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The Burger King, known for surprising people in many ways (sometimes in bed), is looking to surprise anew, with a shiny new kinetic-energy capturing system at one of his franchises.
This one's no whopper -- the king is getting his paws on some green energy

Better known for giving strangers rude-awakenings in bed, going on morning adventures with your wife, or romping on the beach (according to its commercials), the Burger King is now looking to place his greasy hands on something new -- alternative energy.

Perhaps inspired by the new green Sainsbury supermarket in the UK, Burger King is going to be deploying a kinetic energy harvesting speed bump at a New Jersey location in a trial deployment.  Burger King will be partnering with Maryland-based New Energy Technologies, one of the kinetic energy-capturing device distributors in the hot field, to deploy the company's proprietary MotionPower strips.

The energy is stored and released twice a day.  It will be used to power various Burger King appliances. 

The drive-through may actually be the perfect deployment for kinetic-energy capturing devices.  Deployment on the highway would essentially "steal" tiny fractions of kinetic energy from passing cars.  However, at the drive-through drivers are (or at least should be) already braking, so the speed bump helps speed the process and capture the energy that would otherwise go to waste.  For hybrids it will still "steal" a bit of their energy regained by regenerative braking, but hybrids are still a small minority on U.S. streets.

Andrew Paterno, co-owner of the Burger King test site cheers, "More than 150,000 cars drive through our Hillside store alone each year, and I think it would be great to capture the wasted kinetic energy of these hundreds of thousands of cars to generate clean electricity."

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Great
By DigitalFreak on 7/14/2009 1:29:05 PM , Rating: 3
Consider how long I sit "spinning my wheels" waiting for my order, they should be paying me.




RE: Great
By merc14 on 7/14/2009 1:32:16 PM , Rating: 2
BK definitely has the worst help of all the fast food places.


RE: Great
By userengel on 7/14/2009 1:32:23 PM , Rating: 5
I think you're forgetting White Castle.


RE: Great
By Samus on 7/14/2009 6:00:11 PM , Rating: 5
I've paid for my BK drive-thru with a nug of pot before. that says a lot about their workforce.


RE: Great
By OPR8R on 7/14/2009 7:53:23 PM , Rating: 4
You mean that they understand the value of a dollar? Pot is worth its weight in gold.


RE: Great
By Samus on 7/15/2009 6:25:16 AM , Rating: 2
that pot was most definately not worth its weight in gold, total beasters. what we ordered amounted to maybe 15 bucks, so even if it was a gram (which it wasn't) i think overall, the transaction benifited everybody.


RE: Great
By PitViper007 on 7/14/09, Rating: -1
RE: Great
By phantom505 on 7/14/2009 3:33:42 PM , Rating: 5
5 years? What do you figure is the half life of employees at BK? 1 month?


RE: Great
By Danger D on 7/14/2009 5:42:44 PM , Rating: 5
If it's because they discontinued the Whopper, that was just a joke.


RE: Great
By FITCamaro on 7/14/2009 2:04:55 PM , Rating: 2
The one right near work is terrible. It took me and some co-workers 30 minutes to get a to go order. No joke. 30 freakin minutes.


RE: Great
By onelittleindian on 7/15/2009 9:02:36 AM , Rating: 3
I regularly spend 30 minutes in the drive through at my local Taco Bell.

My worst ever record though was 50 minutes at a KFC. I wound up writing a letter to their corp office over that one.


RE: Great
By superkdogg on 7/15/2009 5:59:34 PM , Rating: 2
You must have been hungry! I wouldn't wait for my doctor for 50 minutes. That meal would have been free as well as my next one before I left or I'd have given the manager and the crew my own special recipe.


RE: Great
By callmeroy on 7/15/2009 9:35:48 AM , Rating: 2
Near my house is a road that is literally nothing but restaurants (both actual restaurants and just fast food joints) lined on either side for a good 5 mile stretch...

