Syrian Student Invents Ingenious Way to Create Electricity Amid US Plunder of Nation's Energy

Syria’s Foreign Ministry appealed to the United Nations on Sunday to reveal that the nation has faced over $115 billion in losses to its energy sector as a direct result of the CIA-backed war and US occupation of its oil-rich territories, demanding accountability, compensation and an end to the illegal presence of American troops on its lands.

Alaa Nassar, a student from Tartus University’s Technical Institute for Solar Energy, has come up with an ingenious proposal to generate electricity using the principles of kinetic and mechanical energy.

The young man told local media that brainstorming novel alternative sources of electrical power led him to the idea of a specially-designed floor tile for use in crowded places which can absorb energy as it is stepped on, and turn the energy into a small amount of electrical power that can be stored using batteries. Nasser calculates that a single step can generate up to 3 watts of electricity.

The student says the technology can be used in a wide variety of venues, including at the main doors and other areas of government offices, universities, malls, banks and even sidewalks along major public thoroughfares.

Nassar's idea received recognition at the recent "Invention and Development" workshop at the University of Damascus in July, and he plans to showcase it at the upcoming Al-Basel Exhibition for Creativity and Invention, a national expo of innovations in technology, medicine, energy, chemistry and other fields that serve Syria’s economic development.

Syria's energy crunch, caused by the 2011 war and the US occupation and plunder of the Middle Eastern country’s oil and gas resources, has resulted in a frantic search for alternative sources of energy.

Last year, while touring a new solar energy farm in a suburb of Damascus, Syrian President Bashar Assad said that in "conditions of war and the conditions of siege" that the country is facing, "any new economic project, whether it is small, medium or large" is a challenge. "Electricity…is the sector that enters and raises all others. So what is required of us as the state is to support such projects," he said.

Syria intends to ramp up its solar power generation capacity to up to 2,000 megawatts by the year 2030, and the state has offered businesses interest-free loans and other forms of support, including access to the nation’s electrical transmission and distribution grids, to facilitate new generation capacity. The country is also exploring wind power technology.

Before the ramping up of the CIA-led dirty war against the country in 2011, Syria enjoyed energy self-sufficiency and exported a modest amounts of oil and gas abroad, and generated about 41,000 GWh, with capacity declining to about 25,700 GWh as of 2020. Despite the war and a decade of crushing Western sanctions, the government has managed to ensure the continuity of access to electricity to upwards of 95 percent of the population, although consumption has declined sharply, to as little as 15 percent of its prewar levels. This means less electricity for households, hospitals, schools and things like street lighting, and reduced access to other utilities, such as clean, safe drinking water, as well as emergency telecommunications and logistics.

Syria has relied on its Russian and Iranian allies to help address food and fuel shortages caused by the war and occupation. Damascus and Tehran signed a series of long-term energy cooperation agreements in May.