Walking to Power

With the whole world moving to find alternate energy solutions with highly increasing operating cost and availability of energy from known sources, we are really looking for a darker world in coming decades. There are in-numerous mode that we can think of. From our school days we keep hearing about solar energy, wind energy, hydro projects, this energy and that very projects. We even witnessed that states could go on war over water. The days are not far when people would kill each other demanding more air and use  man made technologies to get wind flowing their way.

Maybe this state-wide bandh in Karnataka made me think more about water, power and people as there is nothing much you can enjoy on a bandh day here in Bangalore. I have noticed that some of the states in India needs water from other states whereas the other states cannot afford to share as they believe they themselves don't have enough. As we all know water is a source of power in some places and it is no different in Bangalore.

From a broader perspective India's power lies in its significant young population. Even though people have their own theories about number of kids, this  population explosion has brought India to a formidable state now that we have more young ones compared to other developing countries and even developed ones. This really gives a head-start for growth in coming years unless they decide to part ways with their homeland for glory and heavier wallets. It is our country's responsibility to keep these young ones attracted and provide what they could achieve outside the sub-continent which by itself is a separate engaging topic.

We all love to go out on our weekends and evenings with family or friends and often end up in the most crowded places of the city claiming that this should be the most happening place around. Even though most of us love calmness and hate the rush on rush hours, we still reach the same road in the same city during the peak hour and enjoy it to the fullest. As we might have noticed most of our shopping might be done during evenings, is there a reason for it? We might do hundred things during day or none but still come out only at night or once sun returns to sleep. This nocturnal nature of current youth and elder generations demand more shops to be open during evening hours. This requires more power to keep us attracted as non of us would give a glance at a shop with no attractive spot lights and interesting displays in current window shopping world resulting in higher demand for power.

Do you think it is possible to keep tracks across roads of India where we can obviously find someone walking always counting the records we hold in population?

Can we keep designated tracks for people to walk on our roads and anybody walking outside it to be fined promptly? These tracks should be created in a such a way that when people stamp their foot on the track then the minute buttons on them would get pressed passing mechanical energy to be then converted to electrical energy using turbines. These turbines would move from the power generated by people walking over it. Small rotors would make similar small turbines to move and in turn get the giant turbine running. It should be designed in such a manner that a small energy exerted on the top should make a significant contribution to the giant wheels running. This energy so produced should be stored and shared to be used by stores/houses/consumers around the location preventing it from travelling long distance to power stations. We could think of it as an alternate source as I feel this cannot quench our obsessive taste for higher power consumption. This way we can at least target to get few hours or minutes of power a day which would still help the nation at large. I know this could just be another crazy dream but if it can be evaluated by experts and decided after a feasibility study, it would do more justice for our country at least we can strike of a probable method from the list.

Another method to use piezoelectricity to generate power. It is the charge that gets accumulated on piezo electric materials due to mechanical stress on it. I am not sure of the economic aspects or how much would be total energy gain or loss. But it would surely be worth a try before we write it off. Yet another method would be to build shoes which can store the energy we produce by walking from the heat generated. People in current world run for hours to reduce their weight, to keep fit or technically to burn some calories. The heat energy that is generated by this very action could help the nation. At night when we are asleep this same shoes can provide energy to your iPod speakers or even mobile chargers. All this can be implemented with the help of experts in these areas which I might lack at large.

The biggest contributors to the success of this project would be our youth as they chase their dreams by walking strongly towards victory carrying our nations flag high with pride!