Latest "Green" Power Generation — Your Feet

gbjbaanb writes "Remember those ideas that suggested hooking gym machines to the power grid? Well, the Times is reporting that something like this to harness free energy is about to become a reality — the footfall of trudging shoppers is to become the latest source of emission-free energy. 'Engineers who have modelled the effects of the technology at Victoria Underground station in central London have calculated that the 34,000 travellers passing through every hour could power 6,500 lightbulbs. ... The plans for heel-strike generation follow successful trials last year at a bridge in the Midlands where generators converted energy from trains passing above into electricity powering a flood detector.' Possibly the most important thing for the readership is at the end: 'There could also be a range of domestic uses, for example powering iPods by plugging them into batteries placed in the owners' heels, using technology which is already available.' Obviously you'd have to get up and walk around, but, as they say, it's the thought that counts."

Comments

Cool toy, but...

[RyanFenton]

This sounds as practical as trying to harness the 'incredible power' of our stomach acid for energy generation. I'm sure we could power a lot of lightbulbs in a lot of ways - but I think there are better options than relying on extracted energy from human movement. It's like relying on whale and pig fat as a major power source - it just doesn't scale past a small market segment.

What we want is to use something more scalable, like algae-based oils, using arid and other unfarmable land, and not using fresh water sources for production. That, plus increases in solar power efficiency are much more direct ways of gathering usable energy, which could scale far beyond our current needs in a sustainable way. That way, we raise the standard of living of people by increasing energy production, rather than make them stick battery chargers on their feet.

Ultimately, food and fresh water will be bigger concerns going forward - and I don't think we'll be able to grow sustainable crops in our shoes with any toys either.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Cool toy, but...

[rocketPack]

Exactly. Why would we want to rely on an unpredictable, complicated solution to generate a small amount of electricity when we could be harnessing lots of other sources which are much more reliable, scalable, simple, and cheap!

What about using EM induction to slow down trains? How much electricity could a freight train generate if it stopped using a "third rail" and some magnets beginning a few miles out of town (when it'll already begin slowing down). The savings in mech braking wear and tear, the usefulness of the quantity of electricity generated, the predictability, reliability, simplicity, and cost of such a system make this idea seem so much better than trying to harness the power of "walking."

But we're not into "useful tech", we want something "clever" sounding and "outside of the box" - even if it's really useless and a waste of resources that could equivocally produce a superior, albeit "boring" and "obvious" solution.

This green revolution made so much more sense when it didn't have the all the hype. Bring back the old timers!

How about harness doors?

[British]

Take a door in a public place. There's a hydraulic mechanism to make sure it doesn't slam shut. There's a bit of a resistance when you open a door. Think of how many times doors in public places open & close on a given day. Sure, it may not be much per 1 door open/shut, but imagine a shopping mall or office with hundreds of doors.

Take the hydraulic damper and turn it into a generator. Chain together all the doors and have it provide power peak power hours(when the public will be using them). Make them compatible(ie mount-wise) with existing dampers & retrofit them everywhere.

Slap a generator on those revolving doors too. Imagine the power it could make in a busy downtown area.

Dang, I should patent this before.........