I always thought something along these lines was possible:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/08/13/crowd-farming-power-your-building-with-human-motion/

deadlink

Blah. Try again tonight.

neat idea, imagine the cost of the infastructure and maint.

The equipment costs probably prohibit feasibility in the every day world at this point. But in the future, who knows?

yeah, but solar power for you home has been around forever and it is still unaffordable.

Some freinds of my parents bought enough panels to power their house (well first they make they power and then sell it to the power company who then sells it back to them because that is how the laws work)

with install it cost $39,000

say avg utility bill is $200 a month (generous)

it would take 16 years and 3 months to pay for itself. Eventually it would be worth it, but that is a long time to wait for that investment to pay for itself, and at that point, you only broke even.

Yes but in the case of a mall or best buy I could something like this being feasible. It's really all about longevity in any investment. We're all so used to that housing boom that know one can think about ten years down the road anymore.

Solar panels are become more affordable what kept solar panels out of the market was that the panels would wear out fairly quickly. We have some family friends who bought solar panels, I think they invested half what you projected, and plan on seeing a return in 6-8 years.

I applaud the creativity and I wish the government invested half of what did in this war into technology like this and others... thats a whole different topic.

Good point, think of the money spent in Iraq to this point (I am not instigating a Iraq debate, just commenting on the amount of money spent), we could have done a lot of different things with that money.