Who says necessity is not the mother of invention in the New Normal. While a tiny fraction of the Japanese population is enjoying the transitory effects of Abe's latest reflating "wealth effect" policy (even as China has made it clear said policy will end quite soon), the bigger problem for Japan is that even sooner, more and more of it will be reliant on hamster wheels to generate electricity, as LNG prices have just hit a record high and are rising at a breakneck pace, and as local nuclear power generation has collapsed to virtually zero. Which means one thing: electricity will soon become so unaffordable only those who are invested in the daily 2% Nikkei surges will be able to electrify their immediate surroundings.
So what is Japan's solution? A quite ingenious one: as
Geek.com and
ASR both report, Japan's Fujifilm has created organic printed sheet that harvests energy from body heat, or in other words,
converts body heat to electricity. Finally, at least one key part of the
Matrix "reality" is now fully operational - the use of human beings as batteries.
Specifically, Fujifilm Corp. and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have developed a resin sheet that generates electricity, utilizing the temperature difference between human body and the air.
The power-generating sheet developed by Fujifilm and AIST could be used to provide additional power for portable devices.
The sheet uses the thermoelectric effect, which generates a voltages due to the temperature difference between the surface of an object and its reverse side. The sheet is 0.4mm thick and soft. In a normal environment, the temperature of the air is lower than that of the human body or the surface of clothes. That temperature difference can be used to generate a steady flow of electricity.
Comment: It appears the authors are trying to argue that the advent of modern diets and medicine has improved life expectancy and health, but this may be far from the truth.
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