Using pedestrians to power things

Pavegen is a startup company developing a new kind of slabs for sidewalks. These hi-tech slabs “harvest” a little energy from each step and store it in a battery. If installed in areas with enough pedestrian density, the harvested energy can be used to power LED street lamps, bus stops etc.

Sounds like neat idea. Has a lot of nice green buzz-words in it. Sustainable. Green. LED. Lithium polymer batteries…

I am not an expert in this area but I am a little skeptical of such pie-in-the-sky ideas. Of course, it’s definitely good to power as much as we can with regenerable energy sources. However, I am not convinced if all of those hi-tech gadgets are as sustainable as they claim to be in the overall picture. How does the energy balance and the carbon footprint of such a device look like over the whole life cycle, including raw materials, production, distribution, actual use and recycling, of such “sustainable” inventions?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to say that these inventions are bad. My point is that we need to make more informed decisions on such products before jumping on the hype band wagon.

Here is a video about Pavegen (Through Engadget):