Chelsea Jobe
Friday, Septermber 25th, 2009
2:49pm
Imagine everyone being able to afford energy. You're not buying this energy that you would use; you're creating it with your own body's movements. Charging your cell phone by walking or spraying on a battery? These are a few of the ideas that are being worked on at MIT by nanotechnology researchers. They are trying to deliver electrical power in a more clean way and also be more efficient. The body's natural movements create energy every time we move or do anything. The way they describe doing this is a bit complicated for me to out into my words, so they said " Wang's team makes use of the piezoelectric effect, which refers to the ability of certain materials to generate an electric potential when a stress is applied to them. For instance, if you compress a crystal, it temporarily changes shape, causing the ions inside the crystal to polarize and produce a voltage drop. "Then, that potential that has been created can drive a short term flow of external electrons to function as an energy output. That's awesome!
This reminds me of the Matrix, honestly. We're going to start using humans as batteries. Well maybe not exactly batteries but producers of a certain amount of energy. If this technology becomes advanced enough, just try to imagine how energy is going to cost less and be more efficiently produced.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/22/nano.technology.energy/index.html
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