Yale Environment 360 on energy harvesting
Cheryl Katz at Yale Environment 360 wrote a nice article on energy harvesting in which I’m quoted. Here are the two intro paragraphs:
Computers feasting on their own exhaust heat. Super-efficient solar panels snaring lost thermal energy and recycling it into electricity. Personal electronics powered by stray microwaves or vibration-capturing clothing. Cellphones charged with a user’s footsteps. These and more innovations may be possible with free, green energy that is now going to waste.
Ubiquitous sources like radio waves, vibration and pressure created by moving objects, heat radiating from machines and even our bodies — all have the potential to produce usable electric power. Until recently, ambient energy was largely squandered because of a lack of ways to efficiently exploit it. Now, advances in materials and engineering are providing tools to harvest this abundant resource and transform it into cheap, clean electricity.
Photo credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The Bacteriophage Power Generator is made of biopolymer layers that produce electricity when squeezed.
Energy harvesting is one aspect of the technological revolution that’s driving the creation and adoption of battery powered information technology. We explore this and other trends in computing efficiency, communications efficiency, low power “sleep states”, and battery technology in our “Smart Everything” article in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources last fall. To download a free copy of that article, go here.
Koomey, Jonathan G., H. Scott Matthews, and Eric Williams. 2013. “Smart Everything: Will Intelligent Systems Reduce Resource Use?" The Annual Review of Environment and Resources. vol. 38, October. pp. 311-343.
