Wind, solar and biofuels aren’t the only alternative energy sources. Here we look to the fringes of science for some of the more unusual proposals for generating power.

With elevated gasoline prices across the United States, now may be a good time to increase our focus on non-traditional methods of generating power.Yet wind, solar, biofuels and even geothermal aren’t the only alternative energy sources. In fact, there are some ultra-alternative sources from the farthest reaches of science that range from the cutting-edge to the downright bizarre.

Here we look at some unusual energy sources and power generation methods on the outer reaches of the energy industry.

Sustainable Dance

_{Credit: Sustainable Dance Club}

In 2008, the dance floor at Club Watt in Rotterdam was harvesting the energy generated by club-goers’ jumps and gyrations and transforming it into electricity, which was used to power the light show in and around the club’s floor. The energy produced by an average person dancing was about 20 watts’ worth, so two people could light a bulb. Watt, which has since closed due to costs of running the organization and renting the building, was in large part the creation of the Sustainable Dance Club, the unlikely project that turns fancy footwork into kilowatts to power the club’s basic utilities. The Sustainable Dance Club project is the brainchild of environmental organization Enviu and Dutch architectural firm Döll. In September 2009, the group installed a permanent version of the Sustainable Dance Floor in Miami’s Science Museum. (Source: The New York Times)

Harnessing Tornadoes
Tornadoes have wrought tremendous destruction on cities across the world, but what if we could harness their terrifying force for humanity’s benefit? Canadian engineer Louis Michaud has come up with a novel idea: Trap a twister and cause it to spin indefinitely, providing a cheap and seemingly limitless source of energy. He’s already created a 13-foot-wide tornado-making machine that generates a column of rotating air to power electrical turbines, and hopes to construct a full-scale commercial version twice the size of a football field. Supposedly, the system would safely contain a massive tornado and convert its mechanical energy into 200 megawatts electricity, enough to power 200,000 homes. (Sources: Popular Science and New Scientist)

Commuter Power

_{Credit: stock.xchng/Genkaku}

The average person generates roughly 60 watts of power while lying down and nearly 100 watts when rushing to catch a train. Civil engineer Karl Sundholm of Swedish urban management firm Jernhusen hopes to tap into the enormous energy reserves of the billions of humans populating our planet. Sundholm has developed a car-sized heat exchange unit to absorb the air warmed by thousands of daily commuters. The device heats water in pipes, then channels it into another exchanger in a nearby building where it warms the air, providing a simple and cost-effective local heating system for structures. (Sources: Popular Science and InnovCity)

Gambling on Garbage
Montreal-based energy company Enerkem is employing a method that collects municipal waste — including household garbage might throw out — then separates out the recyclable materials and shreds and burns the remainder at 750°F. The burning waste produces hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and Enerkem scrubs out the impurities and runs the gas over a catalyst, converting it to methanol. The company is receiving $130 million in investments and will be opening two plants in Canada with the potential to process more than 10 million gallons a year while each consuming 100,000 tons of garbage annually. (Source: The New York Times)

Tequila in the Fuel Tank

_{Credit: stock.xchng/tudodany}

In addition to being a social lubricant, agave, the plant used in producing tequila, has potential as a fuel source. A paper recently published in the science journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy outlines how the same fermentation and distillation process used for converting agave into tequila could be used to turn the plant into ethanol for automobile engines. In fact, alcohol production would go uninterrupted: plant material left over from the tequila-making process could be burned for energy or used to make cellulosic ethanol. As a biofuel source, agave can grow in nutrient-poor areas where corn can’t, and it wouldn’t compete with food or fiber crops. (Source: Discovery News)

Bathroom Batteries
Our waste has been going to waste. It may sound ridiculous, but a new process is being developed to use urine as an energy source. Scientists from the Youtricity program have constructed a fuel cell technology that relies on urea, a component of human and animal urine which is already mass-produced as an industrial fertilizer. The urea serves as a membrane and catalyst for converting chemical energy into electricity. Many previous fuel cell designs have proven impractical due to their dependence on toxic substances or their prohibitive cost, but a urine-based alternative may offer a cheap and non-combustible solution, provided we don’t think too closely about where the power derives from. (Source: io9)

Lunar Energy

_{Credit: Shimizu}

While building colonies on the moon has long fired our imaginations, deriving energy from the Earth’s satellite may actually be a more practical option. Last year, Japanese energy research firm Shimizu was exploring the possibilities for building a power transmission system on the moon — specifically, a 6,800-mile “solar belt” along the moon’s equator to harness solar energy. A massive array of cells would gather sunlight from the moon’s surface, which would then be converted into microwave or laser power and beamed to Earth via a network of transmission antennas. (Source: Gizmodo)

Earlier: Unexpected Energy Generators