‘Crowd Farm’ looks underfoot for renewable energy source

Crowds of people — the next renewable source of energy? OK, it’s not likely to happen in the immediate future, but it’s a feasible prospect, say two architecture students who have a prize-winning plan to turn human power into electricity.

OK, it’s not likely to happen in the immediate future, but it’s a feasible prospect, say two architecture students who have a prize-winning plan to turn human power into electricity.

"Almost everyone has felt a concrete floor quiver or walked down a staircase that vibrates each time their foot falls," says James Graham, 27, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "What they’re feeling is the energy they’re producing being absorbed by the structure. And it made us wonder: Where could we be gathering that energy from?"

In April, Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, also a graduate student at MIT, took home the top prize at an international sustainable-construction competition in China.

By Angela Haupt, USA TODAY

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-10-31-crowd-farm_N.htm