Electricity is in the air

The air that flows around cars and planes as they travel could be used to generate electricity in the near future, according to physicist Yiannis Andreopoulos and his colleagues at the City College of New York.

To achieve this, researchers have used piezoelectric materials that convert motion into electricity. The devices, barely two centimeters thick, would be placed on the roof of cars or the fuselage of airplanes. And while they wouldn’t provide enough power to drive a hybrid car, they could be used to power the vehicle’s control panel and radio , and even to recharge the batteries in occupants’ mobile phones.