Bazar (in Bangladesh) for a field visit. One of my colleagues, who was a Geophysicist, was also accompanying me in the trip. It was about 7-8 hours journey and we were talking most of the times. Discussion topics were diverse and one of the topics was alternative energy. At that point of time oil price was in its pick, probably about 150 US$ per barrel.

All of the windows of the car were closed as because the AC was on. However, for some reason, the driver opened an window while the car was moving at about 80 km per hour. So, a huge blow of fresh air entered in to the car and splashed in to my face. Suddenly I realized that our car is generating huge amount of friction with the air! In other words, if I was out of the car and sitting or standing somewhere in the same spot of the road, I might not feel that much of air speed. But while the car was moving at a certain speed it was creating a friction with the air and that’s why the wind speed was much higher around the moving car. I also discovered that every single car running on the road is creating frictional energy but that is fully untapped!

Another example came to my mind. In our childhood, we used to play with pinwheel (locally known as “Chorki”, a paper made flower like small fan attached to a bamboo stick, kind of small wind mill). We just hold the pinwheel against wind and it rotated. That was fun! But sometime, wind was too slow. And then we had to run to rotate the pinwheel! That means we created frictional energy just by running and used it!

Basically, from that day I was thinking about frictional energy and realized that frictional energy is being generated all over the world while we are running any vehicle and still now it is quite untapped. But, we used it to power pinwheel in our childhood! Can we use it to run a vehicle? Well, probably yes!

From now onward, I would like to call this energy as “FrictioNRG” – here “NRG” should be pronounced as “Energy”.

Tapping FrictioNRG to run a car
A car generates FrictioNRG all the times while it is moving at any speed. Now if there is a pinwheel on top of a car, it will be rotating! The rotating pinwheel or turbine could be attached to a dynamo to generate electricity. And then the electricity could be used directly or indirectly (by storing it in battery) to run the car. There might be number of micro turbine on top of a car so that more electricity could be produced.

The car will generate more electricity if it is running at higher speed. At certain speed, probably the car will be running just using its FrictioNRG.  To start and run the car at lower speed, stored energy (from previous run) or a traditional fuel source could be used. If it is possible to install solar panel on the top, the car could probably be run without any traditional sources.

So, what I’m proposing is that a car can run by using its own FrictioNRG, given that it is obtaining certain speed using another source of energy.

FrictioNRG could be used to run any vehicle
If it is possible to tap FrictioNRG for a car, the technology then could be used to run any type of vehicle. All forms of transportation, i.e., train, bus, truck, aircraft, ship and even spacecraft, can use the same technique.

Energy saved is energy found
I’m not a scientist by profession. But, as a rational individual, my understanding is that it would not be too difficult to realize the idea of tapping frictional energy for a car. And if it is possible to invent the technology, a significant amount of petroleum could be saved. As it is being said that “energy saved in energy found”, I believe it would be a good area to explore as a source of another alternative energy for the future.

The challenges ahead
There are number of challenges to realize the idea. First of all, further study is required to understand how much FrictioNRG could be tapped using micro turbines installed at the top of a car considering the variation of car speed and battery capacity. Secondly, the vehicle should have an energy switching and controlling option. Thirdly, the technology should have to be cost effective and easy to install. If it is possible to integrate the technology for existing vehicles, that would also be a great achievement.

Opportunity for collaboration
I have already shared the idea informally with some of my friends and colleagues and received some positive feedback. Now, if any individual or company would like to initiate a project on FrictioNRG, I would be happy to be involved in that project.

For further questions or comments please contact me directly by sending an email to Palash.Basak@gmail.com or info@frictioNRG.com or FrictioNRG@gmail.com.