This idea is still dough in the oven whilst it warms up, but... I have a field that is pretty useless. No sheep, goats etc, just long grass. But it does look inoffensive.

Now what I'd like to do is make better use of the field. Ideally, I'd like to get rid of all the grass and replace it all with something that looks equally inoffensive, but generates power for me.

Imagine a rubber mat 1sq m in size, that has a whole load of fake grass sticking out of it. This 'grass' would actually be litle solar panels, but in the shape of a wheat stem with a bulbous head containing the solar cells.

This would be attached to the rubber mat with connectors that would generate tiny amounts of electricity when it was moved by the wind using piezoelectric thingies.

The body of the actual mat would contain little channels that water could run down, and here would be micro water wheels.

Now, in of itself, the power generated by the mat would be quite small; solar + wind + water, but add enough of them together in a 'plug-together' kind of fashion and cover my field with them and ... - it looks like it did before - it gives me power for no additional work other than setup - i don't have to cut the grass any more - cover acres of useless moorland without building big, ugly windmills

of course, i've no idea how to build it, but once built, the volumes would be so enormous the economies of scale would kick in making it quite cheap...
-- noblea, Nov 30 2005

How can you make better use of a field by replacing it with fake grass?! You can get plenty enough energy out of the field by mowing the grass and turning it into hay.

Now, if you were proposing fake grass solar panels around Phoenix and other desert sites, instead of all those ecologically disastrous lawns, yeah, maybe.
-- DrCurry, Nov 30 2005


Yeah, I agree that would be better. I live in England and we don't have deserts so that hadn't occurred to me.
-- noblea, Dec 02 2005



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