Donkeys and Elephants and Delegates,oh my!
Check out the most popular
Are we heading for a human-powered future?
edition.cnn.com — Couch potatoes will be horrified, but fresh advances in human-powered technology -- where users power appliances through their own motion -- could one day see a 'workout-to-watch' scenario become reality.
kickoff22- 725 diggs
- digg it
- skewl, on 08/04/2008, -8/+6I think it's a science field which will be one of the future.
- ieatpizza, on 08/04/2008, -0/+4Finish your sentence and then you can go play
- LeeSoong, on 08/04/2008, -1/+1... Po-TA-toes !
- Inzanor, on 08/04/2008, -2/+45As seen in the matrix.
- flashboy131, on 08/04/2008, -1/+4we can see it happen, and yet we can't seem to stop it.
- GraceHead, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3"The Matrix is a computer generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this” (he holds up a coppertop battery)." - Morpheus.
- fireburner23, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1I often wondered if we produce more energy than we consume...?
- trolleyfan, on 08/04/2008, -0/+4Short answer: No. More specific answer: Hell no.
To say using humans as a "battery" is dumb is to be nice to the idea. And why, even if you could, would you even want your human "batteries" aware of anything? They'll generate exactly the same energy (which is less that it'll take to keep them alive) brain-dead as any other way.
Which of course makes the whole *need* for the "Matrix" pointless on several levels.
- LeeSoong, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1No, humans are too weak, old, fat, and out of shape - on average...
But Compressed Air Cars are here now, and coming to the USA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFDqcu8oJ4
- ThatGeek, on 08/04/2008, -7/+5its a trap!
- Monkeydew06, on 08/04/2008, -1/+8Plug me in! I'm ready to take a trip to wonderland!
- Ooddiey, on 08/04/2008, -6/+4So can i put my sweat into my gastank to run my truck?
- hotlatte, on 08/04/2008, -3/+31Fred Flintstone was ahead of his time.
- Technopundit, on 08/05/2008, -0/+1Disco -- The Final Frontier!
- Crath, on 08/04/2008, -2/+50Doctor: CLEAR!!! BZZT
Nurse: That didn't work, try again!
Doctor: CLEAR!!! click... click, the hell?
Doctor: PEDDLE FASTER JOHN!
John: I cant!!- Rudegar, on 08/04/2008, -1/+29dugg for John realizing his limitations!
- vdgmr1213, on 08/04/2008, -0/+10Hey, don't tell him what he can't do!
- NexusV2, on 08/04/2008, -1/+2I'm Lost....
- cschmitz, on 08/04/2008, -1/+0obviously...
- vsaint, on 08/04/2008, -2/+9What was John selling anyway?
- ColorBlind, on 08/04/2008, -0/+7He's already pulled over, he can't pull over anymore!
wait... - Linuturk, on 08/04/2008, -0/+7+1 for unrealized humor
- clearwaterlab, on 08/04/2008, -3/+1That reminds me of that early episode of Pokemon in which Pikachu has to power the bicycle
- Rudegar, on 08/04/2008, -1/+29dugg for John realizing his limitations!
- insomniacal, on 08/04/2008, -10/+16Is human power squeaky clean? I rather doubt it. More physical exertion requires more caloric intake, and that carries its own carbon footprint in terms of food production, transportation and preparation costs. I haven't done the math, but wouldn't be surprised if human power turned out to be less efficient than oil, with a larger carbon footprint.
I'd stick with solar power.- feliks2, on 08/04/2008, -7/+15The point is to use the energy people would be exerting regardless of this technology, so if you actually read the ***** article you wold realize that this doesn't actually increase anyones carbon footprint.
- krnldmp, on 08/04/2008, -3/+3The stupid part of that is attemtpting to extract energy from a human body absolutely does increase its carbon footprint, and very inefficiently as the post you tried to intelligently reply to indicates. Furthermore, in spite of common belief, most people don't need a hell of a lot more exercise. Most people are ***** starving, and the ones that aren't need to eat less than half what they do. THAT's where its at.
Shut up and think. - feliks2, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1You too.
- krnldmp, on 08/04/2008, -3/+3The stupid part of that is attemtpting to extract energy from a human body absolutely does increase its carbon footprint, and very inefficiently as the post you tried to intelligently reply to indicates. Furthermore, in spite of common belief, most people don't need a hell of a lot more exercise. Most people are ***** starving, and the ones that aren't need to eat less than half what they do. THAT's where its at.
- lordewoks, on 08/04/2008, -4/+1Naw, Arc Reactors are the way to go.
- sailadayaway, on 08/04/2008, -2/+4I think they're steering more towards picking up excess energy that is created when you walk around, ie. across a train platform. In this sense there would be no needed increase of calorie intake. Right now any way our civilization can skim energy off the top of our everyday activities is an excellent idea, and one that I think we need to focus more resources on.
