Harvesting Power From Your Body Heat

There are many ways self-powered devices can work. One is piezoelectric energy, which is generated when you apply pressure to certain materials. Another method, more common in the public imagination, is harvesting movement. But while movement seems obvious, it’s not practical to have a device that only works when you’re in motion. So, for many researchers, the best source of energy is body heat, or thermoelectric generation.

Thermoelectric generation works because our bodies are almost always a different temperature from the air outside. Thermoelectric generators pick up on the temperature difference and then use that to create energy.

The obvious advantage of body heat is that you don’t need to do anything to generate power. The challenge is that you can only harvest very little energy at once. But why not try…

Generate electricity using body heat — Live Experiments

5 Unusual Ways of Obtaining Electric Energy

Where to take energy? It’s no secret that people will sooner or later exhaust the oil, gas, coal and even uranium reserves that have remained on the planet. A quite reasonable question arises: “What to do next? Where to take energy?” After all, our whole life is based on the use of energy. It turns out that after the hydrocarbon reserves run out and the existence of civilization will end?

There is an exit! These are the so-called alternative energy sources. By the way, many of them are applied, and successfully, already at the present time. Energy of wind, tides, sun and geothermal sources is successfully used and converted by people into electricity. But this is “official alternative sources”.

At present, there are hundreds of theories and developments on the creation and use of unusual alternative energy sources. The alternative sources of energy described in this article are unusual only in the sense that they have not yet become popular, are not massively used, impractical, unprofitable, etc.

But this does not mean that they can not be effectively applied in the very near future. After all, the same oil as an energy source has been known since ancient times, but only since the end of the industrial revolution, oil could be received and processed into a usable form.

It is not known what we will use in the future to generate energy, but traditional energy sources probably have alternatives, and it is possible that at least one of the methods for obtaining electric energy listed below can become widespread and popular.

Here are 5 unusual alternative energy sources that cause real hope for the effective use of them in the future:

Getting Electricity From Salt Water

The first experimental power plant receiving energy from salt water was created by Statkraft in Norway. The power plant for generating electricity uses a physical effect – osmosis. With the help of this effect, as a result of mixing salt and fresh water, energy is extracted from the increasing entropy of liquids. then this energy is used to rotate the hydro turbine of the generator.

Fuel cells —P Getting Electricity From Fuel

Demonstrational power stations with fuel cells with solid oxide electrolyte up to 500 kW are developed. In fact, the element burns fuel and directly converts the released energy into electricity. It’s like a diesel generator, only without a diesel engine and a generator. And also without smoke, noise, overheating and with much higher efficiency.

Thermal Generators — Conversion of Thermal Energy into Electrical Energy

To obtain electrical energy, the thermoelectric effect is used. This is a fairly old technology, which again became relevant in our time due to the mass use of energy-saving light sources and various portable electric receivers. Already exist and successfully use industrial developments, for example, heating and cooking ovens, with built-in heat generators, which in the course of their work allow to receive not only heat, but also electricity.

Piezoelectric Generators — The Use of Kinetic Energy

Experimental facilities have been created that allow to generate electricity through the use of kinetic energy – pedestrian paths, turnstiles at railway stations, a special dance floor with built-in piezoelectric generators. There are ideas in the near future to create special “green gyms” in which a group of sports exercise bicycles will be able, according to the producers, to generate up to 3.6 megawatts of renewable electricity per year.

Nanogenerators — The Use of Vibrational Energy

In this energy source is a special nano-generator that converts into electric energy micro-vibrations in the human body. The device is quite the slightest vibration to produce an electric current, which allows you to maintain the performance of mobile devices. Modern nanogenerators transform any movement and movement into an energy source. Very promising and interesting options for sharing the use of nano-generators and solar panels.

And what do you think about this? Maybe you know of other new alternative sources of electricity.