I mean there is certainly no shortage of places to eat within a mile of my house. Anyway...I used to visit the fast food joints as much as three times a week...didn't like spending the money, gaining the weight or feeling the guilt that often so now its once or twice a month for me -- unless I get lazy about food shopping then some times I go an extra time.

My BK is 'average' --- about 5 minutes....McDonalds which I only go to for their Nuggets and that's not often --- is 10 minutes on average....Taco bell is the fastest I'm generally moving right along with them, same with Wendy's (I go there the most -- love their salads).

Anyway reading what you guys put up with in wait times I should feel embarrassed being pissed when it takes 10 minutes for me to wait in the drive through.

The worse of all though the one that I shall never visit again......Nifty Fifties....their drive through is friggin PATHETIC. It's not based on speed its just like going into their restaurant and sitting at a booth, you wait the same -- their excuse is "well everything is made fresh to order".

They are very overpriced, burgers are small and not that great tasting for their cost --- i believe about 8 bucks. They make pretty banging shakes though....but 25 minutes in the drive-in...not worth it I was pissed.

people use drive-in's for speed...they dont' want to or don't have the time to eat in...


RE: Great
By Flunk on 7/14/2009 11:20:09 PM , Rating: 2
I spent 20 minutes yesterday at a KFC waiting for a twister value meal, that's it. Probably the smallest thing on the menu and it was lousy too. I'm not going back.


RE: Great
By mmcdonalataocdotgov on 7/15/2009 7:46:06 AM , Rating: 1
Did you order the failure pile in a sadness bowl?


RE: Great
By thekdub on 7/15/2009 12:26:50 AM , Rating: 2
Instead of offering salads on the menu, they just make you wait for your food for a really long time in the hope that you'll lose some weight before you even eat.

But then you gain all of that weight back with a delicious, hot Quadruple Stacker and chicken fries washed down with a gallon tub of that slurpee stuff behind the counter. One might call it... a meal fit for a King.


RE: Great
By Samus on 7/15/2009 6:29:49 AM , Rating: 1
Years ago, I ate at Del Taco when one opened near my in Chicago.

It was terrible.

Recently, I ate at Del Taco again, because I moved to California and it is littered with Del Taco's and they're open pretty late. We don't have white castle on the west coast and sometimes I'd just get down on my knees and do some pretty wack shit just to have some fucking white castle.

Anyway, Del Taco wasn't bad. I ordered the same thing I ordered years ago (Chicken Taco's) and everything, even the french fries, were pretty good.

I'll probably go back.


RE: Great
By Silver2k7 on 7/15/2009 7:23:20 AM , Rating: 2
"BK definitely has the worst help of all the fast food places."

Atleast they make better burgers than McDonalds or Max (:


RE: Great
By walk2k on 7/14/2009 2:49:58 PM , Rating: 5
If we can just harness the power of FAT PEOPLE all of America's energy problems will be solved!


RE: Great
By PlasmaBomb on 7/14/2009 3:09:26 PM , Rating: 5
What are you suggesting? Putting them on a treadmill will never work!


RE: Great
By Mitch101 on 7/14/2009 3:12:19 PM , Rating: 4
Your plan is flawed becuase if they had energy they wouldn't be fat.


RE: Great
By FITCamaro on 7/14/2009 4:14:27 PM , Rating: 5
Lyposuctions for all and burn the fat instead of coal?


RE: Great
By walk2k on 7/14/2009 5:33:28 PM , Rating: 5
Methane collectors in their car seats and couches at home.
Tiny generators wired to their jaws when they eat.
etc...


RE: Great
By satinspiral on 7/14/2009 5:50:16 PM , Rating: 2
This has to be the best alt-energy proposal I've ever heard...


RE: Great
By Mathos on 7/15/2009 1:56:39 AM , Rating: 2
This is also flawed......What if like me, you don't eat a lot, work out on a regular basis, plus bust my rear in a highly physical job and work, and are still fat?


