Turn fitness into electricity?

A_fiend_for_life

penrhyn wrote: »

Link to some statistics on peddle powered generators.

http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen/stats.html

Enjoy.

Interesting link

So no more 'The Geek shall inherit the Girth' then.

Bongedone

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

So no more 'The Geek shall inherit the Girth' then.

Good one !!

tomstickland

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

One claim is that the average person can apparently generate 50 watts per hour on gym machines at a leisurely rate.
.

A Watt is already a measure of rate of energy flow, so "50 W per hour" is a meaningless unit. It should be just 50W I guess.

lovelyjubbly

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

(!!!!!cat - Arglwydd mawr! Ti'n rhoid geiriau yn fy ngheg!)

naughty, I though you werent supposed to swear online:rotfl:

A_fiend_for_life

tomstickland wrote: »

A Watt is already a measure of rate of energy flow, so "50 W per hour" is a meaningless unit. It should be just 50W I guess.

Thanks tomstickland

Should be 50Wh or 0.05kWh.

moonrakerz

tomstickland wrote: »

A Watt is already a measure of rate of energy flow, so "50 W per hour" is a meaningless unit. It should be just 50W I guess.

A Watt is a unit of power, not a rate of energy flow.

"50W per hour" is a quite acceptable term, in the terms of this discussion it is probably more meaningful that just saying 50W.

50W per hour will power a couple of low energy lamps. 50W tells you nothing about how that power can be put to use; over a minute, an hour, a day ?

looby-loo_2

There was a cycle set up at my daughters uni as part of a healthy lifestyle week. It was connected to a light bulb (60 watt she thinks)

There was a prize for anyone who could peddle fast enough to keep it lit up for one minute. She got her prize but said it was REALLY hard work. Most people only managed a few seconds and some didn't even light it at all.

So you would have to work very hard

Ben84

It's surprising how much hard work it is just to light a 40w bulb. I had to change my appreciation of the energy we consume a lot when I found out. We get so used to seemingly endless energy at the push of a switch and have no understanding of it as energy in a form we can feel. Without being able to convert fuels in to useful energy, there is no way we could do such simple things as boil a kettle. It made me realise how completely dependant we are on fuels.

A_fiend_for_life

nj106 wrote: »

I don't see how it is any different from wind turbines and solar panels

I can! Someone else breaks a sweat.:)

A potential link on current thought generation:

http://scienceshareware.com/pedal-power-build-your-own.htm

nzmegs

I have often wondered about this myself while sat on my indoor bike. It has a display which requires batteries!! If the batteries were rechargeable I thought it would be ideal to be able to recharge them as you use the bike. Perhaps i have no idea how much energy would be required but everytime i have to change those batteries I am annoyed that my energy expenditure leads to monetry expenditure and is not good for the environment - doesn't seem fair!