Subscribe via RSSIf you’re like me, you’ve often thought that we humans produce a huge amount of energy when we excerise - or just go about our daily lives. The huge majority of that energy is wasted - but perhaps not anymore. A startup out of Cleveland, Tremont Electric, just released a new kinetic energy capture device that can generate wall socket level energy just by carrying it around with you while you walk.
About the size of a flashlight and weighing in at 9 ounces, the nPower PEG (Personal Energy Generator) takes advantage of magnets and springs to capture and amplify the kinetic energy we generate when we move and turn in into enough power to recharge personal electric devices. In the short-term it seems like a dream come true for serious campers, hikers, lumberjacks - folks who spend extended periods of time outdoors and off the grid. Based on the feedback about how well these things work, it will just be a matter of time before we start seeing them integrated into appliances and products we are already carrying around with us.
The folks at Tremont are already scaling the devices up - way up - and looking at ways they can put them in buoys and use them to generate 50kW per device in lakes and the ocean to create kinetic energy from Wave Energy.
This is an idea that has needed to happen and seeing a product of this type commercialized and ready to roll-out to market is a great example of how American ingenuity will help us make up for lost time in sustainability. Now if someone will just roll-out an entire gym worth of exercise equipment that will make every health club in America carbon neutral - let’s turn all those burned calories green!
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Imagine the energy that could be captured from vehicles stopping for red lights. Although hybrids are already doing this on board, wouldn’t it be cool to see a system that is embedded in the road within 100 feet of a red light where the braking energy is captured? I’m not an engineer, but I see a system that gets activated when the stoplight turns red and, through an inductive charging system, power is generated.
This is not a new idea, but definitely an idea whose time has come! A minor correction to the article: the device is converting –not creating– kinetic energy into electrical energy. Huzzah to the health club idea! All those treadmills and ellipticals could so easily drive generators, and I for one would be more motivated to excercise if I thought it was benefiting more than my “gluts” and “abs”!
The bottom line for this company and their devices will be whether the procucts are efficient enough to provide practical amounts of power and whether the hardware is reliable. Show me!
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