In ‘Small-Minded Giants’, I described a city built in the form of a machine that could generate electricity using the movement and activity of the people living within in it. Since then I learned about a train station in Tokyo where they had a very simple version of this idea built into the floor at the ticket barriers, the passing travellers contributing electricity to the station just by walking across these sensors. The amount being generated is still very small (the level of powering a light bulb or an LCD display), but it’s only a fledgling technology and has already become ten times more efficient than when it was first installed in 2006.
Then I was sent this link, about an experiment in Toulouse to generate electricity for street lamps using pedestrian power – based on a technology that was first used to light the dance floor in the Watt nightclub in Rotterdam.
Honestly, sci-fi writers can barely keep ahead of the real world these days. No wonder we’re all writing nostalgic, steampunk stuff at the moment.
