The traitor within?

[Klompen]

I reckon that if we could somehow harness the power of lazy humans (as generators) we could solve much of this power problem.

Hmmm.....but then we would all have to do compulsory exercise every day on a bike or some other contraption to generate the electricity.......which may not be such a bad idea, lol.

You actually raise a good point. I've always wondered why every gymn out there doesn't generate power with all those treadmills and exercise bikes. After all, the motors in treadmills are incredibly good generator motors. People use them quite often in small DIY wind turbines.

 

[Water-]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170918111830.htm


"Researchers are looking at advanced materials for roads and pavements that could generate electricity from passing traffic.

Engineers from Lancaster University are working on smart materials such as 'piezolectric' ceramics that when embedded in road surfaces would be able to harvest and convert vehicle vibration into electrical energy.

The research project, led by Professor Mohamed Saafi, will design and optimise energy recovery of around one to two Megawatts per kilometre under 'normal' traffic volumes -- which is around 2,000 to 3,000 cars an hour.

This amount of energy, when stored, is the amount needed to power between 2,000 and 4,000 street lamps. As well as providing environmental benefits, this would also deliver significant costs savings for taxpayers.

It currently costs around 15p a kilowatt hour to power a street lamp. Therefore 2,000 to 4,000 lights can cost operators -- which in the UK tend to be local authorities, or the Highways Agency for motorways and trunk roads -- approximately between £1,800 and £3,600 per day. Researchers say the cost of installing and operating new road energy harvesting technology would be around 20 per cent of this cost."

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

I went scouting around the intrawebs about this subject, and came up with this article about it - and it doesn't look so bright if we all try and power-up with our own human-power-energy, but could be good as a form of fat-shaming torture....lol, 'You have to stay on that bike 12/12......its flowering time!':

Generating electricity with a bicycle.

You can't generate a meaningful amount of electricity with a bicycle, and it won't save any money, either, because bike power generates such a tiny amount of electricity versus the cost of the setup. And it might not even be green energy, once you consider the energy that's used to produce your fuel (food).

A typical bike generator can produce 100 watts. If you pedal for an hour a day, 30 days a month, that's (30 x 100=) 3000 watt-hours, or 3 kWh. That's less than 1% of what a typical family uses in a month (920 kWH). You generated 0.3% of your energy, and continue to get 99.7% from the grid. Good job.

But how much money did you save? Well, since the average cost of U.S. electricity is 12¢/kWh, that one month of pedaling saved you $0.36. Congratulations. If the system cost $400, it would take only 93 years to pay for itself.

And that's before we consider the cost of food. If you're overweight, like most Americans, then you can consider your biking energy "free" since you could be burning fat. Likewise, if you ride the exercycle instead of doing some other kind of exercise that you were going to do anyway, then the cost of your energy is also free. But if you're not overweight and not exercycling instead of some other exercise, then you'll be buying more food to fuel your effort. Since it takes about 1 calorie to produce 1 watt-hour of electricity, your month of pedaling would require 3000 calories. With the cheapest food you can buy, oil or flour, you're looking at $0.85 to create $0.36 of electricity. So instead of saving money, it's costing you money to run your generator. Other foods are even worse: Figure $5.41 for Cheerios, $6.15 for bananas, or $22.22 for Big Macs.

But money aside, isn't bicycle power a form of green energy? The answer is that it depends on where you get your calories. Just as with the money costs, if you're overweight or exercycling instead of other exercise, then yes, the (piddling amount of) energy you create is indeed green. But if you're already at a decent weight and not substituting for some other kind of exercise, then you're going to eat more food to power your effort, and the pollution caused to produce the food for your cycling is more than the pollution caused by geting the energy from the grid. 3000 extra calories from what a typical American eats will make 30 lbs. of CO2e, or 15 lbs. for a vegan. By comparison, the energy from the power plant makes only about 5 lbs. of CO2e to generate the same amount of electricity.

But there's more. We've been assuming that 100% of your effort is captured as electricity, but that's not really true. When you charge your battery, there's inefficiency in the friction drive between your bike wheel and the motor, inefficiency in the motor itself converting rotational motion into electricity, energy lost in the voltage regulator (which keeps you from putting too much energy into the battery too quickly), inefficiency of energy going into the battery, and then when you want to use the energy you made, there's the inefficiency of energy going out of the battery, and inefficiency in the inverter. It's likely that at least a third of your effort will vanish into thin air.