This should be a technology that is in place, as well as solar power. And as far as the guy's comment in the article about the small amount of power one person produces in one day, that's just one person.. Imagine how many people walk across train platforms everyday, every little bit helps.- dragon76, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2There are so many things we do now that we could be skimming electricity from: drainpipes, sun, movement. I think it's so short-sighted to believe there is going to be one silver bullet that is going to move us to renewable energy and there's not. It's going to take lots of little things.
- krnldmp, on 08/04/2008, -3/+1Go back to school.
- Technopundit, on 08/05/2008, -0/+2How many watts ya think they could get from the corner of Tropicana and Las Vegas Blvd?
- AchaIemoipas, on 08/04/2008, -3/+6"More physical exertion requires more caloric intake"
Have you been to America recently? Caloric intake will not be augmented. Because they physically couldn't eat more calories without dying.- Typhoon2009, on 08/04/2008, -0/+8Hmm... if I'm not mistaken I hear that the British and Aussies are also having an obesity problem... same with Mexico... if you're gonna bash America, bash something like our government.
- IPublius, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1They are increasing in size, but we are still the fattest. It seems as though people are starting to do something about it though. This may be the perfect time to introduce this technology to America and try and catch the wave of people trying to get into shape.
- krnldmp, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1IPublius, what needs to change is the thing in humans that makes them want to eat more than they need. If you fix that, all these other dumb ***** ideas about "extracting excess human energy" go away.
- MaryCait, on 08/04/2008, -2/+2I'd have to agree with all the replies you've recieved.
And if you were really worried about the carbon footprint of food production, maybe we could be utilizing our doughy bodies PLUS trying harder to eat fresher/locally/healthier.
There's no way moving your ass is less efficient and more harmful than using oil!!! - NoozeHound, on 08/04/2008, -1/+1Hey, I can combine human and solar energy - the sun shines out of my ar*e. Dunno why no-one thought of it.
- Scaryclouds, on 08/04/2008, -1/+2If we only took in as many calories as we needed I would agree with your statement, but us Western's seem to take in more calories than we need. So if we burn a few more calories to make some electricity it would be a good thing, also when consider many people won't adjust their diet habits (i.e. take in more food) then they are not really increasing their carbon foot print. I could also go into how better health also likely correlates to decreased carbon footprint but I don't really see a point.
- Icyfenix, on 08/26/2008, -0/+1But what happens when we reach "Peak Sunlight" ??!!
- feliks2, on 08/04/2008, -7/+15The point is to use the energy people would be exerting regardless of this technology, so if you actually read the ***** article you wold realize that this doesn't actually increase anyones carbon footprint.
- Harabeck, on 08/04/2008, -2/+3Im curious how long it would take such devices to pay back the energy it took to create them in the first place.
- vsaint, on 08/04/2008, -5/+3Considering that human-power requires sunlight to grow the food which then needs to be harvested, packaged, shipped to retailers, prepared, eaten and then turned into energy, why not skip all those steps and use solar? Stuff like this is idiotic. A waste of money, time and energy.
- feliks2, on 08/04/2008, -1/+2RTFA
- zadadka, on 08/04/2008, -1/+14Fantastic idea :
Take all the unemployed, marshall them to warehouses, and stick them on various treadmills to generate electricity for the community.
Similar with convicted criminals.- ohearn, on 08/04/2008, -1/+7or just use convicted criminals
- dboone74, on 08/04/2008, -0/+8Wouldn't using the unemployed in this way be a poor use of their talents? I say we do this with our celebrities.
- yahoofrom, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1I'd like to use you as my battery if you know what i mean.
- FoxOrian, on 08/04/2008, -0/+5I can already see the situation where some poor guy gets fired from his job and starts freaking out about getting sent back to the power plant again. "Anything but that!!"
- TomFrost, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3Dude -- my startup just lost funding. At least put some sort of a time buffer on this!
- NotOptium, on 08/04/2008, -1/+2Well, you know, eighty-five percent of all homeless rickshaw businesses fail within the first three months.
- krnldmp, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2Its more efficient to use energy sources directly than it is to make food with it and make stupid humans move something.
- CeeJayDK, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1True , but this doesn't make people move about more than they already would .. it just reclaims wasted energy and even if it did make people move more , they need the exercise.
Fitter humans = Healthier humans.
- CeeJayDK, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1True , but this doesn't make people move about more than they already would .. it just reclaims wasted energy and even if it did make people move more , they need the exercise.
- hughesj919, on 08/04/2008, -2/+13No.
- katorga, on 08/04/2008, -2/+2How soon after that do we see Senators and the Hyperwealthy being carried in chairs on the backs of peons while being manually fanned with palm fronds by their slaves. Welcome to the late Roman Empire.
