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Eco-friendly solutions that make sense
I was talking to Claire last night about her work with transport behavior change. She was interviewing some people yesterday who most need an alternative to cars… Their pockets just aren’t coping with the rising petrol prices. Claire was very enthusiastic about the results and said they had brainstormed many cool options. I said “Like what?”
She said. “Like WALKING”
I had to laugh at the fact that these days, we are so intent on overlooking the solutions right in front of us, that something as age-old as walking becomes the best thing since sliced bread.
Today, I read Springwise and saw and article on this super awesome guy who has developed a see-saw that generates electricity. His target market is Africa:
“It would take just five to 10 minutes of play on the see-saw to light a classroom for a few hours, BBC News reported, though the energy gets transferred to an electrical storage unit via underground cable, so it would be up to the school to decide how the power is used.”
I love how much sense this makes and I love the fact we overlook it as a solution for any country, developing or developed:
- Children play on see-saws
- see-saws generate electricity
- Children learn a little about electricity and feel great they are contributing
- The need for external electricity is reduced
- Countries like NZ who are becoming ‘more happy with the idea of Nuclear power” may re-think our immediate need
I know it takes more than see-saws (although 10 minutes equals a couple of hours? I want to install one in the office!)… But there are so many practical solutions that simply make sense. If we can harness more of the power we create through the things we do all day, we will be LESS reliant on major power plants. And if African Villages can afford this particular see saw, why doesn’t every primary school in New Zealand look at getting one?
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
April 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Has nz been talking about becoming friendly to nuclear power? That’d be a massive change. I think energy efficiency – then localised power generation would make a big difference to our power usage.
All the unused lights – and the heaters running in badly insulated rooms – under-utilised office spaces and empty busses / cars – if only we could reduce that waste and make better use of the power generation we already have.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Something I often tried to explain to other people who thought electricity generation through mechanical means was somehow the saviour of the world.
(IANAP – I am not a Physicist, but)
We can’t convert much of the kinetic energy generated through something like cycling or see-sawing into electricity. Too much gets lost as heat and sound / friction. Lighting is really low wattage – perhaps 100W per bulb. Heaters, on the other hand (or microwaves, or even electric jugs) are usually > 2000W. To power those (for just 10 minutes) you’d need 40 kids on 20 seesaws!
You can’t just hook a generator up to the grid and watch your meter wind backwards either – you need some crazy cabling and stuff, and you’d probably find that the energy loss in pumping it back into the grid meant you didn’t generate any electricity at all from see-sawing.
In short, good idea for developing country, maybe not so much for a developed country.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I dream of the day when every building is not only self-sufficient in power generation, but can feed excess energy into a grid to make up for shortfalls elsewhere. I have no idea how that could be made to happen, but it’s my dream.
I’m sure there are many man areas where we waste potential energy.
You may be interested in Playpumps – the don’t generate power, but instead children playing on roundabouts pump water, which in turn allows girls to get a better education:
http://www.playpumps.org
and villages to get clean, fresh water.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Yeah I like the water pumps.
Nik, I know it’s not the only solution, but if playing on a seesaw lights a building, that’s got to be better than not having the seesaw light the building… Even if you need to power your heaters etc in some other way.
I think Ben’s right, we just love to waste at the moment that a nice combo of reduction and innovation will have a massive impact.
And as far as NZ being nuclear friendly – I sometimes see polls and newspaper articles these days that start to say we’re coming around to the idea. I don’t think we’re coming THAT around tot he idea… But you never know.