But what about putting the generators in gyms where people are exercycling or using ellipticals anyway? Okay, let's take a look at the numbers:

Texas State University put generators on 30 elliptical machines at a cost of $20,000. (source) If we generously assume that each machine is used 1/3 of the time over a 12-hour period, that's 30 machines x 1/3 utilized x 12 hours x 100 wH/hr x 1 kWh/1000 wH x 360 days/year x 67% efficiency (generous) = 2900 kWh/year, which is not enough to power even one typical American house for the same period of time.

And cost-wise, the energy saved at 12¢ per kWh is worth $348 per year, so the payback time is close to 57 years, not counting maintenance or opportunity cost. Yeah, it's green energy, because otherwise the exercisers' energy is wasted, but the far easier solution is to just stop using ridiculous amounts of energy in the first place. A single family can easily save more energy by making some modest changes than the entire fleet of ellipticals at TSU can produce. The website you're reading now gives concrete examples of how to do so.

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/bicyclepower.html

You actually raise a good point. I've always wondered why every gymn out there doesn't generate power with all those treadmills and exercise bikes. After all, the motors in treadmills are incredibly good generator motors. People use them quite often in small DIY wind turbines.

 

[Klompen]

Wow leave it to university researchers to spend 20,000 dollars on a project that should cost less than 2000.....

On some machines it might not work out mathematically, but some machines like treadmills already have motors in them that can generate. Not only that, but as you increase the current load, the generator provides more resistance. If people are exercising anyway they might as well be producing some power. It won't power the grid but it will definitely offset the usage of the gym itself...

 

[bigtacofarmer]

I went scouting around the intrawebs about this subject, and came up with this article about it - and it doesn't look so bright if we all try and power-up with our own human-power-energy, but could be good as a form of fat-shaming torture....lol, 'You have to stay on that bike 12/12......its flowering time!':

Generating electricity with a bicycle.

You can't generate a meaningful amount of electricity with a bicycle, and it won't save any money, either, because bike power generates such a tiny amount of electricity versus the cost of the setup. And it might not even be green energy, once you consider the energy that's used to produce your fuel (food).

A typical bike generator can produce 100 watts. If you pedal for an hour a day, 30 days a month, that's (30 x 100=) 3000 watt-hours, or 3 kWh. That's less than 1% of what a typical family uses in a month (920 kWH). You generated 0.3% of your energy, and continue to get 99.7% from the grid. Good job.

But how much money did you save? Well, since the average cost of U.S. electricity is 12¢/kWh, that one month of pedaling saved you $0.36. Congratulations. If the system cost $400, it would take only 93 years to pay for itself.

And that's before we consider the cost of food. If you're overweight, like most Americans, then you can consider your biking energy "free" since you could be burning fat. Likewise, if you ride the exercycle instead of doing some other kind of exercise that you were going to do anyway, then the cost of your energy is also free. But if you're not overweight and not exercycling instead of some other exercise, then you'll be buying more food to fuel your effort. Since it takes about 1 calorie to produce 1 watt-hour of electricity, your month of pedaling would require 3000 calories. With the cheapest food you can buy, oil or flour, you're looking at $0.85 to create $0.36 of electricity. So instead of saving money, it's costing you money to run your generator. Other foods are even worse: Figure $5.41 for Cheerios, $6.15 for bananas, or $22.22 for Big Macs.

But money aside, isn't bicycle power a form of green energy? The answer is that it depends on where you get your calories. Just as with the money costs, if you're overweight or exercycling instead of other exercise, then yes, the (piddling amount of) energy you create is indeed green. But if you're already at a decent weight and not substituting for some other kind of exercise, then you're going to eat more food to power your effort, and the pollution caused to produce the food for your cycling is more than the pollution caused by geting the energy from the grid. 3000 extra calories from what a typical American eats will make 30 lbs. of CO2e, or 15 lbs. for a vegan. By comparison, the energy from the power plant makes only about 5 lbs. of CO2e to generate the same amount of electricity.

But there's more. We've been assuming that 100% of your effort is captured as electricity, but that's not really true. When you charge your battery, there's inefficiency in the friction drive between your bike wheel and the motor, inefficiency in the motor itself converting rotational motion into electricity, energy lost in the voltage regulator (which keeps you from putting too much energy into the battery too quickly), inefficiency of energy going into the battery, and then when you want to use the energy you made, there's the inefficiency of energy going out of the battery, and inefficiency in the inverter. It's likely that at least a third of your effort will vanish into thin air.

But what about putting the generators in gyms where people are exercycling or using ellipticals anyway? Okay, let's take a look at the numbers:

Texas State University put generators on 30 elliptical machines at a cost of $20,000. (source) If we generously assume that each machine is used 1/3 of the time over a 12-hour period, that's 30 machines x 1/3 utilized x 12 hours x 100 wH/hr x 1 kWh/1000 wH x 360 days/year x 67% efficiency (generous) = 2900 kWh/year, which is not enough to power even one typical American house for the same period of time.

