Using Gym Rats' Body Power to Generate Electricity 338
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "A Hong Kong health club is hoping that a car battery, some StairMasters and dozens of gym rats can help ease the world's energy problems. It is just one of a wave of projects that are trying to tap the power of the human body, the Wall Street Journal reports. The article explains the impetus behind the project: 'The human power project at California Fitness was set in motion by Doug Woodring, a 41-year-old extreme-sports fanatic and renewable-energy entrepreneur, who pitched the experiment to the gym's management last May. "I've trained my whole life, and many megawatts have been wasted," says Mr. Woodring, who has worked out at the Hong Kong gym for years. "I wanted to do something with all that sweat."'"
Re:Inefficient use of human body (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. Try generating 200W of electrical power with your body, and see how long you can keep it up.
Re:Inefficient use of human body (Score:2, Interesting)
I do have to wonder, though, wouldn't the electrical savings eventually pay for the generators? Or maybe they could come up with some kind of system to turn a fan, so that there won't be a need for air conditioners.
solve america's weight problem (Score:3, Interesting)
How about (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:can they also make a contraption... (Score:5, Interesting)
been there, done that:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/27/biodiesel_fr
Re:How about (Score:3, Interesting)
You can still get generators for running lights at night, probably not much different from the one I had when I was very young, back in the 1970's.
I have hydraulic disks on my commuting bike. Sometimes I want to just drag the brake slightly if I am waiting for a light to go green, etc. Something which inductively couples to the disc would be ideal for that.
Are you working on the assumption (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you working on the assumption that treadmills require electricity? Because I can tell you from experience that they do not. My grandparents had an antique treadmill that still worked 10 years ago (I have no idea what happened to it after they died), and there was no electricity involved.
If your merely stating that treadmills are not as efficient at generating electricity (or if there is some joke I'm just not getting, which is quite possible), then I won't disagree with you on that one.
Re:can they also make a contraption... (Score:3, Interesting)
Help Cut and Move Some Stone (Score:3, Interesting)
usefully applying human power (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about (Score:3, Interesting)
So toggle charging by the dynamo based on a tilt switch and a delay. Bike goes downhill for more than a couple seconds, start charging. Bike goes uphill for more than a second, stop charging.
Re:can they also make a contraption... (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people are driven by an inner need to do physical exertion on a regular basis. Gym memberships are full of such people. It's a rewarding pursuit to get up and do something physically active.
So there are all these people, engaging in utterly useless labour. They're picking up heavy things and putting them down over and over, running on treadmills, that sort of thing.
And I get to thinking... that we have all this stuff that could be done around here. Roads, housing, bridges, new infrastructure that could be built, that sort of thing. Stuff that benefits the community.
There are all these workplace safety people out there, specialized in making work safe, ergonomics, best practices, that sort of thing.
And there are all these physical therapists out there, designing exercise programs for people that are focused on being rewarding for the individual to participate in, where they're happily doing this labour out of a sense of enlightened self-interest.
It gets me to thinking...
If you organized community projects in a way where as many aspects of the tasks involved as possible were designed by a physical trainer to be purely beneficial to the individuals involved...
If one of the organizational mandates was that these tasks would not require specialized knowledge of workers who just showed up to get a workout...
If you made it so it would be brain dead easy for them to use the knowledge they have of their workout needs to find which tasks to do...
Could you create community projects that would be just as good for you as going to the gym?
Maybe managed by a core group of paid workers with expert knowledge?
If you had flexible time frames, if you had a complete lack of privately vested interest in the project and drove it purely at a community level so no one felt suckered when they participated but rather like they were getting an enjoyable workout first and making their neighborhood better as a nice side benefit...
Would people participate?
It would be interesting to see some people with more expert knowledge in those areas than I have give it a try...