Comments on: Let’s generate electricity by walking!

By: Brendan Barrett

Brendan Barrett — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:28:15 +0000

Seems this is catching on in the US as well. There is a new company called Powerleap. Take a look at their website for more informaton – http://powerleap.net/index.html

Could this be the beginning of something?

By: Antonio

Antonio — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:18:12 +0000

In response to marufish. You are right about the very small amount of energy generated by this method. You need to look at the big picture though, if we combine this clean energy tech with wind, solar, and other techs of the sort we will have enough energy to do with what we please.

By: Tokyo to become powered by its population’s walking energy? | Jeffrey Rowe blogs about the entertaining life in japan

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:14:44 +0000

[...] had to share with you all about the advancing technologies in Tokyo. The article entitled “Let’s generate electricity by walking!” by Luis Patron* really caught my attention as I’ve been very interested in alternative [...]

By: Deal or no deal? | OurWorld 2.0

Deal or no deal? | OurWorld 2.0 — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:05:32 +0000

[...] Our World 2.0 has previously identified frontier innovations by eco-entrepreneurs such as electric vehicles and the idea of generating electricity by walking. [...]

By: ItsSri

ItsSri — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:10:53 +0000

Really innovative. This is what you call thinking out of the box! If only we had more such thinkers and visualizers, this world would be a much better place.

For a long time, I have been imagining things to collect and recycle the vehicular pollution on the city roads and even highways.

Also, you have alternators that generate electricity for use on vehicles but these are linked to moving parts. Why can’t we have small, mini wind turbines fitted around a vehicle to charge a bank of batteries that can run that vehicle – do away with fossil fuel altogether!

By: Attention Limited — Use Your Power or Lose It

Attention Limited — Use Your Power or Lose It — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:47:02 +0000

[...] Luis Patron reports in Our World 2.0, a website out of the United Nations University, about Kohei Hayamizu’s use of ”piezoelectricity“, a way of capturing electricity when things are squeezed or compressed. Hayamizu effectively turned a small piece of sidewalk in a busy city into a power generator. In short, it’s a device that converts the energy exerted by people walking into electricity that can then power anything. And yes, it produces a considerable amount of energy that if such devices were installed on roads, city sidewalks, and an various other things that are squeezed or compressed on a daily basis (perhaps under your bed, if you’re that fortunate), it could have a serious impact and be the Solution. [...]

By: marufish

marufish — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 02:18:27 +0000

It is a great idea to generate the electricity from the human movement. However, the electricity generated still very weak even you have thousands of passenger passing the Shibuya or Shinjuku train station everyday. The technology can still be improved, but we need realistic solution that is cost effective enought to generate the electricity. However, this showcase will help to make people realize how difficult to generate the electricity and how easy we use it or even waste it in our daily life.

By: Brendan Barrett

Brendan Barrett — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:31:26 +0000

I just noticed that Treehugger has a great article entitled Highway Robbery: Piezoelectic Highways.

They are not so keen on the idea of using highways to generate electricity. Quote:

“what they are doing is converting the energy from gasoline, paid for by the driver and inefficiently converted into forward motion, into electricity by increasing drag.”

Take a look at the article:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/12/highway-robbery-generators.php