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Harvesting Japan’s commuters for people juice
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In one of those “surely-someone-has-thought-of-it-before” moments, one of the giant railway companies in Tokyo has started testing a system that harvests electricity generated by the movement of passengers through its ticket gates.

JR East has developed a piezoelectric system with Keio University and is currently trialing it on a small scale in its own offices in Shibuya. The idea is to utilize the kinetic energy of the millions of commuters passing through Tokyo area stations to provide extra power where it’s needed.

(Via Pink Tentacle)

Yoshi’s take: How about installing this all along the Shinkansen tracks?

12:20 PM Mark Hiratsuka • Permalink
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