RE: Great
By 200m660ft on 7/15/2009 2:33:57 AM , Rating: 3
You must be an over-unity energy generator in that case, all the more reason to harvest your energy.


RE: Great
By mindless1 on 7/15/2009 11:53:17 PM , Rating: 2
Then you either have a hormone problem, your definition of not eating a lot is inaccurate, or your protein to fat and carb ratio is too low.

Then again, some define "fat" by how far the belly extends rather than total % body fat, in which case situps can help.

That you manage to stay alive is proof you burn calories, I can't recall anyone dying of starvation that was overweight so any way you look at it there is a remedy.


RE: Great
By marvdmartian on 7/15/2009 4:06:46 PM , Rating: 2
How about if they harness the kinetic energy of the fat kids going down the slide in the playground area??? ;)


RE: Great
By DigitalFreak on 7/14/2009 5:55:39 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder if you could Soylent Green into fuel?


RE: Great
By Flunk on 7/14/2009 11:22:05 PM , Rating: 2
anything that contains energy can be used as fuel, Soylent Green is packed with calories so it would make a great fuel!


RE: Great
By Manch on 7/14/2009 11:12:12 PM , Rating: 2
Replace the floors and sidewalks of all the fast food joints with these contraptions. Maybe it'll steal a littlebit of kinetic energy from the fatties on their way to the counter to order their triple whopper w/cheese and of course a diet coke.


RE: Great
By djc208 on 7/15/2009 7:05:15 AM , Rating: 2
Isn't that exactly what this is doing? They're more likely to be going through the drivethrough, and their car will weigh more than one with a skinny person in it, which means they could push down more weight.


RE: Great
By marvdmartian on 7/14/2009 4:33:39 PM , Rating: 2
So if you have spinner rims on your car, do they get MORE energy??? ;)


That's stretching things a bit
By rcc on 7/14/2009 1:37:29 PM , Rating: 3
Cool, that's what everyone needs, another flippin' speed bump. Do we get a nickle off our bill for shock absorber wear?

Not to mention the law suits for discrimination against low riders.

Maybe they should incorporate similar technology into weigh stations. Install a ramp, truck goes up, drives onto scale with sinks 10 feet while weighing the vehicle, vehicle drives off at the lower level and off he/she goes. One wonders how much power that would generate.

The truckers could use the entry ramp to help slow their vehicles, thereby saving wear and tear on brakes.




RE: That's stretching things a bit
By TheSpaniard on 7/14/09, Rating: 0
RE: That's stretching things a bit
By walk2k on 7/14/2009 3:04:17 PM , Rating: 5
Don't be an idiot. There is no such "US" law. Vehicle height laws are determined by state. In CA the only requirement is that no portion of the body is lower than the lowest point on the rims. Otherwise "low riders" as you ignorantly put it.. are perfectly 100% legal.


RE: That's stretching things a bit
By axeman1957 on 7/14/2009 4:25:34 PM , Rating: 2
but there are laws about the height of your bumper, so if your car is "low" due to add ons thats ok, but if you drop the suspention you could be breaking the law, not that I care, just adding to the fun :-)


By mindless1 on 7/15/2009 11:58:51 PM , Rating: 2
And law about headlight height, probably others as well, we might just as well say it's law in the US if every state has laws effectively making it illegal to be below a certain height anywhere in the US.


By invidious on 7/14/2009 2:40:43 PM , Rating: 3
weigh station idea is actually pretty cool.


RE: That's stretching things a bit
By PrinceGaz on 7/14/2009 3:11:02 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Install a ramp, truck goes up, drives onto scale with sinks 10 feet while weighing the vehicle, vehicle drives off at the lower level and off he/she goes. One wonders how much power that would generate.


