Many hard core members of the Tea Party Movement are climate change skeptics, but what if they could get free power just by waving their cherished Gadsden flags in the wind? Dr. Zhong Lin Wang’s research group at Georgia Tech has developed an innovative woven material that makes it possible:
The flag is the researchers’ newest form of triboelectric generator. They made it by weaving together 1.5-centimeter-wide, 30-cm-long strips made from two kinds of fabric….“The weave is loose and there is a few hairs’ distance between the two fabric strips,” Wang explains. So as the flag flutters in artificially generated wind, the two fabric units repeatedly touch and separate from each other, generating power.
The catch is that the maximum power output is only about a thousandth of a watt, and you have to hang the flag from a high altitude balloon to get the best wind.
Hmm. Maybe that’s not such a bad idea after all...