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senormoll OP t1_ivvle1p wrote

This English town is using a stretch of special pavement on a pedestrian path to power mobile phone chargers on a nearby park bench. Obviously the amount of electricity generated isn't going to halt climate change, but the town does hope to draw attention to the climate crisis and the role that small, creative solutions can play. Earlier this year Telford unveiled street lights powered by mini wind turbines.

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ProFoxxxx t1_ivvn5j3 wrote

This is the news I want.

Just stop oil, is nonsense, just stop burning oil.

Oil is amazing. It's literally our ancestors. Our concoction of consciousness stretches back to them.

No one wants two cremations. Fuck combustion.

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FuturologyBot t1_ivvpofv wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/senormoll:

This English town is using a stretch of special pavement on a pedestrian path to power mobile phone chargers on a nearby park bench. Obviously the amount of electricity generated isn't going to halt climate change, but the town does hope to draw attention to the climate crisis and the role that small, creative solutions can play. Earlier this year Telford unveiled street lights powered by mini wind turbines.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yru597/bouncy_pavement_charges_mobiles_phones_in_telford/ivvle1p/

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fourpuns t1_ivvth2x wrote

Replying to ProFoxxxx (#496,677)

Eh. This is like incredibly cost ineffective compared to just a small solar panel mounted on a post such as for a light. It’s a publicity stunt not a solution.

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evanc3 t1_ivw0bfe wrote

Replying to ProFoxxxx (#496,677)

Oil is not our ancestors? It's almost 100% plants and algae, neither of which are ancestors of ours.

Plus, these plates are made of plastic.... which requires oil to make.

This is not the solution to drilling oil. I'm not even convinced these devices would ever even offset their own carbon emissions.

But hey, if it makes uneducated people feel good, I guess that's something.

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evanc3 t1_ivw2due wrote

Replying to ProFoxxxx (#497,443)

I love that you say we need physicists not artists and then spout some of the most artsy unscientific bullcrap I've heard lol

You do not know the defintion of "ancestor", clearly. Ancestors are things you are decended from, as in like a father or mother. We are literally not the ancestor of those algae. They evolved well after the division in the biological tree that separated us. We have plenty of ancestors from those oil biomass days, but oil is not our ancestors.

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evanc3 t1_ivw3jwr wrote

Replying to ProFoxxxx (#497,556)

You clearly think it's special, talking about double creations and shit. The carbon doesn't care. We're all just stardust. Stop romanticizing and anthromorphizing it.

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thorpie88 t1_ivw4ohx wrote

Replying to fourpuns (#497,031)

Which makes sense when you realise Telford is a new town in a part of the UK that is extremely old on average. While it did retain some important attractions like Ironbridge Gorge the town is a product of the 60's so it needs modern attractions like this for tourism.

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fourpuns t1_ivw8c8v wrote

Replying to thorpie88 (#497,635)

Sure… except I don’t know how many tourists come to a town to get there phones charged at a park bench.

This is probably designed by some local schools engineering department if it’s anything like where I live :p.

I’m certainly not saying it’s a bad thing just that this isnt some new thing we should be doing to all our paths.

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thorpie88 t1_ivw9fsj wrote

Replying to fourpuns (#497,810)

It's not meant to be a single attraction to do that. It's meant to be a project to get people thinking about climate issues along with the wind turbines powering street lights.

It's giving the town national and international exposure and it may give people an added reason to visit the place because of it. No real difference to a town getting some exposure for a new art installation

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blondie1024 t1_ivzkmp6 wrote

This better be well policed otherwise it's not going to last long.

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Chewing gum in the port or someone tries to steal it.

​

As much as its a wonderful idea, it just takes that one dick to ruin it for everyone else.

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Krumtralla t1_iw8mgm8 wrote

This is a gimmick.

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That's all that really needs to be said, however the last time I said this my comment was auto-rejected for being too short, so now I am forced to elaborate why this is a gimmick.

  1. The amount of harvested power is trivially small. Even if this was a busy walkway, constantly filled with people walking over it, best you could do is keep an LED light bulb lit.
  2. You can't really scale this up. You're stealing mechanical energy from traffic and pushing it through an inefficient conversion process to electricity, then charging a battery with losses, etc. The energy is not free.
  3. On a walking path you are making the path more difficult to walk on. On a bike path it's more difficult to bike on. On a road it's more difficult to drive on. Doing this for any long distance will be a terrible user experience and lead to a lot of wear and tear on both the harvesting device as well as the users/vehicles. You're better off putting a person on a bicycle generator, but that wouldn't be as gimmicky.
  4. This is not fighting climate change. There is a non-trivial amount of energy and materials embedded in the whole system. Given the super-small amounts of energy harvested, you will likely forever be energy-negative with your investment. It will break down and be junked before it ever comes close to paying back its energy debt.
  5. It's a gimmick.
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