Well as potential energy from gravity is calculated as

Energy (J) = Mass (kg) x Gravity (m/s2) x Height (m)

for every ton (1000 kg) of weight on Earth (9.8 m/s2), and a 3 metre drop (9.84 ft) is roughly 10ft

E = 1000 x 9.8 x 3 = 29400J or around 29KJ per ton of vehicle.

Not all of that 29KJ will be collected as electrical energy as it won't be 100% efficient, but I expect the real-world figure for a 10ft drop would exceed 20KJ per ton.


RE: That's stretching things a bit
By modus2 on 7/14/2009 4:32:49 PM , Rating: 3
...and then you have to drive the vehicle up thoose 10ft again, via another non-100% efficient process.

"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"


RE: That's stretching things a bit
By SilthDraeth on 7/14/2009 6:01:14 PM , Rating: 2
Why would you drive back up the 10 ft?

The weigh station would be elevated, with the highway off ramp leading up to it, the exit would be level with where the scale stopped after lowering, so the highway entry ramp would be back level with the highway.


RE: That's stretching things a bit
By NuclearDelta on 7/14/09, Rating: 0
RE: That's stretching things a bit
By Keeir on 7/14/2009 7:09:16 PM , Rating: 5
The proposal was for a truck wieght station.

A truck must come to a complete stop to be wieghed.

If the truck could "glide" up a ramp to a stop, then no energy has been wasted to get it to the top. This energy would have otherwise been given off from brake heat.


By mindless1 on 7/16/2009 12:03:54 AM , Rating: 2
A truck could also glide to a stop without the addt'l height, it is still a waste of energy not a gain in one.

The basic fact is no matter how one tries to envision it, even at a drive-through, it is an energy loss even if the strip or other generation device were magically installed with no manufacturing, transportation, installation or other associated power usage.

The only time such a device would make sense is if there were not an incline but a decline so great that anyone travelling down it would necessarily have to put on their brakes so they didn't accelerate while coasting, that it were a naturally occurring decline not a man-made one which caused travel up an incline afterwards to offset the lower altitude.

Even then it's pretty much nonsense to fiddle with such things, piddling around with trivial energy gains is part of the problem, we don't have infinite time to waste instead of being productive enough to be self-sustaining.


RE: That's stretching things a bit
By Keeir on 7/14/2009 7:07:01 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Not all of that 29KJ will be collected as electrical energy as it won't be 100% efficient, but I expect the real-world figure for a 10ft drop would exceed 20KJ per ton.


Alright, lets be a little more realistic. To expect almost 70% efficiency from this type of operation is very optomistic. The reason I say this is that, the Truck will need to be supported with a platform that must be returned to the higher potential energy state. This platform will need to be very beefy to withstand the -largest- trucks, and therefore, may "soak" up alot of the energy produced by the inefficieny of the motors required to lift it back into place. Furthermore, your calculation does not reflect the loss of energy due to a the "zero" velocity the truck must be at in the end of the fall. In fact, I think the trucking industry would be very against this type of operation if the acceleration on the cargo was -ever- 9.8 m/s^2.

Realistically, more like 50% or less the actual energy change will be the output of the total operation.

However, even at 100%, 29 kJ is only 0.008 kWH. To run a 100 watt lamp for 1 hour, would require a 12,500 lb truck. The average household requires 11,000 kWh per year, or the energy generated for 1.37 billion lbs this way. Overall this project would not provide significant ROI in terms of energy usage. If a system could be designed to wieght trucks without requiring them to stop, this system would save significantly more energy in the form of gasoline...


By NuclearDelta on 7/14/2009 7:18:09 PM , Rating: 2
Typically its the older stations which require a complete stop.

In any case, electrical generation directly via a diesel generator or increases in car efficiency are going to be more efficient than any rube-goldberg-esque derivation from traveling weighing down raised platforms.


Treadmills....
By Tegrat on 7/14/2009 1:34:59 PM , Rating: 2
They should use treadmills instead. That way you can keep driving and the longer it takes for them to get your order together, you are slowly reducing the price by generating electricity for their building/appliances. So if they can't deliver on time, you get your food free and money back!




