As the world looks for alternative energy sources, an interesting theory has arisen. Instead of creating energy from finite sources, we could instead find existing energy and simply harness it. Solar voltaic panels, wind turbines, and hydro-electric dams all harvest energy from the environment, but are subject to variable supply and are sometimes located far from where the energy is desired. A new emerging alternative energy source is kinetic energy from human activity. This concept that has led to mechanisms which harness kinetic energy and convert it to electricity. A simple example of untapped kinetic energy is a hamster running on a wheel with a light off in the room. Now imagine this hamster’s wheel connected to a generator, and this generator is powering the light. As this example shows, we have the ability to use our daily activities to power our lives.
Peter Hughes, architect and engineer of Highway Energy Systems, has designed an interesting way of harnessing a car’s kinetic energy and transforming it into mechanical energy, making it available for electrical power. His electro-kinetic speed bump captures the wasted energy from vehicles slowing down and converts it to usable power. Much like a hamster running unattached to a light source, we currently use cars as pure expenditures of energy. To continue the analogy, though, these speed bumps have the ability to function as the wires connecting the hamster wheel to the light bulb. Cars and trucks simply being driven, maintaining a normal day’s behavior, now provide power for their ongoing activities. Hughes’ speed bump implementation requires no additional input once the mechanisms are in place – life continues on as usual, except with more power sources, and a constant flow of renewable energy. The speed bump is not the only place we can search for extra energy; here are a few other precedents around the world where kinetic energy has begun to be captured:
click on the image to learn more about energy-harnessing precedents around the world
As the technology emerges to improve the efficiency of existing systems, so do the opportunities for design. A house, for example, can respond to its occupant in a much more direct way. As an inhabitant walks up the stairs, the piezoelectric inserts on each step can recognize the direction of motion and transmit power from the first to second floor. As the owner moves into the living room, the gentle depression in the floor can power the lights and start a fan. As the occupant moves to the couch and sits, the television or reading light could switch on, being powered by the kinetic energy of the move. Energy harnessers are advantageous for alternative energy hunters, but can be even more intriguing for dynamic designers, giving them the ability to interconnect the used and the user.
Electro-kinetic converters provide the opportunity to create a more dynamic environment that responds to its occupants in real time. Furthermore, where products are usually built independent of larger schemes, it is exciting to think that design could be headed towards a practice of more interconnected mechanisms throughout an entire complex. While the technology may not be quite all the way there, designers should start preparing for a field with much more dynamic possibilities. Design has the opportunity to integrate the built and the inhabitant, creating something akin to a an intelligent machine for living.
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