And cost-wise, the energy saved at 12¢ per kWh is worth $348 per year, so the payback time is close to 57 years, not counting maintenance or opportunity cost. Yeah, it's green energy, because otherwise the exercisers' energy is wasted, but the far easier solution is to just stop using ridiculous amounts of energy in the first place. A single family can easily save more energy by making some modest changes than the entire fleet of ellipticals at TSU can produce. The website you're reading now gives concrete examples of how to do so.

https://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/bicyclepower.html

I had the bike idea once. But involved offering small but tempting amounts of crack in exchange for pedal time. Not endorsing crack. But it could clean up some neighborhoods and power a nice grow.

 

[Capt.Ahab]

They used to have dog treadmills.
I remember a really old antique one in a neighbor's barn that had a large butter churn attached to it.
Attach a small generator and watch the hound make electricity.
Ive seen horse sized ones too and pictures of sheep and other four legged critters powering them.
https://2014-stuhr.blogspot.com/2013/11/c-1884-vermont-farm-machine-company.html

 

[Stoner4Life]

I had a treadmill idea (rollers, bearings and to prop transmission) in mind back in the '80s but it was just to power a boat, my design was going to be powered by my Harley.......

 

[HuffnPufferfish]

i rode my bike outside so i dont have to drive a car, thats saving money
riding a bike indoors like those people who drive to the gym to ride a bike indoors hahaha

every single of those "road creates free energy" fail when motorcycles comes in, all those super duper ideas just fuck with safety and traffic flow

 

[gaiusmarius]

Taylor Wilson: My radical plan for small nuclear fission reactors

[YOUTUBEIF]5HL1BEC024g[/YOUTUBEIF]


this is what i want.

 

[Stoner4Life]

my old superglide got about 50+ mpg on the highway, loved that bike, gonna get another HD but w/a Frankenstein Trike kit installed; I'd see less mpg for sure but be back in the wind, bad back, hips and knees be damned.......

 

[Brother Nature]

I reckon that if we could somehow harness the power of lazy humans (as generators) we could solve much of this power problem.

Hmmm.....but then we would all have to do compulsory exercise every day on a bike or some other contraption to generate the electricity.......which may not be such a bad idea, lol.

But that's like slavery with extra steps...



[youtubeif]F4OOw22hKR4[/youtubeif]

 

[igrowone]

have to admit, the Kavanaugh situation became interesting
so is this another conspiracy to make Trump look bad?
the drama seems unlimited, doubt the country will ever be normal again

 

[Water-]

"nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile!"
-Grateful Dead

the world has been messed up since the dawn of civilization...

half of humanity are jerks or stupid, there is nothing we can do about that, is there?

 

[Stoner4Life]

off topic? I don't think so, so here's what some people in the street, former & current politicians, celebs, renowned intellectuals etc think of the man.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI9Wgx_RcMg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgR8afMo5PE


if you find him (trump) in disfavor or distasteful you'll ENJOY these vids.

 

[Ignignokt]

Already seen most of the ATSGemwolf videos.
His guarantee about his meat and potatoes is funnier since the Stormy Daniels comments that 'he knows he has an unusual penis'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nALb4lEbSbA

 

[Ignignokt]

'One of the wettest we have ever seen from the standpoint of water'

 

[Gry]

have to admit, the Kavanaugh situation became interesting
so is this another conspiracy to make Trump look bad?

the drama seems unlimited, doubt the country will ever be normal again

The standard of normal suffered a similar fate as respect for women.

Misogyny and an absence of anything akin to integrity have been the hallmarks of this administration.
A new distraction each day, as the fragments of democracy are swept away.
FBI investigations; "They don't do that".
Waiting for his daughter to introduce a new line of jackboots...

 

[Elmer Bud]

G `day Folks

Lets us pray .

That , that red neck attorney general is the next to go .
Donald is disappointed , very disappointed with Jeff .

WHAT ! He won`t hunt down Hillary . Get me a new one !

Thanks for sharin

EB .

 

[CaptainDankness]

Trump apparently has a Tremendous penis lol

She describes Trump's penis as "smaller than average" but "not freakishly small."
"He knows he has an unusual penis," Daniels writes. "It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool..."
"I lay there, annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart...

No wonder he's such a schmuck.

When someone carries on about their 'great genes' you know something is amiss.

Size doesn't matter, it's the motion of the ocean. Though I hear it takes a long time to get to England in a row boat.

 

[Klompen]

Size doesn't matter, it's the motion of the ocean. Though I hear it takes a long time to get to England in a row boat.

Not from Scotland it doesn't