Energy-Harvesting Floors (YOUR FOOTSTEPS CAN GENERATE ENERGY!)

The New York Times Magazine ^ | 12/10/06 | Clay Risen

[paulat]

Energy-Harvesting Floors

By CLAY RISEN Published: December 10, 2006

The average human being generates about eight watts of energy with each step, most of which is expended as vibration. It may not sound like much, but take the 30,000 or more people who pass through a major-city subway hub at rush hour, and suddenly you’ve got serious power. That’s usually a problem for architects and engineers, who have to design structures to withstand such small but persistent pressure. But the Facility, a London architecture firm, sees it as an opportunity. The company proposes putting small hydraulic generators in floors to capture vibration and convert it into electricity.

The Facility will roll out a prototype energy-harvesting staircase next year and ultimately use the technology, dubbed the Pacesetter, as part of a larger project to revamp London’s South Central subway stations. “For each footstep we can harvest three to five watts of energy,” says Claire Price, the director of the Facility. “In a rush-hour period in this country, some of the larger stations experience 34,000 people walking through it. At three to five watts, you’re generating a lot of kilowatt hours, enough to power all of the lighting and audio equipment within the building and beyond.” Price and her company are also developing a similar unit to be placed in train tunnels — essentially, as Price describes it, “a microgenerator that resonates in tune with passing trains and that will generate power that will then power a series of wire-free L.E.D. light units, such as street lamps.”

[SNIP]

Someday, the Facility team speculates, systems like the Pacesetter will be everywhere — not just in the floor but anywhere small amounts of vibration or other ambient energy can be harvested efficiently: under roadbeds, at gyms, even inside fabric.

[SNIP]

[paulat]

This is part of another thread:

The 6th Annual Year in Ideas

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1751268/posts?page=8#8

[o_zarkman44]

It is amazing what technology and imagination can come up with.
Power to the People!

[paulat]

Oops! here's the other link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1751268/posts?page=8#8

[ElkGroveDan]

Sounds like a pie-in-the-sky hippy dream. It also sounds costly and maintenance intensive.

You realize of course that if a thing like this came to be, the enviro kooks would begin mandating it and restricting our other option.

We already have a means of generating electricity. It works, it's relatively inexpensive. We aren't "running out of resources." The air over our cities is cleaner than it's been in 100 years. There's no reason to change.

If these clowns can make this economical absent government intervention and mandates, well more power to them (npi). But I don't see that with "novel" energy these days.

[Procyon]

"Watt" is a unit of measure of power not energy. If the author doesn't know the difference, what does he know?

[WL-law]

This makes no sense to me, unless the staircase is going to be turned into a virtual treadmill of sorts -- because to produce energy the staircase would be absorbing rather than resisting the lifting force of the person walking. Am I missing something?

[expatpat]

He/she(?) is a journalist -- why would you expect 'it' to know anything beyond how to use Word?

[paulat]

This makes no sense to me, unless the staircase is going to be turned into a virtual treadmill of sorts

My understanding is that the power would be generated in the flexion.

[paulat]

"Watt" is a unit of measure of power not energy. If the author doesn't know the difference, what does he know?

He's taking a shortcut in explaining. This isn't Scientific American.

[paulat]

"Watt" is a unit of measure of power not energy. If the author doesn't know the difference, what does he know?

Further, we have all seen someone powering a bicycle that lights a lightbulb.

That's the kind of image he's involing.

[taxcontrol]

Hmmm, wouldn't that be "Power FROM the people"

[paulat]

Oops, #10 is to you.

[WL-law]

My understanding is that the power would be generated in the flexion.

But if you're turning motion into energy, how much 'motion' would we be talking about? With normal hard surfaces, very little. If the surface was changed to permit more motion by permitting (and capturing) more flexion, then the more work (calories) the walker has to expend to move through the space.

Hence my 'rat treadmill' analogy. Wouldn't all the workers in the building need to eat more to create the energy to walk up the stairs? And so more energy has to expended at the farm to grow the food -- plus we'd get even fatter than we already are!!

[paulat]

Hence my 'rat treadmill' analogy. Wouldn't all the workers in the building need to eat more to create the energy to walk up the stairs?

Possibly, in the huge aggregate. But it would still light the lights.

I sorta wish I had a treadmill set-up to power my laptop.'

I could get in shape and FReep at the same time!

[o_zarkman44]

With all the potential energy produced on Times Square on New Years Eve, Dick Clarks Rockin New Years perty could produce enough energy to light Times Square and Broadway!

