Renewable sources of energy are starting to become a necessity to countries to prevent environmental effects like global warming. With that being said, some governments have put a lot of funding in research for renewable energy, so that energy ca be generated more effectively, in abundance, and with continuity for long years. This has brought many ideas to create renewable sources of energy which are very creative and interesting, have a read to find out about each one.
Piezoelectric tiles
One of the ideas already in use in cities like London, Tokyo and New York is pedestrian pressure plates. If you put pressure plates in the pedestrian walk, every time someone walks over a pressure plate, it generates electricity. This is because when you walk over it, magnetic generators displace creating a current underground.
An article listed in the reference list states “One Pavegen plate generates 4 W of energy at each step. 12 plates installed at London's West ham subway station, the day generate so much electricity that it is enough to illuminate the station throughout the night.”, which shows how easy it is to harvest energy from these piezoelectric tiles. They also don’t come very costly for governments with 40,000 euros.
Bio fuels e.g. microalgae:
Bio fuels is using microorganisms to produce fuel, in this case using microalgae. This is possible because microalgae store energy in the form of natural oils. These oils can be extracted and then combusted in a similar way of other fuels like gasoline. It is also renewable because you can crop algae, but it is not environmentally friendly because it uses combustion which emits greenhouse gases onto the atmosphere
Body heat:
In many busy eras they are starting to implement body heat renewable energy. In Stockholm they have taken advantage of their 250 000 daily customers and use the body heat and transport it using pipes and tunnels to save energy.
Written by Pablo Gasca Aristeguieta
Art done by Tiffanie Cheng