RE: Treadmills....
By ThePooBurner on 7/14/2009 1:39:13 PM , Rating: 2
That's actually a very intriguing idea. I wouldn't mind that at all if the cost to my gas was negligible enough. Someone do the math for this, quick!


RE: Treadmills....
By ClownPuncher on 7/14/2009 1:56:15 PM , Rating: 3
I think we should be on the treadmills, not our cars. Healthy and "green".


RE: Treadmills....
By MrBlastman on 7/14/2009 2:49:06 PM , Rating: 5
"green" like your poo after too much grape soda?...

... They could collect it like horse dung as the customers jog and plop in place, ship it off to their lettuce farms and use it as a composting material. But wait, there's more! In addition, they could harvest the sweat dripping off the hamster-wheel bound customers and then put it in an evaporator, collecting the sodium and putting it back in salt packets.

Now, you might ask - why would the customers run in the first place? If YOU had scary looking BK King holding a knife behind you in the restaurant - you'd have the "poop" scared out of you and run like heck too!

I call that a symbiotic relationship. They make you fat, you make them food and power and you stay in shape so you can eat more... (of yourself too).


whine whine whine
By deputc26 on 7/14/2009 7:39:11 PM , Rating: 4
The amount of whining about burger king going on here is truly amazing, no doubt you are all entitled to better food and service.




RE: whine whine whine
By rippleyaliens on 7/14/2009 9:07:40 PM , Rating: 3
Once again, people only see what they want to see.. Company (Burger King) wants to install something that will lower the amount of power being generated for their establishment, IE, generating their own from the Cars that go through the drive in.
Bulk of responses are, "I hate Burger King", "Burger King is slow"..
1- IF ya are going to BK, then chances are you are a disgusting Fat Body (Full Metal Jacket- quote , i couldnt resist).
2- Need to be walking to loose the LBS!!!!

I swear, every time someone comes with a idea, to atleast TRY, you get 20 arm chair warriors who complain, talk of law suits, talk about the service, talk about the people, YET DO NOT OFFER ANY GOOD IDEAS THEMSELVES..
Someone brainstorms, offers the Weigh station, and SAME THING... Complain complain, complain, yet no constructive thoughts themselves.. I Personally like the idea.. Actually this should be at every drive in.. If 150,000 cars come through.. and generates .10 a dollar (1 dime) that is $15,000 a year, over 1,000 a month. That is good. It is not like it will cost a driver IN EXCESS of a dime, for this to happen.. Geezee.. people, get on target.. do you want lower emissions, or do you want your triple whopper. Cant have them both..Ya can, but chill on the complaining.


RE: whine whine whine
By rdeegvainl on 7/15/2009 9:56:29 AM , Rating: 2
Solution: Speed up service. Makes customers happy, and will save energy because cars will idle less.


RE: whine whine whine
By mindless1 on 7/16/2009 12:15:11 AM , Rating: 2
1) I go to burger king, when it's the only place around when I'm hungry, and see no difference in my weight compared to those who don't. Actually I'm far closer to my ideal weight than most people I know who try to avoid fast food. The idea that it's the fast food is dumb, you can literally eat two cheeseburgers a day and be thin, it's all a matter of calories intake versus calories burnt (duh?).

2) Walking doesn't do a heck of a lot unless only contrasting against disabled people who move around very little, it's a pretty low additional burn rate compared to just being alive enough to move around every now and then. Higher metabolism require getting the heart rate up a bit more.

You don't need to try an idea to already know the science disproves it as being an idiotic publicity stunt or a selfish way to try and steal other people's energy even if it's a trivial amount.

The GOOD IDEA is don't do foolish nonsense trying to make a PR statement, it tricks the dumb people but those more intelligent see it as wasting their time on things that don't matter instead of on what their core business needs to keep customers happy.