Slightly softer sidewalks would be good for peoples feet.

The possiblities are endless.

[jiggyboy]

Are you one of those people who criticizes computer engineers for using "data" for one piece of data, too?

[paulat]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/228123_officefit13.html

Treadmill system lets office-bound work out while they work Monday, June 13, 2005

By STEVE KARNOWSKI THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Sitting at their desks is about the last thing workers would do in Dr. James Levine's office of the future.

Instead of being sedentary in front of their computers, they'd stand. But instead of standing still, they'd walk on a treadmill. And instead of meeting around a conference table, they'd talk business while walking laps on a track.

That's exactly how Levine, a Mayo Clinic obesity researcher, and several of his colleagues have been working for the past five weeks or so.

"I hate going to the gym, which may be partly why I'm so interested in this," he said, keeping up a 1-mph pace on his treadmill while checking e-mail and fielding questions from a reporter.

That speed is slow enough to avoid breaking a sweat but fast enough to burn an extra 100 calories per hour, or 1,000 a day, given his average 10-hour workdays, Levine said. And it helps the 41-year-old endocrinologist keep his 5-foot-8 1/2-inch frame at 158 pounds.

"We're talking more than 50 pounds of weight loss a year, if I were to keep my diet the same," he said.

Levine is a leading researcher of NEAT -- short for "non-exercise activity thermogenesis" -- the calories people burn during everyday activities such as standing, walking or even fidgeting.

A recently published study he led showed that thin people are on their feet an average of 152 more minutes a day than couch potatoes. Levine was brainstorming ways to address that 2 1/2- hour NEAT deficit a few months ago when he had the idea for the "ultimate office makeover."

"The response has to be appropriate for the magnitude of the problem," he said. "And so we really thought, 'Is there a completely different way of working?' "

Within four weeks, his team developed an alternative to the traditional cubicle -- workstations that combine a computer, desk and treadmill into one unit. It was a refinement of a desk Levine created for himself about six months ago.

He and his team also put a carpeted track around the perimeter of their new 5,000-square-foot space. They made walls out of magnetic marker boards so they can stand up while developing project ideas.

And they used black tape to mark a hockey net on the wall behind Levine's treadmill so they can fire lightweight plastic pucks at the goal while talking to him.

"It's great fun, and it creates a whole positivity," he said while touring the walking track. "Partly because it's so new, but partly because it's nice to be moving."

The makeover was relatively cheap. Levine says the 10 workstations cost about $1,000 each -- about half the cost of a cubicle -- and remodeling the space cost about $5.50 per square foot.

Those who don't feel like standing can always pull up a tall stool to work on their computers, he said, but the environment "sends you this message of 'Walking is the norm. Being upright is the norm.' "

Yes, there's peer pressure, he said, but isn't it better than peer pressure to bring doughnuts to work? "Coercion to help you get healthier and happier, that isn't so bad."

Staying fit doesn't appear to be a major concern yet for Chinmay Manohar, a 24-year-old research assistant in Levine's office. A runner and a hiker, he's a trim 5-feet-8 and 130 pounds.

But he's found Levine's setup keeps him more alert and focused. When he's soldering electronic gizmos, he stands at a raised workbench. When he's computer programming, he walks on a treadmill. Somehow, typing isn't a problem.

"It took me only a day or two to actually get acquainted with the system. Also, it keeps me fit."

Levine has heard from people like Lois Yurow in Westfield, N.J., who wanted to know where she could get a workstation like his after she saw a newspaper photo of him walking on it.

"I looked at it and said, 'I want one of those things!' " she said.

Although the treadmill-workstations aren't commercially available yet, Mayo Clinic's technology licensing people are working on that.

Yurow, 42, is at her home-office desk about six hours straight each day -- with breaks to fill her water glass or throw in a load of laundry -- until her children come home from school. She also puts in another hour at night after her children have settled down.

"It would be great if there were something set up that would let me be standing up all the time ... and let me get my work done," she said.

[jiggyboy]

It would undoubtedly feel a little squishy somewhere. My guess is that the "give" you feel when you walk on laminate flooring would be the amount of change they'd shoot for first.

[Mrs. Don-o]

BTTT

[paulat]

Mrs. D...all the links are here:

The 6th Annual Year in Ideas:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1751268/posts

You strike me as someone who would like this.

Scroll down. MaryFromMichigan gave the links to all of the articles.