Generating electricity from human power and pressure

May 13, 2008

This is pretty exciting stuff. Although this article is pretty old, TreeHugger.com says:

The East Japan Railway Company (JR-East) is doing research on how to make its train stations more eco-friendly. One of the technologies they are working on is a ticket gate that has piezo elements that would generate electricity as commuters walk through. “R claims that this sort of human-powered electricity generation system may provide a portion of the electricity consumed at train stations in the future.

When combined with high-efficiency storage systems, the ticket gate generators can serve as a clean source of supplementary power for the train stations. Busy train stations (and those with large numbers of passengers willing to bounce heavily through the gates) will be able to accumulate a relatively large amount of electricity. It can also be used as a way to know how many people went through the gates. The system is being tested at the JR-East head office in Shibuya, where it is installed at the entrance to the reception area on the 4th floor. As visitors pass through the gate, a lamp lights up, signifying that electricity has been produced.

From the piezo electricity Wiki page:

The best-known application is the electric cigarette lighter: pressing the button causes a spring-loaded hammer to hit a piezoelectric crystal, producing a sufficiently high voltage that electric current flows across a small spark gap, thus heating and igniting the gas. The portable sparkers used to light gas grills or stoves work the same way, and many types of gas burners now have built-in piezo-based ignition systems.

Upon doing further research, 2 MIT grad students were so taken with the idea that they see potential in crowd farms:

The Crowd Farm is not intended for home use. According to Graham and Jusczyk, a single human step can only power two 60W light bulbs for one flickering second. But get a crowd in motion, multiply that single step by 28,527 steps, for example, and the result is enough energy to power a moving train for one second.

And while the farm is an urban vision, the dynamo-floor principle can also be applied to capturing energy at places like rock concerts, too. “Greater movement of people could make the music louder,” suggests Jusczyk.

The students’ test case, displayed at the Venice Biennale and in a train station in Torino, Italy, was a prototype stool that exploits the passive act of sitting to generate power. The weight of the body on the seat causes a flywheel to spin, which powers a dynamo that, in turn, lights four LEDs.

“People tended to be delighted by sitting on the stool and would get up and down repeatedly,” recalls Graham.

Wow. Imagine the potential for this stuff, if it works. We could put this technology in malls, on sidewalks, buses, subways, even highways! And that’s just off the top of my head. We could generate a massive amount of energy from just doing everyday activities. Even sitting down could generate electricity — think movie theaters, schools, concert halls and sports arenas… I’m giddy with excitement. This could be a major solution to a big problem. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Light bulb moment! If we could put this technology into fitness equipment — think treadmills, bikes, ellipticals… think of all the power it could generate, especially at a large gym where people are constantly moving and exercising. Constant stream of power generation. Someone please take this idea and run with it.

Posted in alternative energy, green biz ideas