Cummings, Jay. "The Power of the Future is in Our Hands" Discover Stuff Magazine n.d.: n. pag. Web. 21 Jan. 2015
The future of
sustainable energy may well be in the palm of our hands. As senior project manager at the Springfield Institute of Technology's Laboratory for Advanced Matter and Energy, Joeseph McShmitty is in a unique position to know. “This
technology will revolutionize how we think of energy,” says McShmitty as he holds out his hand. On it, he's wearing a finger-less glove that resembles one a cyclist might wear. A thin wire travels up his arm to a small black
box strapped to his bicep. Waving his hand and wriggling his
fingers, he continues, “Just our ambient motion through the day
creates enough energy to charge a cell phone completely, or light an
LED lamp for an evening.” McShmitty and his team are calling their
breakthrough a “Micro-Energy Capture Harness” or MECH device.
“These MECH devices,” McShmitty says, “Will stand the whole
energy industry on its head.”
The key is in the
specially designed fabric that makes up the glove. Using technology developed by McShmitty and his team, tiny capacitors are carefully woven
together to make a kind of fibrous mesh. This mesh is then further woven into synthetic leather. After the fabric is cut and fit using traditional tailoring techniques, a
miniature deep-cycle battery is attached. As the hand moves, motion
energy is converted to electrical impulse. Electric charge multiplies throughout the MECH device, gathering strength before finally being
transmitted to the battery where it is stored and made available for
use in other appliances.
“It's very nearly
a perfect technology.” Says McShmitty. He notes that as the user
increases the use of their hands, more power is generated. “When
we give these gloves to teenagers who send, on average, more than a
thousand text messages every day, the energy capture potential is
nearly limitless.” With no more inconvenience than a runner might
experience while wearing a heart-rate monitor, it's very easy to see
the appeal of the MECH devices. “It does so many things,”
McShmitty says, “It lets the energy user be directly responsible
for generating their own power.” This means far less reliance on
fossil fuels, a critical step toward energy sustainability.
McShmitty and his
team are unrelenting in their pursuit of energy sustainability. “I
see villagers in developing countries where utility infrastructure is
intermittent or non-existent, plugging their MECHs into phones or
lamps or radios at night, enjoying a clean, renewable by-product of their day's hard
work, completely independent of any kind of government utility or
control.” This kind of independence, McShmitty and his team
believe, will increase global standards of living, lift people in
developing countries out of poverty, even introduce democracy to
parts of the world that have known only war and chaos.
And gloves are just
a first step. In a people-powered world, this technology has no
limit. McShmitty and his team are hard at work, furiously developing
prototype MECH shoes and MECH pants, MECH underclothes even. “Why
not?” He muses coyly. “Why can't everything you move in and wear
generate electricity?” In the future that McShmitty envisions, all
of these are possible. “We can be free of all the encumbrances of
our current energy infrastructure.” He says. “What you wear
will set you free.”
