Did you know that as of 2006, there were about 250,000,000 passenger vehicles registered in the United States? And since 1960s, according to the US Department of Transportation, the following years had a positive increase rate in number of vehicles that ply the road. This means that more cars are getting into the roads, which emits greenhouse gases that further worsen the environmental state that it is right now.

With more cars getting driven, more roads and highways have to be built. But have you ever thought of the implications that these new roads and highways bring? This means that more lamp posts and street lights are needed to be constructed for highway lighting. This takes up a lot of energy since you don’t expect highways to run on puny energy saving bulbs. They rather use high power lamps to light up a wide coverage to make roads safe for everyone. Though no one can stop putting up highway lighting or building of roads as these also boost the economy, what can be done is to innovate the system by using renewable energy.

Renewable energy is big and highly publicized especially in the US. What cars do is generate air turbulence as they pass by especially at speeds in highways. This air movement can be harnessed by idle lamp posts that sit right in the middle of lanes by using little wind turbines in each lamp post. The excess energy produced during daytime can be stored for use in the night. And since the number of cars won’t seem to stop, this is a very viable option.

If implemented, this would save a lot of energy that could have been derived from burning fossil fuel.