In what may turn out to be a stroke of genius (not unlike the solar roof on the 2010 Toyota Prius), Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut has installed recharging devices on elliptical machines and stationary bicycles used for exercising in the campus gym. The recharging devices, powered by the people using the machines, were the result of an undergraduate working with a faculty member in the electrical engineering department. (Click here for a brief video.)Since energy cannot be created or destroyed (according to the law of conservation of energy), nearly all of the energy expended by working out on machines such as treadmills ends up as thermal (heat) energy. Capturing the energy and generating electricity from the motion of these machines represents a renewable source of energy that has the added benefit of keeping the power source (people) in prime physical condition. Because energy is not destroyed, it is transformed into another type of energy (the 2nd law of thermodynamics). Using this principle, the undergraduate and faculty member devised an alternator that generates electricity from the motion of the machines. Instead of all the energy being transformed into thermal energy, some of the movement – mechanical energy – is transformed into electricity which can charge a cell phone or mp3 player.
These innovations, while seemingly small, represent the type of thinking that will lead to an economic and energy revolution. Harnessing sources of power that already exist and capturing waste energy – energy that would not be used in a productive manner – represents the type of forward thinking that will help create products that are smarter and more efficient.
[image source: Yale]
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