Boeing has patented a way of generating electricity from the noise of jet engines as they are opened up during takeoff.
Chin Toh, an inventor employed by the US aircraft maker, has created a "system for generating electricity from acoustic energy".
A Diagram from http://www.whatafuture.com
"Acoustic wave collectors" are placed on either side of a runway, where they harvest the sound of the engines, then send it to a drum that vibrates to create an airflow.
The moving air is directed into a turbine chamber where it causes turbine shafts to rotate and generate electricity, which can be sent to a substation for distribution.
Boeing’s patent applications says the acoustic energy produced by planes during take off is "a lost energy resource".
A diagram from Boeing’s patent
It is not yet clear how much energy will be generated by the device.
Read about the patent in more depth here.
Top image: A Boeing 747 by moonlight (Sebastien Lebrigand/Wikimedia Commons)
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The photo must be of the 747-Special Budget Model…You know, the one with two engines rather than four. It couldn’t be one of those smoky Airbus planes, could it??
With all due respect to Boeing (because I have been a passenger in their airliners several times) I am overwhelmingly convinced ,having felt the take off thrust of the 747, that in addition to the sound waves, is the massive and powerful air thrust of the jet engines which enable the take off to occur! I think that sound or no sound ,this massive air thrust is more than enough to get those series of turbines spinning to generate as much
electricity as their are flights day by day!!!