3 ms·
Well, you tickled my curiosity. Electric eels can produce up to 1 kilovolt at up to 1 amp as low frequency AC. That's about a kilowatt of instantaneous power.
by retrac 4y ago
Well, you tickled my curiosity. Electric eels can produce up to 1 kilovolt at up to 1 amp as low frequency AC. That's about a kilowatt of instantaneous power. The problem is they can only do it for a few milliseconds. While electric eels can shock continuously every few seconds for multiple-hour periods, that seems to be very much on the "low setting". When dealing with e.g. alligators they'll give maybe a dozen full power blasts over a minute and then they need a nap.
That works out to about 200 joules of energy released over the period. Enough to run a small LED lightbulb for about 15 minutes. But you've burned a whole day's worth of eel-calories. May be more feasible as a weight-loss technique than a way to recharge your laptop.
- doodlebugging 4y agoReality is the real dream assassin here. LOL! Maybe if we tweaked the gene expression so that it only affects body hairs, effectively turning each hair into a wind-powered generator. The individual contributions might be small but cumulatively may be more significant. It would be one way to kill the whole barber, hair stylist, and Brazilian wax businesses and taking it further, it would also potentially affect all clothing manufacturers globally by encouraging full nudity which might remove body-shaming issues by promoting health and fitness and better diet choices. Tattoos become a simple way to set yourself apart and advertisers buy skin billboard space so individuals can monetize their derrieres. Gillette, Schick, Dollar Shave Club all fade into obscurity or get marginalized as tools only useful for pre-surgery shaves. Maybe I need to step away from the computer and move on with life. Thanks for reading.