Two MIT graduate student dynamo inventors, James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, have developed an idea for "crowd farm" whereby the lost energy from the impact of a footfall is captured and converted into electricity. Now that's thinking on your feet.
ENERGY from humans walking through cities would be harvested and converted into electricity as part of an extraordinary renewable energy scheme put forward in the US. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) propose paving major urban areas with blocks that would move slightly under the weight of pedestrians' footfalls, driving
dynamos that would then produce power.
When a human walks, energy is used to drive muscles and overcome inertia and gravity. When the foot hits an unyielding surface, such as a road, energy can be lost through sound and reabsorption by the leg muscles. The MIT pair propose capturing the energy that would
otherwise be wasted. They calculate a single footfall contains enough energy, if harvested, to power two 60 watt light bulbs for one second.
The power from 28,527 footfalls, generated by, say, the crowd at a football match, would have enough energy to power a train for one second. |
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