Crowds: The Other Renewable Energy
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Image Source: Graphic / MIT School of Architecture and Planning
You’ve probably never considered crowds to be a renewable source of energy. Lucky for us, two smarty-pants grad students at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning are trying to figure it out.
James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk envision harvesting the mechanical energy from human movement – like commuters in a train station or fans at a rock concert – for electricity. This “crowd farm” would be a responsive sub-flooring system and made up of blocks that depress slightly when people step on them. When the blocks slip against each other they would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current.
Crowds of people at a train station aren’t going to be enough to power the train itself: Graham and Jusczyk explain that thousands of people would be needed to make up the 28,527 steps needed to power a moving train for one second. But for smaller, very energy-efficient devices, the students’ idea could lead to something bigger: Their test case included a prototype stool that used the act of sitting to generate power. The weight of the body on the seat causes a flywheel to spin, which powers a dynamo that lights four LEDs (super-efficient lightbulbs).
The architecture students ultimately want an energy supply that’s integrated into a new sort of building system, one that harnesses the active power of humans to power a cleaner, more efficient lifestyle in the 21st century.
July 27th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
there are a few nightclubs and gyms already doing this commercially….
July 31st, 2007 at 11:15 am
This idea is complete rubbish.
A) they’re talking rubbish… an athlete doing hard work would produce about 100-200W. Do you really want to do strenuous physical activity just trying to catch a train? That’s because…
B) you’re taking energy from people walking. That means they’re having to put a lot of energy into the energy generation system, not the very small energy they spend walking. It’s like using the Stairmaster just to walk to a train
C) the equipement to do this kind of thing would be horribly expensive to design, manufacture and install, and very resource-heavy to maintain. is that worth the negligable energy harnessed?
D) what about people twisting ankles, tripping, etc on these now uneven floor tiles? what about people in wheelchairs?
E) humans are exceptionally inefficient transformers of fuel into energy. a well designed steam turbine fed the Wheetabix and bagels the commuters would need to eat would be orders of magnitude more efficient in generating power.
God dammit! Laws of physics aren’t thumbsucks, you idiots.. you don’t “create” energy — and you sure as hell lose shedloads in mechanical/electrical/chemical inefficiency.
Maria Surma Manka, you deserve a kick in the arse for copying and pasting the MIT press release (yes, that’s what you did) without applying ANY critical thought. Credulous — gullible — foolish. Yes, all of these.
And the Holcim Foundation needs to be slapped for giving prizes for stupid ideas.
July 31st, 2007 at 11:48 am
Oops… that should read 1000-2000W for an athlete (in an all-out effort). Hard walking would be around 500W. So just walking to catch the train on this system would require a quarter as much effort as an athlete at full chat. A normal walk would be in the 200W range. So now you take an extra 60W out to power the “tile” system, and you take an extra 30% more effort to walk? Yeah. Commuters would love that.
Maybe it’s a solution to America’s obesity epidemic, it’s certainly not a solution to alternative power sources.
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:42 pm
anon–
You’re always welcome disagree with a post, or point out flaws you see in a concept or argument. We won’t, however, tolerate name-calling or insults — these points can be made without lowering the level of civility that way.
Please don’t do this any more, or we will start deleting your comments.
Jeff
_______________________________________
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg
Senior Editor
Green Options
jeff@greenoptions.com
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Anon: I’ll deftly reflect your anger, kicks, and slaps and explain a few points.
The students aren’t advocating that people should be forced to run in order to power a train - a train station is an example of a location with a large number of people on the move, acting as a "power source" for something much smaller than a train (for example LEDs). Crowd energy is not going to save the world or power our homes.
Yes, the equipment would be very expensive. It’s an experimental idea.
As metis pointed out, variations of this idea are out there already. Here’s a concept that just debuted at Live Earth, complete with a video of how their sub-flooring technology works: http://www.sustainabledanceclub.com/index.php?t=project
August 13th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Deborah Carey, Amesbury MA
I saw this idea in the Boston Globe and want to comment that I think it delightful and fully realizable. I want to commend the MIT students who thought of it and hope that it moves forward.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Dear All,
The value of an Idea is more important than its creation, for creation we have genius brains all around. If MIT student got certain idea let puts our effort to modify it and create what could be possible solution to such problems.
The idea can be taken further by thinking moving car on highways! Just a thought.
Take care