Electric generating walkways

Thought this was interesting with just 5mm of movement these tiles produce electricity. Not sure how it would pencil out cost wise but in high traffic areas it sounds good.

http://inhabitat.com/energy-generating-pavement/

Here's a fun one. Turn escalators in shopping malls into giant hamster wheel style generators. Make them walk up 100 steps per floor. Some would quickly run up the descending steps. The slower ones who could presumably use the exercise, might take 5 minutes to reach the summit.
Old people and the disabled could ride the elevator. Pile ups might be a problem.

Mmmmmmm I wonder about putting some outside the house secretly like And helping to power the house?

David

We can always count on Dale for a "Snark Attack." They don't mention it or at least I didn't see where a possible use could be for lighting a cross walk If the tiles were robust enough for vehicle traffic. Underlit cross walk along with overhead lighting would really stand out in some of the dangerous pedestrian crossings around here.
Even if it were used to power a street light, a modular vehicle sized generating tile and its companion LED street light might have a lower infrastructure cost in some areas that don't curently have street lights.

2.1 Watts of energy per hour? I assume they mean 2.1 Watts or 2.1 Watt-hours per hour? So a tile could produce the equivalent of one gallon of gasoline in 1.79 years. How much energy would it take to produce this panel? Probably more than that.

Lot of things you can't quantify, true life expectancy, cost, how many tiles in a normal install. They claim of payback in 1 year so thst might answer your production cost Dave. The technology is still interesting, that they have figured how to generate electricity with such a small incremental movement. Bridge decking, all kinds of things come to my mind and it could generate 24 hrs a day where solar wouldn't. It is using recycled tires in part of its construction.