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This reminds me of an old (misleading) graphic in Wired magazine suggesting that people on treadmills could be significantly reducing their electricity bills.
by a9h74j 4y ago
This reminds me of an old (misleading) graphic in Wired magazine suggesting that people on treadmills could be significantly reducing their electricity bills.
- NoboruWataya 4y agoI've often wondered if it would be viable to run a gym where all of the equipment is designed to harness customers' energy to help power the building. I suspect it wouldn't make enough of a difference to be worth it but have never seen anyone run the numbers.
- jck 4y agoLet's say a person outputs 500W and we can somehow capture all of it. That would be 10cents worth of electricity in an hour. Note that these are very generous estimates, but it does demonstrate how silly the idea of trying to generate electricity by capturing exercise output is (in a purely economic sense).
- a9h74j 4y agoYes, and the Wired graphic was particularly misleading in that it showed, as I recall, multiple dollar amounts accumulating on per-session treadmill displays. On the other hand, it is possible to imagine lifestyles enhanced by various 10W contributions. 10W for heated clothing. 10W for a laptop. 10W average to power a several km electric bicycle or Aptera-size commute. And so on.
- Flashtoo 4y agoThis isn't exactly what you are talking about, but this art/concept for self-powered student housing came to mind: https://www.humanpowerplant.be/human_power_plant/human-powered-student-building-plans.html https://www.humanpowerplant.be/human_power_plant/human-power...
- benj111 4y agoIn their defense this could be seen as a type of gamification. Ultimately you can put any dollar amount on a kWh of electricity. It's the kWh generated that matters. Not saying it's a good defense though.
- pxndxx 4y agoHow are you proposing we produce 10W to heat clothes? we produce around 80W just by sitting idle, just wear insulating clothes! How do you produce 10W to power an electric bike? 10W is a laughable amount of power, just get rid of the electrics and pedal a bit. 10W is barely enough to charge a phone these days. Anything that gets moderately hot while in use is consuming more than 10W.
- a9h74j 4y agoe.g., s/lifestyles/post-collapse lifestyles/ Based on Ali Express, heated clothing (5V power in a pocket) is popular enough in China.
- WJW 4y ago500W is an extremely high number as well. Pro cyclists can reach up to 400 Watt in short bursts, untrained people typically can't maintain more than 100-150W for long. We really use quite a lot of energy when measured in how many humans it would take to provide that much energy "manually".
- anon_123g987 4y agoWhile it's true that the power of a human is not much (certainly not enough to power a house), but we have a lot of energy. Most of us carries at least 1 kg (~2 lbs) fat, which contains ~37 MJ of energy. For comparison, a stick of dynamite has ~1 MJ of energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat#Biological_importance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat#Biological_importance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite#Form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite#Form
- Merad 4y ago> Most of us carries at least 1 kg (~2 lbs) fat It's a lot more than that. Even a fit (healthy, but not necessarily peak athletic shape) adult man will have about 15% body fat, 20% for a woman.
- trelane 4y agoWhy stop there? The matter itself is energy, so combine a human with an anti-human....
- BizarroLand 4y agoSweet oblivion looks just like me
- yetihehe 4y ago> Pro cyclists can reach up to 400 Watt in short bursts I heard pro cyclists can reach up to 2kW. I managed to make 500W on a rowing machine for 5 minutes, but I'm a couch potato. I believe 400W is a normal rate for cyclists. When you are sitting, your body already produces about 100W of heat.
- agumonkey 4y agoA dude did that, it didn't last long, but I'm still thinking about opening one. Just to avoid the double madness of powering lights and devices so people spend energy in the air :) Even if you don't generate much, at least your biomechanical efforts are used somewhere.
- akvadrako 4y agoYou could have them power fans or keep the lights on. Things that can use just a few watts.
- benj111 4y agoSurely it's triple madness if you're driving to a gym to go on the running / cycling machine.
- agumonkey 4y agoOh yes I forgot to mention this :)
- a9h74j 4y agoNot just driving to the gym, but driving twice around the parking lot to find a closer space for a shorter walk. And wasn't it Mumford who observed that given the time it takes to earn the money to buy a car, on average it can be faster to walk than to drive.
- CodeBeater 4y agoAs a quasi sidenote, most gyms already implement this on a smaller scale on their elliptical and spinning machines as they're usually self powered and you can regulate the resistance the machine offers, which I assume must increase or decrease the number of magnets around the flywheel.
- adwww 4y agoHowever, most energy you burn in a gym is converted into heat energy, which the gym then burns extra electricity trying to air condition.
- SenHeng 4y agoThe Grand Tour has tried to answer that question. I thought the turnstiles idea was really good, especially if you place them in a building with heavy traffic. Though probably not really cost effective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwyH6tT-EQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwyH6tT-EQ
- omnicognate 4y agoOlympic track cycling medallist powers toasting a slice of bread, which takes everything he's got and leaves him exhausted: https://youtu.be/S4O5voOCqAQ https://youtu.be/S4O5voOCqAQ
- iasay 4y agoThat reminds me of a thread I saw on an Internet forum a few years ago about some guy suggesting powering his fridge with a bicycle during a power outage. Turns out this is an extremely complicated problem which is probably best solved by ignoring it.
- BizarroLand 4y agoI bet you would get better results directly spinning the compressor via a flywheel rather than trying to generate the electricity to run the refrigerator.
- titzer 4y agoYeah, toasters and microwaves take a ton of energy, 800-1000W. Things like laptops and some desktops could be easily powered by bicycle, though. I managed 220W for 30 mins, and could probably idle 50-75W for hours, which is more than enough for multiple laptops.
- agumonkey 4y agoIt would because people would become very aware of the energy sinks and its cost :) Some city noticed changes in consumption when new houses had meter installed on ground floor rather than in the basement.
- benj111 4y agoIn the UK they're rolling out smart meters that have a display that show real time usage. They're advertised as saving energy which I think is a bit misleading as it's only based on this phenomena
- adwww 4y agoWhich is a very short lived behaviour change. Our smart display went missing during a house move, and hasn't been compatible with most of the energy suppliers we've had since moving in. It was probably the worst energy scheme they could have spent the estimated £16bn on. That much in insulation would have slashed domestic heating costs, but as ever that's a much less sexy project.
- Mordisquitos 4y agoWell, people with treadmills technically could significantly reduce their electricity bills—by running outside instead.