Regardless of the realistic possibility or usefulness of such concepts, I love kinetic energy concept devices. The Revolution Door is just such a one from Fluxxlab. The idea is that revolving doors at the front of buildings should be hooked up so that they generate useful energy from the force of someone pushing through them. We’ve debated the possibilities of kinetic energy here on EcoGeek several times before, but for a second every so often, I like to put physics aside and say, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could power a building in part by walking through a door….” Via CoolGreenGadgets
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written by Rhys Marshall, September 04, 2008
I like the Idea. The amount of power that this would produce is only small but it would perhaps be able to power a laptop charging station. This may only seem a small amount but every little bit counts.
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written by Chris Wade, September 05, 2008
Why limit this to revolving doors? They're relatively few and far between (in the UK, at least), but many buildings have tens or hundreds of regular door closers, which could be generating electricity.
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written by Writer to the World, September 05, 2008
Jaymi,
First let me tell you that I love this site.
We're literally awash in energy that we're not capturing, and the great thing about this situation is that people are looking in all directions for it.
There's are nightclubs in Europe that capture the energy of the dancers from the dancefloor to power the lights, there are all kinds of water energy experiements going on, and we're finally taking wind seriously.
I think the revolving door idea is a great one, but why stop there? The energy of people walking the halls of a building can be captured too. In a major high rise, that's an enormous amount of energy.
I think we're going to have to think comprehensively about energy and how it can be -- most importantly -- stored efficiently and used as demand fluctuates.
Storage and balancing loads is one of the big issues with distributed power scenarios, for example. We have to look more carefully at that issue first and then all of these means of capture become quite feasible.
Brian
First let me tell you that I love this site.
We're literally awash in energy that we're not capturing, and the great thing about this situation is that people are looking in all directions for it.
There's are nightclubs in Europe that capture the energy of the dancers from the dancefloor to power the lights, there are all kinds of water energy experiements going on, and we're finally taking wind seriously.
I think the revolving door idea is a great one, but why stop there? The energy of people walking the halls of a building can be captured too. In a major high rise, that's an enormous amount of energy.
I think we're going to have to think comprehensively about energy and how it can be -- most importantly -- stored efficiently and used as demand fluctuates.
Storage and balancing loads is one of the big issues with distributed power scenarios, for example. We have to look more carefully at that issue first and then all of these means of capture become quite feasible.
Brian
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written by bob bobberson, September 05, 2008
If you make it hard to get in, people won't go there. I mean the more force it takes to get into something the less likely people are going to do it. There's some good in capturing wasted energy, but don't go overboard!
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written by Ken Roberts, September 05, 2008
It's a worthwhile concept, if you could get an electric generator cheap and small enough to make it cost effective. I don't know much about the market for such things, so maybe someone else can fill in the details.
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written by Clinch, September 06, 2008
I agree with bob, these things may seem to 'capture wasted energy', but the actual wasted energy is due to mechanical inefficiencies, and to generate any kind of actual power from it, you'd actually have to put much more force in (i.e. the door would be a lot harder to push).
I can only really see 'kinetic energy capturing' devices working in applications where you don't actually require the force you're putting in to do anything (e.g. exercise machines) or just want to remove kinetic energy from a system (e.g. regenerative braking).
I can only really see 'kinetic energy capturing' devices working in applications where you don't actually require the force you're putting in to do anything (e.g. exercise machines) or just want to remove kinetic energy from a system (e.g. regenerative braking).
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