The cushioning underneath our sidewalks generates electricity from every step we take. Meg Carter discusses alternative energy sources that originate from the masses.
Can stairs capture the energy of people as they walk up and down them, store it as electricity, and use it to power lighting? It sounds like science fiction, but it's just one of many seemingly exotic ideas that scientists and engineers are seriously working on to harness the energy produced by the human body.
"When we walk along a sidewalk, we waste 8 watts of energy - absorbed by the ground - with each step. Yet it is possible to harvest at least 30 percent of that energy," explains Claire Price, head of London's Technical Training Institute for Architects. "Think of ballroom floors, with their role in cushioning vibrations and limiting the damage that dancers can do to their limbs. Our ongoing research features a matrix arrangement of energy harvesters placed under the floor. They cushion vibrations and store, but do not dissipate, energy, thus providing a free source of seed energy."
Price is leading Project Pacesetter, an innovative project that includes the installation of the world's first elevator that harvests energy from the human body early next year at the Spinnaker Building in Portsmouth. Involved in the project are Philips Electronics and a team of researchers at the University of Hull, who have developed a heel-touch generator that fits inside a shoe and captures the energy of people as they walk, and the University of Southampton, who have developed a way to generate electricity from natural vibrations in a building. Their aim is to illustrate how electricity can be generated through human activity, as well as demonstrating the potential for using it to replenish power in public ****ing places.
"It's always been a challenge to best store the collected energy." Price admits, "We are focused on improving supercapacitors and some other energy storage devices. But we are convinced that these schemes could be a viable alternative to the national grid if the energy is used when it is near where it is generated. It could power lighting, light-emitting diode displays and audio-visual systems in public **** places."
When you consider that a transportation hub like London's Victoria Station sees an estimated 34,000 people enter and exit every hour at peak times, the sound of people's footsteps can sound like a viable alternative energy source. And there's another potential green benefit: once appliances no longer need to be connected to the grid via wires, less copper and plastic will be needed.
So if human energy has such potential, why hasn't it been properly exploited before, explains Rory Steele, executive chairman of Freeplay, the company that developed the first wind-up radio, which was invented more than a decade ago by British inventor Trevor Bayliss: "The energy generated by human activity not only needs to be utilized wisely, but also efficiently. not only be utilized rationally, but also stored efficiently and released in a controlled manner. It takes a lot of effort to generate even a small amount of electrical energy. How long does it take to store energy for a particular product? However, as people design electronic products that use less energy, the possible uses of human energy will grow."
This is precisely why there is strong interest in the human body generating its own electricity. More and more low-power electronics are now available, and advances are being made in the understanding of how to access, store and release human energy. Professor Nell White of the University of Southampton points out that Project Javelin is not the first attempt to harness human energy, having developed a device to harvest vibration energy from buildings.
"In the 1980s, the Japanese company Seiko developed 'sports' watches powered by human movement, which got rid of the need for conventional batteries by utilizing how far a person's arm could swing over a period of time." He said, "Many 'sports watches' have been produced since then, but the possibility of utilizing this technology to power larger appliances is limited by the slow speed of human movement."
The U.S. and British armies have experimented with energy-harvesting devices that can be placed inside soldiers' boots. One application of the technology was to provide power for radiotelephones, which had traditionally been powered by bulky rechargeable batteries. However, the program failed when it became clear that the power-harvesting device was not strong enough to withstand the extreme conditions.
Then in the early 1990s came Freeplay and its clockwork-powered radios, lamps and flashlights. More recently the company has invented a clockwork charger to charge cell phones, a foot-pump generator to power large appliances, and prototypes of clockwork-powered medical devices. The company is also involved in the development of a clockwork mechanism to power so-called $100 (￡53) laptops, which have been developed to make personal computers available to children in developing countries around the world.
Opinions differ on what is the best way to harness the body's energy. Some believe the future of harnessing human energy lies in built-in devices such as heel-touch generators, while others point to a future in mechanical devices that harness the energy generated by the body's many activities. Price says Project Pacesetter has already caught the attention of the business community. She is working with a fitness equipment manufacturer on a way to capture the energy generated when people use treadmills. Meanwhile, Steele has struck a deal to launch products powered by renewable energy in India. Ran for Freeplay The future of the company lies in the development of products that combine clockwork power technology with solar and wind energy technology." "Sustainable energy is a niche industry in the developed world, and probably always will be - except in the UK, where legislation encourages sustainable energy," he explains, "The reason for this is simple: the average consumer wants to access electricity in the easiest way to get electricity - the National Grid."