QI
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this looks pretty cool: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/31/business/energy.php
obviously a long way form being widely available, but interesting none the less.
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while were on the subject of interesting things: re-usbale packaging
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As nothing comes out of nothing, the net result would be that commuters would have to eat more to compensate for the more tedious walking...
Anssi
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i see your point, but i doubt the floor would absorb so much energy as to make a noticable difference to how you walk.
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@remus said:
i see your point, but i doubt the floor would absorb so much energy as to make a noticable difference to how you walk.
If it does not make a noticeable difference, it does not make noticeable energy. And I repeat: all the energy it produces, comes from the food that the people walking eat. If the floor produces energy, it takes it by increasing the energy consumption of the people walking. It's a simple basic rule of physics.
The food chain is notoriously ineffective as to energy input/output. Growing food, feeding it into a mammal and using its muscles to turn a dynamo would not rank high in my scale of energy efficiency.
Anssi
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But knowing that many people on the wealthier hemisphere tend to be somewhat overweight, this can even reduce the time and money spent on exercise.
Actually, those exercise machines should not "fight" against gravity either but some neat dinamo should be attached to them, too!
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annsi, the floor would not take a significant amount of energy from an individual person, but if you imagine a large train staion, where thousands of people walk everyday, you could quickly build up a signficant amount of energy.
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If this idea is being proposed at train stations a bit of lateral thinking would produce a much more efficient source of harvesting otherwise completely wasted energy- trains braking on approaching the platforms. However it was done, either by using dynamos to brake or some method of storing and converting brake heat, the payback would surely outstrip commuters footfall. Like we don't have enough cr*p to deal with when commuting without having to run across energy-sapping floors for yet another last-minute platform alteration!
I know conserving braking energy has been investigated for decades so I guess it's actually very hard to do efficiently, but it's got be a better lead than pedestrian footfall.
Mind you, it might reduce obesity!
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These are pretty immpressive if i say so myself.
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