- solidcube, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2That is already the way it is. It's just that the slaves work elsewhere from the senators. How is this different from senators being driven around in Hummer H2s? The power has to come from somewhere, and it's the lower class that slave to deliver it.
- papastout, on 08/04/2008, -1/+8Flintsones, meet the Flintstones. They're a modern stone-age family...
- vilago, on 08/04/2008, -6/+6at the rate that most americans intake calories, i'd say most of them have more than a little extra to provide. these comments about how sunlight to grow the food etc are only hurting the progress toward a sustainable future. we need to think positive and i think this article does just that. plus, the healthy lifestyle switch is a welcome bonus to all the obese, lazy people out there who would otherwise just sit around.
- solidcube, on 08/04/2008, -0/+4The fatties are digging you down.
- bobdole369, on 08/04/2008, -1/+3I for one welcome our new energy hungry overlords....
- JoeMerchant, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1At a glance, I saw "couch potatoes will be home fries...."
- eclectro, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1I think before you see this you will see vast sums spent on harnessing the power of pet hamster wheels. All the electronics will be re-engineered to be so low power as to run off just one or two pet hamsters.
- TheGhostMan, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1What does human power in the gym have to do with human power on the couch.
- chaosgroove, on 08/04/2008, -1/+0Whoa!
- edalquist, on 08/04/2008, -3/+12Idiotic green propaganda.
1000 nutritional calories are equal to 1.163 watt-hours [1] ... us humans suck at power generation at any meaningful scale. The money for these techniques could easily be put into conservation and make a much larger (albeit less sensational headline) difference.
[1] http://online.unitconverterpro.com/conversion-tabl ...- solidcube, on 08/04/2008, -3/+2Was your comment just kneejerk hate for any sort of environmental measure?
It might be idiotic if we weren't operating at a huge calorie surplus already.
Also, if you read the article, you'd notice that they're talking about sucking power from things we're doing already. In other words, that energy is being expended whether we harvest it or not.
People like you must want to live in a polluted cesspit. Lots of us don't, so shut the ***** up and get out of the way.- edalquist, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3No, I'm all for environmental movements that actually make a difference. The problem with many things is they tend to ignore physics.
Yes I understand that they are capturing otherwise 'wasted' energy but the point is this:
Even if you manage to capture 50% of a person's daily food intake as electricity you're barely going to manage 1 watt-hour per day per person.
So you have a club that sees a total of 5000 people on the dance floor all going crazy per night. If you can manage 1 watt-hour per-person (mind you thats capturing at 100% efficiency 1000 nutritional calories) that gives you 5Kw/h. That will run 5 dance lights for 1 hour ... maybe.
How much did the floor that is capturing that energy cost versus a standard dance floor? With a daily generation of 5Kw/h will they ever even come close to recovering that expense? Perhaps they would be better off just buying carbon offset credits or asking for primarily wind power from their power company. I can just see quite a few uses for that $ that would benefit the environment a whole lot more than capturing energy from people.
The reason they don't ... doing the human powered thing is great marketing and thats it. This isn't being green, it's capitalizing on the green movement for pure profit. - solidcube, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2Great response, and you answered some questions I've had about the specific numbers.
I still think it's a great thing to investigate. People are thrashing around all the time and the energy goes nowhere. If human power was commonplace, economies of scale and technical innovation would almost certainly make it cost effective.
I apologize for thinking you were a right-winger. - edalquist, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1No problem, I was rather grumpy this morning and posted that first one without enough background and it does come off rather nasty
- edalquist, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3No, I'm all for environmental movements that actually make a difference. The problem with many things is they tend to ignore physics.
- phonecardfree, on 08/05/2008, -0/+0dear edalquist,
I want to preface this by saying that I have *never* commented in a digg before, but this seemed worth breaking the habit.
1000 thermochemical calories = 1 kilocalorie, or Calorie, as used in the US for measuring dietary consumption. We are told, as Americans, that the average diet is 2000 kcal "Calories" per day, or roughly 2 million of the 1-thermocehemical calorie units you were measuring with.
in reality, 1000 "Calories" as you referred to then appropriately yields 1163 watt-hours, or 1.163 kWh. Now, our body NEEDS its energy, but the force of that energy is already being exerted and now there's potential for actual usable energy from that exertion. I hardly see how this amounts to "Idiotic green propoganda" when we start talking about using some fraction of the roughly 35 kilowatts of energy we consume daily, and putting it to small uses.
You're right that conservation is absolutely critical to overcome production/fossil fuel crises, but the very article is talking about CONSERVING energy that's being freely expended. Perhaps your criticisms were a bit hasty?
Whore.
- solidcube, on 08/04/2008, -3/+2Was your comment just kneejerk hate for any sort of environmental measure?
- luckyguy2000, on 08/04/2008, -1/+1that wont happen. too many couch potatoes existing.