If 150,000 cars come through, it steals energy from all of them, because they are not necessarily presumably braking less, they are necessarily modulating their throttle more instead of just letting up on the brake to idle through the lane. They made a nonsense suggestion without looking at how an energy conservative person drives in a drive-through lane.

There is no way it would generate remotely close to 10 cents per car, you'll made up nonsense to suit an invalid argument.

It does not lower emissions, you are just puppeting the nonsense. Triple whopper is NOT A PROBLEM. Only morons think it is. We can have cattle, we don't need to care about CO2 levels because that is what life does, we don't have to worry about clearing forests because that is NOT a requirement for cattle, they can be raised on existing land with MORE crops planted to feed them which reduces CO2 not increaess it.

The problem is people do the cheapest thing trying to have personal gain, it's only our choice to have cheaper food so it's not the beef, it's the greed that is the problem, as always. If we never had fast food the greed would still cause the problem, people still have to eat and still take the shortest and cheapest path to their goal whenever possible.


Cheating
By crimson117 on 7/14/2009 4:01:10 PM , Rating: 2
RE: Cheating
By johnsonx on 7/15/2009 1:25:00 PM , Rating: 2
lol


RE: Cheating
By mindless1 on 7/16/2009 12:24:49 AM , Rating: 2
^ x2


big energy
By Danger D on 7/14/2009 3:12:58 PM , Rating: 2
And the more Whoppers you eat, the more energy your thighs provide next time you come through the drive through. Brilliant.




RE: big energy
By SublimeSimplicity on 7/14/2009 4:47:02 PM , Rating: 2
Good point, if they could harness the heat energy from thigh friction of their patrons they could put Exxon out of business.


RE: big energy
By mindless1 on 7/16/2009 12:20:38 AM , Rating: 1
Senseless point you mean, people DRIVING thru aren't generating significant thigh friction, you replied to a nonsensical poster who just wanted to take a jab at fat people. If one insists on doing that at least do it constructively, if it's really necessary which it isn't.

The world can be a better place but it starts with everyone critically examining their own faults, not just pointing at the faults of others.


Instead of kinetic energy
By subhajit on 7/15/2009 2:29:59 AM , Rating: 3
They should have used the weight of the people coming in and out. Could have generated a lot more power that way.




I don't live very far from there
By userengel on 7/14/2009 1:31:42 PM , Rating: 2
I also don't really like Burger King, but I will have to go check this out. It sounds like a very interesting idea.




I've got it!!!
By theapparition on 7/14/2009 3:02:19 PM , Rating: 2
Just thought of a great idea. With all that wasted kinetic energy, why not utilize it on all major highways? Pave the roads with kinetic panels. And while we're at it, place giant windmills on top of each car to generate enough power to move said car. With that accomplished, we can then concentrate on world peace by harnessing rainbow fairies and unicorn tears.

While there is some value in placing these panels in areas where consumers stop, cost/benefit ratios are too close to call at this time.
While I applaud companies for looking into profitable alternative energy solutions, I don't think this amounts to more than a publicity stunt, like most companies touting "green" energy.

BK would be much better suited by trying to utilize all the methane emmisions that come off it's customers after they dine there.




Screw kinetic recovery...
By KIAman on 7/14/2009 3:16:30 PM , Rating: 2
What happened to vibration recovery aka Piezoelectric Transducers? These devices take any vibration and convert them to electricity.




Hmm...
By JustKidding on 7/15/2009 12:35:43 AM , Rating: 2
'Sir, you fries aren't quite done. Could you please go around the drive-thru a couple of more times?'




By GeorgeOu on 7/14/2009 10:21:47 PM , Rating: 1
If you have a hybrid, you use your own kinetic energy to charge your batteries. If Burger King uses your energy for their electrical needs, they're effectively taking energy from your batteries which is tantamount to stealing gas from your car. /sarcasm.




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