When I first saw this photo and its accompanying story, I thought it was a really great idea to harness the energy of the three-quarters of a million people who pass through Tokyo station each day. Why not?

Mats were placed in front of ticket gate entrances and, as people walk across them, the pressure creates electricity (piezoelectricity is basically crystals + stress = voltage).

However, getting down to the fine print, one discovers that, even if mats were at every ticket entrance in the crazily busy station, it would only generate enough electricity to power one 100-watt light bulb for 10 minutes (according to East JR).

You’ve got to love Japan and how technology is embraced here – the installation of the mats, the counter displaying the power generated, and the people power that went into planning the whole thing vastly outweighs any possible financial gain, BUT the technology is cool and it’s a forward-looking approach to reducing energy consumption. The other thing it reinforces about Japan is that it’s not always about the bottom line – money is not always the focus here. Who knows – maybe in 10 years it’ll be completely viable and voltage producing mats will be standard everywhere…