7 ms·

> I think once you do the math > Literally forgetting to turn the light off in your bathroom twice a month 8h * 5W * 2 = 80Wh per month (Unless you're talkin

by Panino 6y ago

> I think once you do the math > Literally forgetting to turn the light off in your bathroom twice a month 8h * 5W * 2 = 80Wh per month (Unless you're talking about using incandescent light bulbs, which would be like using a 4mpg vehicle in a discussion about average vehicle efficiency. Personally I think a 3W LED is better than a 5W, but I know most people disagree.) Our main bathroom light draws, I'd guess, 0.1W. It shows up as 0.0 with a kill-a-watt so I don't really know. And it's only used for about half an hour a day at most. > a super-committed, hour-every-day stationary-bike-using person 60W * 1 * 30 = 1800Wh per month So no, forgetting to turn a light bulb off for an entire night, twice a month, does not waste more electricity than that gained by a cyclist who is capturing their electricity. I think it's a great hack to turn this machine into an electrical generator.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Come on, this is "missing the forest for the trees" pedantics. I think you will find that the average bathroom in the US uses way above 5W. Regardless, it's just an example. The DoE says the average US residential customer uses 909 kilowatt hours per month. Using your math of a committed cyclist that generates 1.8 kwh per month, you're still looking at under .2% of energy replacement. Which, again, even the smallest efficiency improvements in a house would completely dwarf what a human could produce.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  I really think room lights are approaching 5W/bulb. I have a 3x5w bulb setup and keep 2 unscrewed just because it’s too bright when I have to go in at night. Incandescents are a hard sell when LED bulbs are $1-$2 and pretty reliable.
- Panino 6y ago
  I can only respond to your words. If you don't like my choice of bulb, then do your own math and show it like I did. See what watt bulb (not bulbs plural, or moving the goalposts even further, an entire bathroom) it takes for your assertion to be true. Actually I'll just do that myself because it's easy. Now, we already discussed generating 1800Wh per month using this bike. So: 1800 / (8 * 2) = 112.5 Or in other words: 112.5W * 8h * 2 = 1800Wh So you'd need to run a 112.5W light bulb for 8 hours per night, twice per month, just to equal the amount of electricity produced by the article author. Although you said that leaving the light on wasted more, so, let's just go with a 113W bulb. I'm old enough to remember 100W incandescent light bulbs, but even then, they were rarely bought and used because that's an insane amount of electricity for indoor lighting. Now where I live I can't even buy incandescent bulbs because they're not for sale. For 112.5W to be average, there would need to be millions of Americans using stadium lighting just to take a shit. I think you should take a step back and reflect on why you're so quick to attack someone for doing a cool hack (this is Hacker News) that reduces their electrical usage (in the time of climate change).
  - michaelt 6y ago
    Here's a neat video of an olympic cycle sprinter powering a toaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ 1800 watt-hours, or 1.8 kilowatt-hours, is 20 cents worth of electricity. Using a cycle to power things makes for a neat demo, and might be good for educating people about electricity and suchlike, but anyone who expects to notice it on their energy bill or carbon footprint, or even for the installation to pay for itself, is off by a few orders of magnitude.
    - usrusr 6y ago
      Yeah, the thing is, the by far best use for "bike power" is actual transportation. 0.15kWh of pedaling power can get you surprisingly far (one hour of moderate effort cycling), but would be rather unimpressive for the usual electrical applications. Apparently, almost two centuries of doing that have lead us to some very clever and pragmatic efficiency tweaks, probably because the effort-motion feedback loop is so extremely compelling to the human mind (evolution has made us brains on an endurance locomotion machine, everything else is rather unimpressive compared to peer mammals).
      - OJFord 6y ago
        Not to mention bicycles are designed for converting rotary motion into, well still rotary motion, but forwards travel; not electrical potential. I haven't done any research or taken measurements, but particularly the low-end style tyre-on-roller that I have must be awfully inefficient. It's been briefly popular (to some extent) a couple of times to power a light while cycling. These things don't typically have large capacitors or batteries to store surplus charge, because powering the light is about all you can do! (Ok not totally fair since you're also cycling, but still.)
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    Many (most?) bathrooms in the US have more than a single, lonely bulb.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- qqqwerty 6y ago
  The author of the article is using the bike as a back up to his solar panels when the power is out. He isn't going to be running AC and arc welders off the power generated from his bike. More likely some lights and phone/laptop charging. The power from the bike is likely to be more than sufficient for those use cases.
kenned3 6y ago
8h * 5W * 2 = 80Wh per month Question - where did you get 5W from? a LED nightlight? More realistic, a washroom is using 60W MINIMUM.. most have those light bars above the mirror and they are closer to 300W. I recently replaced my Halogen lights with LED and cut the kithen lights from 600W to ~60W. Substantial savings, but how many people replaced everything with LEDs?
- SamBam 6y ago
  I literally just went into my bathroom and checked the main light. 5W. Above the mirror we have three huge bright bulbs we only use when brushing teeth. 5W each, or 15W total. I literally don't think I've been in a house in the past 3-4 years that isn't 90-100% LED bulbs.
  - numpad0 6y ago
    Color reproduction sucks in LED though. So if they do more than brushing teeth with bathroom mirrors they could be still rocking good old incandescent.
    - tomcooks 6y ago
      What have you got to do in the bathroo that requires color? Calibrate monitors for high quality print?
      - Xylakant 6y ago
        People that apply cosmetics need proper color representation. There’s even dedicated mirrors with built-in lights for that. However, on average, that will not be a primary driver of energy usage in the average since most people don’t spend a substantial chunk of their time painting their face.
      - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
        I am very sensitive to color temperature at night, and it really affects my sleep. E.g. Night Shift on OSX isn't enough for me so I still have the reddest possible setting for f.lux set on my computer. I hate the light that LED bulbs give when I'm getting ready for bed. Thus, I have LEDs in most places in my house except for my bathroom and bedroom where I have incandescents.