- Stevethegreat, on 08/04/2008, -1/+1"Are we beheading for a hum.... oh wait -no- this time is different. You people got me with this title, I thought it would fall in the general trend of beheadings that lately is popular on digg, good thing it didn't, Keep it innovative people, good work.....
- Bulbospongiosus, on 08/04/2008, -0/+0This would help the obesity epidemic also. But how about we have our body fat liposuctioned then burned in a thermal power plant instead?
- ravensfh, on 08/04/2008, -0/+6"Soylent green is people"
- trer, on 08/04/2008, -0/+4How about a stationary bicycle that powers the DVD player and TV with porn showing on the screen. If you stop peddling, so does the porn! Guaranteed to lose weight.
- lmp49, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2if generators start appearing under beds, does that mean people can't have sex with the lights off anymore?
- blast_flame, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1Extremely unlikely. Enough other clean forms of energy exist to make this completely unnecessary. Furthermore the public I hope will never accept something this stupid, if you've just done something tiring and want to sit back and relax do you really want to crank a generator first?
I think this is just a fantasy of some jock or outdoors person wanting to get all the nerds and inside people. - infiniphunk, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2This would be one of the greatest things that could happen for humanity. The health benefits would be immesurable. We still need to get energy from the sun, as solar power, and from the sun through plants, but active people are healthy people. Anyone disagreeing with this is a lazy *****.
- depro9, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1As society moves away from a labor way of life & more & more production becomes automated I think human powered transportation & appliances is the correct course of action.
- connieLingus, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1we already had an human-powered age...it is called the Neolithic Revolution ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution ) and it ended about 350 years ago with the invention of the steam engine.
- insanebrain, on 08/04/2008, -3/+2What a load of ***** ..
- roddack, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1My love handles say from their cold dead fridge
- SilverBlade2k, on 08/04/2008, -1/+1I doubt this would be an economic success for home use. People come home tired from work and they don't want to exercise just to watch TV.
Also, the people who truly 'need' exercise, are most often the people who would be unable to afford this anyways. - mike17032, on 08/04/2008, -1/+2Not gonna happen.
- nastronomical, on 08/04/2008, -1/+4I sometimes wonders who in their right minds would write such utter crock of total *****. Then i remember poor education + raw eco emotions = ***** articles such as this.
- RedRHand, on 08/04/2008, -0/+0We might be able to power wearable communication/entertainment/medical devices but the rest.. I don't think so. Would like to see the human-powered sauna.
- NexusV2, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1I'm Lost...
- ubundriva, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3A person cycling for 30 min would burn 180 kcal
(http://www.nutrition.org.uk/home.asp?siteId=43&sec ...
that converts to 209 watt-hour,
(http://www.easyunitconverter.com/energy-unit-conve ...
which will power a 60 watt light bulb for 3.5 hrs. Take the power generating efficiency into consideration, it's still reasonable to expect 1 to 1.5 hr of nice illumination.
Not bad at all I'd say. People who dismissed this were probably off by a factor of 1000 (cal vs. kcal) in their calculation.- krnldmp, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2Its WAY smarter to just leave the cookie in the jar.
- bincoder, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1Human power aside, those calculations seem to show accurately the surprising amount of power it takes just to propel a bicycle and why its so difficult to make a battery with enough capacity to make it practical for a car or a bike for that matter.
- krnldmp, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2CNN is just ***** anymore.
- krnldmp, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1The most alarming part of people being intrigued by an article like this is the SHEER IGNORANCE of the amount of energy people consume in their dialy lives. If your body were suddenly required to physically supply the energy needed to support your life you would be dead in minutes.
- ubundriva, on 08/04/2008, -1/+1Will it power your car? Probably not, but your personal gadgets, light bulbs, yes definitely. People who can't do math shouldn't capitalize IGNORANCE in their posts.
- nosamesame, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1The Sun is laughing at you.
- BECoole, on 08/04/2008, -2/+1If Obama has his way, we will all be pedaling bicycles.
- fireburner23, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1Wow....interesting.
- GrantTLC, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1Hehehe. You're quite opinionated, aren't you? C'mon then, sonny jim, let's see you writing a better one.
No? Funny that... - TitanX7, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1This is not about to help my CoD4 k/d ratio.
- WardOnTheWeb, on 08/04/2008, -0/+0Some day, I'll be able to convince my supervisor that I need a treadputer. ;)
- cwcentral, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1"Are we heading for a human-powered future?"
Yes, when the machines take over. Yeah, Hollywood's got it right. - dognose, on 08/04/2008, -0/+1It's funny, I just got in from mowing my yard w/ a human powered mower. It works really well, and, I'm pretty sure they still make them. Mine is like 50 years old.
- Technopundit, on 08/05/2008, -0/+1Harness the wind ... from CNN.
-
Show 51 - 53 of 53 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2008 —
Content posted by