Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

"Crowd Farm" to Collect Energy?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the kriss-kross-to-make-comeback dept.

Cain writes to mention that a couple of MIT students would like to harness the mechanical power of large groups of people. "A Crowd Farm in Boston's South Station railway terminal would work like this: A responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps would be installed beneath the station's main lobby. The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current."

3 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. Already Done (kind of) in Britain by KermodeBear · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I believe that I saw an article on Slashdot several months ago where this kind of idea was implemented in Britain, but it was on the roads. Cars getting onto the highways would drive over large plates; the plates would move and generate enough electricity to run street lights. Not a bad idea, but I wonder if the energy return in this case would be enough to justify the cost of installation.

    --
    Love sees no species.
  2. Re:A better idea by reddburn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Some company in denmark is working on dance clubs that would work in a similar fashion (lights and volume powered by the activity on the dance floor). They debuted a working prototype of the floor (10 meters square) at the Live Earth concert. I just heard about it, but it sounds similar: http://www.sustainabledanceclub.com/

    --
    "Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand" - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  3. Re:Wouldn't this make it harder to walk? by trtmrt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A lot of comments on this in the thread. Energy is conserved but the question is where does the energy go when you walk on a normal surface. If you have a solid immovable floor the energy you impart onto the surface through friction gets dissipated as heat (slight bending of the material, compacting of the earth...). If you could "dissipate" this energy into electricity it might not be significantly harder to walk on such a surface. Also, if these are just piezos than you are basically just bouncing on what feels like slightly softer surface and I don't see that as a big problem. The practical issues however are a different story (maintenance, efficiency, cost/benefit).