Power from Movement

Hello, I’m Charlotte Bellis and you’re watching a special earth day edition of Newsy.com.

Researchers are finding new and clever ways to harness energy, including piezoelectricity, which may hold key answers in the global search for clean alternative energy.  Discovery Channel tells us more…

“Future sidewalks might be covered with smart panels that capture piezoelectricity.  Piezoelectricity is power generated from applied mechanical pressure.  As this technology develops we will be able to place this into every single airport terminal, railway station, every large city intersection, and on every sidewalk.” (Discovery)

Research in piezoelectricity has already produced award-winning ideas and inventions.  

U.S. inventor Alexander Parker developed a way to store energy by simply pressing buttons on a cell phone.

How Stuff Works analyzed his invention…

“The electricity generated by hitting just one button would be miniscule—an estimated 0.5 watts, according to the inventor.  But when you add up all the buttons required to send a single text message and multiply that by the number of text messages sent each day, that’s quite a lot of wattage.” (howstuffworks.com)

Some piezoelectric inventions are already successfully being used. A dance club in the Netherlands called Sustainable Dance club is partially powered by piezoelectric pads underneath the dance floor. (Youtube)

“Green Gyms” are another form of piezoelectricity in the U.S.  Green Gyms convert energy from people using stationary bikes into clean, usable energy.  One such gym is the Green Micro-gym in Portland Oregon.

Popsci.com brings us this perspective from the Gym’s owner.

“By being extremely energy efficient and combining human power, solar and someday wind I believe we’ll be able to be net zero for electricity sometime this year.” (Popsci.com)

Israeli company Innowattech has plans to harness piezoelectricity on roads, runways, and railways by using piezoelectric generators.  

Their plans are outlined here in this video tutorial.

But HotHardWare, a technology blog, offered a negative perspective on Innowattech’s plan.

“It is literally highway robbery, and inefficient at that.” (HotHardWare)

Want to learn more? Please, visit our sources, and stay tuned for more of Newsy.com’s Earth Day coverage, where we look at perspectives on some of the world’s most pressing environmental and energy issues.

I’m Charlotte Bellis and you’re watching Newsy.com – where multiple perspectives help provide the real story.