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RE: Generation of Electricity from Human Footsteps: Taking a closer look
Do these require any additional power output by the human or car when compared to walking/driving on a normal surface?
Do these require any additional power output by the human or car when compared to walking/driving on a normal surface?
No extra output needed. You just need to walk as you normally would
But the power's got to come from somewhere, right? I can believe that maybe if you replace a cement floor with a solid state tech, that the force exerted may be the same. What I get hung up on is when rubber floors replace tiles or when movement causing induction comes into play.
My suspicion is that if you look at the calories burned by a person walking over 100m of a normal hallway and compare that to the same walking through the a hallway paved with the later methods, there's going to be more calories burned. This raises interesting questions about the efficiency of output and, since humans are terrible generators, if there's eventually a net carbon cost when you trace the extra calories back to food production. Then again, that assumes they're going to not be eating those calories otherwise and it certainly is better than the gym (in terms of eco impact).
Hello @effofex, why do think humans will expend more energy walking over the piezo-electric floor?
Like I said, the energy has to come from somewhere. It's not necessarily the case that we expend more energy, but it's certainly plausible (especially when you start substituting in materials with a different elasticity or parts that need moving).
I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I'm decently familiar with thermodynamics and the idea that there aint no such thing as a free lunch. I'm more experienced with alternative energy systems, to really evaluate them, you always have to do a rigorous energy balance. So, what I'm really getting at here isn't that I am certain that we expend more energy in walking, but that someone needs to do the math for that balance. It's often the case (sadly) that that analysis reveals that the power generation just shifts the environmental burden upstream.