People have built devices to create electricity from natural sources of energy, including solar, wind, and wave power. But for the first time, a French scientist has proposed producing power from the impact of rain.
“We thought of raindrops because they are one of the still- unexploited energy sources in nature,” says Jean-Jacques Chaillout of the atomic energy commission in Grenoble, France.
Chaillout and his group managed to produce about one microwatt of power from their piezoelectric device that produces electricity from the impact of rain drops. This tiny amount of power would not be very useful unless employed on a grand scale, which would be impractical, and then would only produce power during a rain storm. It might be useful for powering a limiting set of devices, such as a rain sensor. But for now, it looks like an interesting idea with little practical use.
Read More [treehugger.com]
