My idea is to take the natural process of mammallian bloodflow and use it for the purposes of energy creation. Thousands of very small turbines, hereafter called VSTs, would be placed within the blood. These VSTs would be linked with wires that would protrude from the skin of the animal, usually near the top of the head to prevent interference with normal life. In non-human animals, this technology could be used as they run on treadmills turning turbines to double the energy output making them viable power plants, and for human beings the wire would connect to a variety of electronic implements placed about the body, specifically SkinLight (See Category Product:Electronics).
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The health risks of this would be immense, as well as the engineering obstacles.
What about something that produces energy from the temperature gradient between the human body and the surrounding air?
You are going down the right track. Nevermind the naysayers who talk of expense or engineering difficulty; they already know, with modern technology this is almost viable. Tomorrow's tech will bring this to fruition.
Would the turbines be attached to the walls of an artery or free-floating in the bloodstream?
The turbines would ideally by attached to the walls, but lacking the engineering at this time, they would be freestanding attached to a thin wire running through the vascular system.
Check out this article at Nature: They draw electrical energy from the motion of walking. It is collected in a backpack.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050905/full/050905-14.html
Do you actually need a internal turbine? think your blood has ions in it and it does flow around the body so it might be possible to build a non-invasive magnetohydrodynamic generator that the animals or people could wear....
Energy production and consumption in living systems are tight economic systems. Any interference with normal blood flow would be immediately reflected in the health of the living creature. Over a long time the drain on the natural systems would result in serious health problems. The amount of energy harvested would, in all probability, not be worth the deleterious effects on the living system
As any engineer will tell you, cost is the overriding factor in most things. We don't use solar energy in bulk because solar cells cost something like $10 per Watt (compared to a few cents for coal). This wouldn't work because generators are not cheap, and the sheer number needed to produce enough energy for any practical purpose would make this hideously expensive.