Crowd Farms

Gillian Armstrong


For years now it has been a well-established fact that science-fiction writers from earlier this century have been scarily accurate at their predications of futuristic technological societies (think 1984 or Brave New World). Well, it seems another writer got it spot on. William Gibson's 1984 cyber-punk novel, Neuromancer, both the inspiration for The Matrix, and the first recorded mention of the term "cyberspace", also spoke of a dehumanising dystopian world dominated by cheap technology and the biomedical engineering techniques whereby human energy is harnessed to produce electricity.


MIT graduate students who were awarded their first place honours at the Holcim Foundation's Sustainable Construction competition have discovered a similar source of renewable energy – the constant flow of human activity throughout busy terminals. Termed "Crowd Farms", a responsive sub-flooring structure would be installed beneath train station platforms or sidewalks. As human footsteps place pressure on the blocks which form the basis of the system, they slip against each other and generate power as an electric current. Dr Zhong Lin Wang from the Georgia Institute of Technology has also released a prototype nanogenerator which harvests the mechanical energy from a range of sources, including human movement and ultrasonic waves.


The nanogenerator is made up of tiny little wires (or nanostructures) and uses the unique properties of zinc oxide, namely that it is both a semi-conductor and produces electricity when stress is applied. When these structures are influenced by the harvested mechanical energy, they release a tiny amount of charge. Not so impressive, but the combined effect of thousands of these nanostructures produces an electric current. If this device was in the sole of your running shoes while on the treadmill, you could power your laptop and watch Dune. These structures set in motion to harvest our most renewable energy source may very well be the answer to an imminent worldwide energy crisis.


As long as the technology relies on the principle of movement and not humans placed in pods like The Matrix, these guys are on the right track.


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