FedEx Reducing Costs of the Memphis Sort
Busy is a word few of us understand, some say the old Grand Central Station was busy, yet until you have been to the FedEX Midnight Sort, you really have no clue as to what busy can really be. During the midnight sorting of all the packages collected World-Wide, FedEx teams sort their Express Packages and send them back out again.
There are over 1000 take-offs and landings of large cargo airliners, which are completely off loaded and then reloaded as the taxi back out for takeoff. This goes on for six to eight hours, now that is busy let me tell you. In fact do not take my word for it, go see for yourself, they give tours and you can sit in a tower and watch it all work before your eyes, it is truly amazing, as you look out and see the place lit up like a giant Christmas Tree in the middle of the night.
The cost to light up the airport and all the equipment must be tremendous, everything is under full utilization, it is immense and it is intense. Can you imagine just for one minute how much their energy costs are? Wow. I believe there is a way to save on the cost of all those lights, using vibrational energy from all the equipment running around the ramp, the conveyor belts, jet engines and banging around of air-cargo containers. How so you ask? I propose using electromagnetic induction technology to charge a capacitor instead of the lights working off a battery or power source. Of course this has never been done before, but it could be done, as it is being done on a micro-scale already.
Currently there are some nifty micro-flashlights being used which you can buy which use a similar technique and are available thanks to the Everlite Flashlight technology research lab. These smaller flashlights work by shaking them for about thirty seconds and shine for about 6 minutes and they shine quite bright since they use a very bright LED light. Here is a link to this home use flashlight:
http://demo.physics.uiuc.edu/LectDemo/scripts/demo_descript.idc?DemoID=1138
What if we took this concept and made it work on a huge scale, the size of an entire airport? We could perhaps use the roar of the jet engines to power up the taxi lights and runway lights and the constant vibration of machinery to power up all the light that are used during this humungous effort. It could be done. It should be done. Does FedEx have the balls to get it done? What if they absolutely, positively had to save the energy over night? Think on it.
“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
