Secondly, the claim that there is anything meaningfully lost in compressive losses is absurd. The energy would have to be lost in rolling friction, which is only a tiny amount of the energy lost in an automobile. If this amount of energy were being currently wasted our tires would be melting, and perhaps even our roads!

I have no reason to doubt that the Technion and Innowattech have scientists with great reputations, and with great achievements in the physics and engineering of piezoelectric generators.

But these people are ruining their own reputations when they make false claims regarding the financial viability of this form of energy, in terms of the amount of energy potentially available for harvesting. They are using the excellent reputation of the Technion to catch the attention of the public, and maybe investors do not feel the need to check the claims made by Innowattech precisely because of the fine reputations involved. It cannot be that with enough development, or a technology upgrade, that this will change, if the energy is not there in sufficient quantities in the first place. The potential simply is not there.

It is no secret that investors are really keen these days to find start-ups with new ideas for alternative energy. Every time I see that this valuable investment money is being taken by companies that make false claims, I will open my mouth and complain.

I am not saying they are denying. They are probably projecting – which is something that every company who writes a business plan does. They talk about potential, so when they get investment they can upgrade and develop their systems further. That’s what R&D is for.

Drug companies get millions even before clinical trials commence. And how many drugs pass clinical trials? Investment risk is why investors play the game, and others who don’t like the risk, prefer to keep their pennies in the bank.

It could be that they are not revealing every little thing that they have in the pipeline? I don’t know. What’s your interest or (dis)interest in this company? Would you be interesting in penning a post on Green Prophet, explaining why this concept won’t work? We are open to it.

I’m glad that Innowattech are telling you that they are not going to power whole neigborhoods, but thier own web site speaks of the potential to get 200KWh per hour from 1 km of road at 600 vehicles per hour: see here
(http://www.innowattech.co.il/generalTechInfo.aspx)
and again here:
http://www.innowattech.co.il/images/pdf/brochure.pdf

The PDF brochure says that one lane of one kilometer can power 200-300 homes. If a “neighborhood” is 1000 homes, then you need just 4km of lanes to power a neighborhood!

The false claim of the amount of power available makes people think that there is something there that could eventually be financially viable, even if they cannot recover much of that energy yet. But the legitimacy of the company is seriously compromized when you realize that the energy in question does not exist in the first place.

Why do you think they are denying to you what they say on their own web site? If, as it seems, only a few hundred watts can ever be recovered from a lane of road, and even by Innowattech’s claims, this would require “3000 generators at $30 each” there is absolutely no viability in this idea. Why would one try to develop a system that could eventually yield a few hundred watts out of “$90K” of investment? This scheme would never cost less than $100 per peak watt, while present solar photovoltaic cells run at about $5 per watt today, and solar water heaters are presently cost about $0.4 per peak watt.

This website reports numbers from Green Autoblog’s post.

I have interviewed the company and they are aware that their technology isn’t going to power entire neighborhoods, but it can be a solution that can pay for lighting the lamps along highways. I think any “real” and measurable effects will be seen once a long-term pilot plant collects energy over time.

If anything, this company has attracted a lot of interest in the possibility of collecting mechanical energy. If not to roads perhaps the tech can be applied somewhere else. . .

So let’s not give these guys too much attention, unless somebody has the energy to bring them to court and try them for deliberately misleading their investors with claims that are so obviously false.