Solving the Energy Crisis One Step at a Time

It just came to me in my dog’s sleep. She’s been a squirrel chaser all her life and when she dreams I imagine she’s got a whole herd of squirrels bounding across the Serengeti—the way her legs move. That led me to a story I saw on TV today where a 95-year-old Chicagoan is the sole investor in a new energy source (that he said he hopes pays off sooner rather than later). Cushions of some sort are embedded under the pavement and when cars drive over them they compress and this movement in the cushion generates electricity. Electricity comes from the Hoover Dam because water moves. The windmills sprouting up all over—I call them Deceptocons—are supposed to create electricity because the wind blows, if…. Now, let’s see if I can tie this all together before my dog wakes up and wants me to take her for a walk.

That’s it: Walking, and its radical cousin, running. Americans spend thousands of dollars for gym memberships where they jump on perhaps millions of treadmills everyday and use electricity to walk or run.

Let me think, here. Cars travel over roadway and their weight generates electricity. People run on treadmills using electricity to lose weight. Something’s coming to me now and it’s not a pepperoni pizza. People pay for gym membership—gym supplies electricity—people pay to walk using the gym’s electricity—gym pays for electricity…. Hold on, I’m calling for a pepperoni pizza.

Ok, I have this idea, and anyone can use it, but if it makes it big try to find me and buy me a house or a treadmill or something…Ok? Here it is: A whole new chain of gyms that pay people to walk and lose weight by generating electricity with movement—just movement—like the water running through Hoover Dam and the squirrels running through my dog’s head. The faster you run the more kilowatts you make, the more the money you make, the more pizza you can eat, and so on.

I envision electricity-generating underfoot cushions throughout society. Perhaps from the end of each bar in America to the men’s room. Perhaps a card you slide at the end of the bar so the barkeep can keep tabs on your kilowatts and subtract it from your bar tab. Supermarkets can lay these cushions under the aisles in their stores. For example, at my Publix, just outside of walking distance by the way, aisle 7 is the cookie aisle, and ice cream I believe, is right down the middle, aisle 12. Imagine the extra kilowatts from the larger folks, such as myself, walking up and down those aisles. Perhaps spread the cookies out into every aisle, hidden amongst canned corn and coffee filters. Make us hunt and gather like our forefathers in the olden days and make Ben Franklin proud of our shopping and generating… Excuse me, my pizza has arrived and I don’t want the doorbell to awaken my dog, lest she want to eat my pizza and make me walk.