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Gotta love it.
R
- posted
16 years ago
Crowd farms
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- Vote on answer
- posted
16 years ago
I'm skeptical. For one, I have concerns about this spongy flooring that saps my own kinetic energy to get where I want to go and move how I want to move: Potentially yet more technology to literally bog me down in my daily struggles. :)
- Vote on answer
- posted
16 years ago
It's a concept at this stage, but it's certainly doable. There's no reason for the flooring to be spongy, and for obvious reasons it never could be. Think of a raised computer floor on pedestals with each pedestal able to compress 1/16". You wouldn't even notice it - your sneakers compress more than that with every step. The power could be generated magnetically or hydraulically. It's about as close to a free lunch as it gets. The system would be designed in parallel, so even if some of the pedestals were inoperative power would still be generated by the remainder.
R- Vote on answer
- posted
16 years ago
Well, I suppose that if there was also a recoil, it might make up for the sponginess that you think won't be present or a problem. Time will tell... When reading this, I did think about stairs as reverse escalators that took people's potential energy and rolled them down while generating power.
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- posted
16 years ago
You personally guaranteeing that Rico? : )
There are no free lunches and this is a biomechanical energy tax on commuters. It could be coupled with interesting effect that famous old modernist condition of seeing something appearing to be close only to find out that it's really a lot harder to get there than you think.....The system, include metabolism, is probably pretty inefficient once you take into account all the inputs of agriculture, transport, food preparation, etc. It's really like biodeisel in The Matrix. You're turning topsoil into electricity. (Fun concept, though.)
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- posted
16 years ago
It's just another form of recycling. It seems some people are thinking that the system would have to have a lot of give - sponginess
- to make it work, which is not the case. And as far as the BME tax, so what? You're paying for the power/energy used in the building/ station/whatever either directly or indirectly anyway.
It isn't the entire system that has to be made efficient - at least not all at once. Incremental improvements and all that. A - ahem - step in the right direction.
R