With the movement towards alternative energy in full swing, a couple of MIT graduates, Zack Anderson and Shakeel Avadhany, are harnessing the power of potholes. Their company, Levant Power, is turning the bruising up-and-downs of the suspension system into available automotive energy.

From the Levant Power company website:

Levant Power Corp. has identified an alternative energy source previously untapped by vehicles: the suspension system. The energy of a vehicle traversing varying roads and terrain is significant and currently dissipated as heat through conventional shock absorbers.

Our product, GenShock, recovers this energy and utilizes it for fuel economy gains, providing additional onboard electricity. In addition to extending a vehicle’s range, GenShock improves ride quality via an adaptable, variable-damping suspension. GenShock is a turnkey replacement for standard shock absorbers, requiring minimal installation time and little to no maintenance.

Scientific America profiles the Levant technology in a recent article:

But spread that device across millions of jittering vehicles, and the numbers become staggering. In 2007, medium-size and heavy trucks used 34 billion gallons of diesel fuel. According to E&E analysis, trimming 1 percent of that fuel would have saved 3.4 million tons of CO2.

Analysts of the trucking industry said they hadn’t seen something like GenShock before. Some said previous energy-generating efforts, using electromagnets, never caught on.

Anderson and Avadhany are meeting with truck manufacturers and one of Detroit’s Big Three carmakers. Transit operators have called, too, suspecting GenShock would reap huge fuel savings in their bus fleets. Levant keeps regular contact with military clients, whose vehicles navigate the roughest terrain there is. The technology isn’t just for new vehicles, either — it can also replace an old car’s shocks.