GreenDesk with Rosie May

A road ramp that uses passing cars to generate power has been developed.

Dorset inventor Peter Hughes' Electro-Kinetic Road Ramp creates around 10kW of power each time a car drives over its metal plates.

Around 300 jobs are due to be created in Somerset for a production run of 2,000 ramps next year. Plates in the ramp move up and down as vehicles pass over them, driving a generator. It's believed that having ten sets of the ramps on a town's high street could generate enough electricity to power the inspection lamps at "Kwik-Shox Suspension Rebuilder, Tracking & Alignment" at the end of the road. In your face big oil!

More worryingly depending on the weight of the vehicle passing overhead, between five and 50kW can be generated, which may lead to a misplaced sense of smugness from 4x4 owners. Television viewers should brace themselves for the prospect of Clarkson chortling in a Hummer about his new found green credentials.