Omair Aslam

The ‘Latest’ in Alternative Energy: Human Power

Of all the alternative sources of energy being explored, the one that is the easiest and cheapest to generate is the energy we create ourselves. Every time our heart beats, our lungs expand, or our muscles contract, our bodies convert stored foot into energy. When we walk energy is given off by our bodies in the form of heat that our bodies emit to the surrounding air. But what if we were to harness this energy, capture, and store it?

When you push open a door the energy is lost in the friction of the hinge, which heats the adjacent molecules in the door frame and the air molecules that hover in it’s vicitinity, rippling outward until is slowly dissapates. This energy is not lost, but considering the value of energy, it is a wasted resource. This is the problem that the entrance technology company, Boon Edam, has solved with their latest product: an energy generating revolving door.

The human power that keeps the revolving door turning on its axis at the Driebergen-Zeist railway station in the Netherlands also powers the building. The Boon Edam door has an LED display that let’s each person that pushes through to see the amount of energy they are generating. A large LED on the outside of the building provides a running total of all the energy the door has generated to date. These LED displays along with the lights inside the revolving door run off the human energy stored in the door’s super capacitors. The door is expected to generate 4600 kwh of energy a year. This is not enough to disconnect the building from the power grid, but its an impressive leap forward in the capture of human power as a source of alternative energy.