Sweden Developing a Matrix-style Method to Harvest Body Heat

“The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120 volt battery and 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines had found all the energy they would ever need.”

Morpheus was describing the motivation for building the Matrix. Thankfully, Sweden has no plans to enslave the human race; otherwise we would should have heard about it on WikiLeaks.

But Swedish engineers have developed a way to harness the body heat of commuters passing through Stockholm Central Station.

The excess heat in the building generated by commuters is used to heat water. The hot water is then pumped across the street to heat an office block.

The process could save the building 25% in heating costs, and is relatively simple to implement.

Humans generate 100 watts of body heat, and all that energy gets wasted if nobody harnesses it. When you have thousands of even millions of commuters going through a building, that is a lot of wasted power.

Nowadays, wasted power means wasted money, so expect to see lots more clever ideas like this from engineers to reduce energy costs.