by Panino 6y ago

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

Come on, this is "missing the forest for the trees" pedantics. I think you will find that the average bathroom in the US uses way above 5W. Regardless, it's just an example. The DoE says the average US residential customer uses 909 kilowatt hours per month. Using your math of a committed cyclist that generates 1.8 kwh per month, you're still looking at under .2% of energy replacement. Which, again, even the smallest efficiency improvements in a house would completely dwarf what a human could produce.

Scoundreller 6y ago
I really think room lights are approaching 5W/bulb. I have a 3x5w bulb setup and keep 2 unscrewed just because it’s too bright when I have to go in at night. Incandescents are a hard sell when LED bulbs are $1-$2 and pretty reliable.
Panino 6y ago
I can only respond to your words. If you don't like my choice of bulb, then do your own math and show it like I did. See what watt bulb (not bulbs plural, or moving the goalposts even further, an entire bathroom) it takes for your assertion to be true. Actually I'll just do that myself because it's easy. Now, we already discussed generating 1800Wh per month using this bike. So: 1800 / (8 * 2) = 112.5 Or in other words: 112.5W * 8h * 2 = 1800Wh So you'd need to run a 112.5W light bulb for 8 hours per night, twice per month, just to equal the amount of electricity produced by the article author. Although you said that leaving the light on wasted more, so, let's just go with a 113W bulb. I'm old enough to remember 100W incandescent light bulbs, but even then, they were rarely bought and used because that's an insane amount of electricity for indoor lighting. Now where I live I can't even buy incandescent bulbs because they're not for sale. For 112.5W to be average, there would need to be millions of Americans using stadium lighting just to take a shit. I think you should take a step back and reflect on why you're so quick to attack someone for doing a cool hack (this is Hacker News) that reduces their electrical usage (in the time of climate change).
- michaelt 6y ago
  Here's a neat video of an olympic cycle sprinter powering a toaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ 1800 watt-hours, or 1.8 kilowatt-hours, is 20 cents worth of electricity. Using a cycle to power things makes for a neat demo, and might be good for educating people about electricity and suchlike, but anyone who expects to notice it on their energy bill or carbon footprint, or even for the installation to pay for itself, is off by a few orders of magnitude.
  - usrusr 6y ago
    Yeah, the thing is, the by far best use for "bike power" is actual transportation. 0.15kWh of pedaling power can get you surprisingly far (one hour of moderate effort cycling), but would be rather unimpressive for the usual electrical applications. Apparently, almost two centuries of doing that have lead us to some very clever and pragmatic efficiency tweaks, probably because the effort-motion feedback loop is so extremely compelling to the human mind (evolution has made us brains on an endurance locomotion machine, everything else is rather unimpressive compared to peer mammals).
    - OJFord 6y ago
      Not to mention bicycles are designed for converting rotary motion into, well still rotary motion, but forwards travel; not electrical potential. I haven't done any research or taken measurements, but particularly the low-end style tyre-on-roller that I have must be awfully inefficient. It's been briefly popular (to some extent) a couple of times to power a light while cycling. These things don't typically have large capacitors or batteries to store surplus charge, because powering the light is about all you can do! (Ok not totally fair since you're also cycling, but still.)
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Many (most?) bathrooms in the US have more than a single, lonely bulb.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
qqqwerty 6y ago
The author of the article is using the bike as a back up to his solar panels when the power is out. He isn't going to be running AC and arc welders off the power generated from his bike. More likely some lights and phone/laptop charging. The power from the bike is likely to be more than sufficient for those use cases.

kenned3 6y ago

8h * 5W * 2 = 80Wh per month Question - where did you get 5W from? a LED nightlight? More realistic, a washroom is using 60W MINIMUM.. most have those light bars above the mirror and they are closer to 300W. I recently replaced my Halogen lights with LED and cut the kithen lights from 600W to ~60W. Substantial savings, but how many people replaced everything with LEDs?

SamBam 6y ago
I literally just went into my bathroom and checked the main light. 5W. Above the mirror we have three huge bright bulbs we only use when brushing teeth. 5W each, or 15W total. I literally don't think I've been in a house in the past 3-4 years that isn't 90-100% LED bulbs.
- numpad0 6y ago
  Color reproduction sucks in LED though. So if they do more than brushing teeth with bathroom mirrors they could be still rocking good old incandescent.
  - tomcooks 6y ago
    What have you got to do in the bathroo that requires color? Calibrate monitors for high quality print?
    - Xylakant 6y ago
      People that apply cosmetics need proper color representation. There’s even dedicated mirrors with built-in lights for that. However, on average, that will not be a primary driver of energy usage in the average since most people don’t spend a substantial chunk of their time painting their face.
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      I am very sensitive to color temperature at night, and it really affects my sleep. E.g. Night Shift on OSX isn't enough for me so I still have the reddest possible setting for f.lux set on my computer. I hate the light that LED bulbs give when I'm getting ready for bed. Thus, I have LEDs in most places in my house except for my bathroom and bedroom where I have incandescents.