On lobsters and innovation

Since I'm always writing about the developed world's continued need for entrepreneurship and innovation, I'm always thrilled to read about and pass along evidence of true ingenuity and resourcefulness at work. Today I happened to run across two such examples, and so I'm posting them both here.

First, from The Boston Globe, a very creative solution to an admittedly not-too-important problem:

University of Maine researchers want to drive the state’s lobsters back to sea — with a 3-iron.

An engineer, a scientist, a student, and an alumna have teamed up to develop a biodegradable golf ball from crushed lobster shells that could be used on cruise ships.

Inexpensive to make, the ball is designed to sink and degrade within weeks, depending on the ocean’s depth and temperature. The balls would degrade in a similar time frame in fresh water — and break down if lost in the woods, although that would take longer.

For years, a favorite cruise ship pastime was hitting golf balls from the decks into the sea, but the practice ended after an international treaty banned the dumping of plastic, including golf balls, at sea in about 1988. The biodegradable lobster balls could revive the activity, the researchers say.

“The whole idea is that we want to use every bit of a lobster we can,’’ said Robert Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute, a research group based at the University of Maine.

To me, the narrowness of the implications of a discovery/invention like this are of secondary importance. I'm more encouraged by the underlying creativity and persistence that went into this endeavor, solving multiple problems at once. Without encouraging this kind of thinking and approach, we have no prayer of solving any of the bigger issues that face us a society.

This, incidentally, is also an example of higher education at its best--bringing together different people with different backgrounds and areas of expertise to creatively solve a problem. Our colleges and universities should and must be fertile grounds for innovation, and experimentation on small-scale projects like this one is a fantastic way to train people how to work together to find creative solutions. Good stuff.

The second item I came across actually followed in the path of another post I wrote several months ago, discussing the possibility of embedding solar panels in our roadways in order to feed power back to the grid. It turns out that the Netherlands is already working on plans to employ just such a strategy, but one proposal goes even farther than that. Per Washington's Blog (via Barry Ritholtz),

Another use of a free, wasted byproduct to generate electricity is piezo-electric energy. “Piezo” means pressure. Anything that produces pressure can produce energy. 

For example, a train station in Japan installed piezo-electric equipment in the ground, so that the foot traffic of those walking through the train station generates electricity (turnstiles at train, subway and ferry stations, ballparks and amusement parks can also generate electricity). 

Similarly, all exercise machines at the gym or at home can be hooked up to produce electricity. 

But perhaps the greatest untapped sources of piezo-electric energy are freeways and busy roads. If piezo-electric mats were installed under the busiest sections, the thousands of tons of vehicles passing over each day would generate massive amounts of electricity for the city’s use.

Interesting stuff. It's not hard to imagine a strategy that makes use of both solar technology and piezo-electric technology to turn our roads into massive electricity providers. Put it together with electric car technology, and you could have a very different-looking landscape on the American highways (and gas stations). I'm not saying it's likely, nor am I exactly assessing its viability or scalability. But it's definitely worth a shot--it's better than throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars in Libya chasing a broken oil-centric energy policy, don't you think?

[Boston Globe]
[The Big Picture]