Charging up the stairs (BBC) {energy from vibration/piezeoelectricity}

[eppur_se_muova]

Can we harvest the energy expended from footsteps and the vibrations from trains? Architect Claire Price describes how this can be put into practice.
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{DARPA's} interest is mainly in reducing the need for soldiers to carry heavy rechargeable batteries that serve essential yet power-hungry communication devices. So they've looked at how "heel-strike" generators, powered through the pumping motion of a footstep, can be embedded within a boot heel. These devices currently achieve upwards of 3 - 6 watts of power output.
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So the 34,000 commuters who pass through Victoria underground station at rush hour, for example, could theoretically generate enough energy to power 6,500 LED light fittings - energy that today is disappearing into the ground.

Elsewhere in the world, researchers are also looking into how energy harvesting devices can be embedded within roads or how they can be used to create a self-powering heart pacemaker or even an artificial limb.

Already there are skis and tennis rackets that incorporate a "piezoelectric" material (which produces an electrical charge when stress is applied to them) that can dampen the vibration and reduce damage to the human joints.

For railway arches, rather than merely trying to dampen the noise and vibration, the architectural practice of which I am a director is trying to harness this energy to help light buildings.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5009358.stm

I'm a bit skeptical as to whether the (energy/pollution) cost of manufacture will ever be justified by the 'savings' being trumpeted here. OTOH, in the absence of numerical results, I'll keep an open mind.

[Old and In the Way]

1. Piezo technology is pretty cool.

Apply an electrical charge, you get mechanical energy/sound out. Apply mechanical energy, you get electrical energy out. Not sure how you'd store or transfer the stored energy, though. But if you could ever harness a fraction of the human energy expended, it would open a whole new source of clean energy.

[skylarmae]

2. it's articles like this that give me hope my grandchildren

and great grandchildren will have a future to enjoy and be part of.....

Lord, please Bless our Scientists.....

[skids]

3. Thiefs! :-)

Stealing my muscle power. Wonder if one gets more tired walking across such a floor...

[htuttle]

4. I don't think you would

I think that you'd probably heat up the floor less as you walked across it or something.

:shrug:

[kestrel91316]

5. Piezoelectricity is what causes the stress of weightbearing and

walking to stimulate bone formation. Osteoblasts respond directly to the micro-electric charge. Something about the calcium crystals in bone.....It's why Barbaro MUST walk on his leg in order for it to heal...........

Just an interesting aside...........