People power: jes’ walkin the dog
p2pnet news | Cool Stuff:- You know you’ve made your mark in the world when one of Britain’s most prestigious journals does a write-up on you or yours, which is is exactly what happened to Canada’s Dr Max Donelan and his Biomechanical Energy Harvester.
The pic on the right accompanies an editorial in The Economist extolling the virtues of a mechanism which makes cleanest of the clean energy instantly available.
From the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, Donelan invested ten years in developing the technology which captures, “the energy generated when you’re out for a stroll,” p2pnet reported yesterday.
In other words, the Biomechanical Energy Harvester draws usable electric power from the simple act of just walkin’ the dog, say.
Generative braking, Donelan calls it, and, “Sweet,” says one p2pnet Reader’s Write. But, “Watches have had similar tech in them for decades,” says another. Right —- wind-ups of various kinds aren’t, as the article also points out, anything new.
However, “all these gadgets rely on people having to do some specific work in return for their entertainment,” says The Economist. “Hence the appeal of finding a way of extracting power from everyday activities without the user noticing what was going on – rather like an old-fashioned self-winding watch, but on a grander scale.”
Cool. No more batteries for your portable music player or cell phone.
And the possibilities go a lot further than that because Donelan, “also has more sophisticated applications in mind,” says the article. “He thinks energy harvesters could be used to power robotic artificial joints and might even, one day, be implanted within muscles for that purpose.”
But, even the “quotidian uses” of an energy harvester like Donelan’s will, “be enhanced by other advances in the field,”says The Economost, adding:
Rechargeable batteries are getting smaller, lighter and more powerful. They may eventually be replaced in some applications by ultracapacitors that can charge up and discharge even faster than a battery. More efficient cranking systems and generators are also under development. And the miniaturisation of electronics continues to reduce power demands.
One of the biggest changes has been the use of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). This has transformed wind-up lighting products, says Rory Stear, chairman of Freeplay Energy, which specialises in such “self-powered” devices. The company’s Indigo lantern, for instance, can provide up to two hours of light from just one minute of winding. LEDs also last for a long time: those in the Indigo are rated for 100,000 hours, whereas a filament bulb might burn out after 16 hours.
Such products can make a huge difference to power-starved people. Freeplay’s charitable foundation reckons that the use of kerosene, candles and firewood for lighting absorbs 10-15% of monthly household incomes in sub-Saharan Africa. It is planning to test a range of wind-up LED lanterns in Kenya and South Africa this year. These, it hopes, will allow people to do things like studying at night, increasing their security and coping better with medical emergencies. Freeplay Energy is also developing self-powered medical equipment, including a fetal-heart monitor.
Mr Stear says people in poor countries are prepared to work hard for their energy, with wind-up lanterns often passed among family members to help power them. That bodes well for Dr Donelan’s idea, if it can be mass-produced. But the ability of such devices to save on batteries and to serve as reliable standby devices could make them popular even in Western markets as their performance gets better. Save the planet by walking to work and powering up your iPod at the same time.
What more could a Green want?
Indeed.
Remember the Cow-Powered One Laptop Per Child computer?
Stay charged 
Also See:
The Economist – Power from the people, February 7, 2008
p2pnet – Go for a walk, power your phone, February 8, 2008
Cow-Powered – $200 Wal-Mart PCs vs cow-power, November 1, 2007
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe
to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.phpNet access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
