I got pretty excited reading this article because I actually learned about this material in class before and I had to share with Earth Club!
The East Japan Railway (East JR) and a research group from Keio University collaborated on a project to generate an electricity from simply people stepping on a floor.
How does it work? Well, it's simplar than you think. There is a type of material that contains piezo element, which changes its physical shape when you run current through it. So it works in the other way around as well. If you bend the piezoelectric material, it produces some electricity.
So, they placed a bunch of those materials on the floor of busy trains station gate. Through the vibration produced by people stepping on the material, the material will be producing electricity. They are hoping to produce enought electricity to run the gate.
It's still in a testing stage. They have placed the material in some locations in Tokyo couple days ago, and it will be there for a month or so.
I'm going back to Japan this winter, so I'm definitely going to check this out.
For more information and pictures:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/japan_ticket_gates.php
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
omg this is so cool!!
i wonder if this technology could be used in other areas as well.
That's so awesome! If they get it to work I can see it being used all over the world...Do you have any idea if it is really expensive or if the money you save from not paying for electricity outweighs the cost of the materials/operation in the long run?
Post a Comment