What is Digg?45 Comments
- Waxx, on 09/09/2008, -0/+19Finally! I have been talking about something like this for years. There is so much wasted energy at gyms I am glad someone is finally using it.
- hamobu, on 09/10/2008, -0/+12The benefit is purely psychological. From the article: "It's a little humbling -- a person can make about a penny's worth of electricity an hour. So it's not a lot," said Michael Tagget, president of Henry Works, adding that on his or her own, an individual can create 50 to 100 watts of electricity.
In other words, you can barely power one light bulb. This should give people an appreciation for energy.
Another humbling example: Gasoline is about $3.50 an hour. A car can go 30 miles on a gallon of gas. Try pushing a car for 30 miles and you will have an idea of how important fuel is to our civilization. Most people could not walk 20 miles let alone push a car for 30 miles. - asus2000, on 09/10/2008, -0/+8I love the picture of the bicycles connected to the gasoline generator.
Someone must have told the graphic artist to find a "generator" and 'shop it in. lol - staystellar, on 09/10/2008, -0/+7this would be awesome for US if it gained more popularity. help people lose weight and create clean energy simultaneously.
- mohsenxp, on 09/10/2008, -0/+6ha this is funny. Just today at the gym I started wondering what if the cross-trainer I was working on was hooked up to a generator.
Ah how the mind wanders when one has no i-pod to keep busy with. - iamghost, on 09/10/2008, -0/+6if i read one more human powered gym article...
- mmijatov, on 09/10/2008, -0/+5I also had this idea in my head and did nothing about it.
- Simplysped, on 09/10/2008, -0/+4Is this the same story I see on the digg front page all the time? How is this new? It's like once a week it's a big surprise that there is an human powered gym or dance club!
- mohsenxp, on 09/10/2008, -0/+4"How many calories did you burn today?" would become "how many light bulbs did you light today?".
Good stuff :) - Lust4Me, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3"...200 to 400 watts of electricity an hour..."
Huh? Where to begin...
Thank you ABC. - inactive, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3yeah, a story about this was made popular awhile ago from a diff website
http://digg.com/environment/Green_Gym_Uses_Human_P ...
and he should get some rowing machines, they generate hundreds of watts on average per stroke, way more than other equipment. - Eggzorcist, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3This is old news... I heard this a while ago. Yet a great idea!
- wh3873, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2I think right now it's a matter of new tech mixed with old. It looks as though the bikes still use the brake pads to create resistance, that's wasted energy. If a stationary bike had a gearing mechanism in it the resistance could be upped by switching to a higher gear thus creating more RPMs for the generator. I have a feeling that with a little thought this could really work out.
To use your bike analogy. A lot of people that go to gyms can do 10 miles on a bike pretty easily, so three people could created the same energy as a gallon of gas.
Better tech will make this work. - inactive, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2Dude you're confused. But I too was confused. Watt (W) is different from Watt-Hour (Wh). Watt is the unit of power, while Watt-hour is the unit of energy. You can easily understand this. Says a lightbub requires 70W of power. If you turn it on for one hour, it'll have consumed 70Wh. If you turn it on for five hours, it'll have consumed 350Wh. You're paying bill for the number of Watt-hour. So you don't say "something generates 400 watts per hour" but "generates 400 watts." If the power generator runs non-stop for a year, it will have generated 400 Watt-year of electricity or about 3,506,400 Wh (400 * 365.25 * 24).
Hope this helps. - cards, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2I've got a question that hopefully someone here can answer:
If I can put something on my roof that spins thanks to the wind...and that something can power my whole friggin house...why can't I generate a similar amount of power by riding an exercise bike and spinning the wheel on that? - EdgeOfEpsilon, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2I was more tee'd off by the "connected to a generator" diagram with a cord going to an engine-generator set.
- thentro, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2This generator is what I was using:
http://www.windstreampower.com/Bike_Power_Generato ...
They say that an average rider produces 10-12 amps at 12v, so an average output of 132 watts. So assume 4 people stay average for 1 hr you would get about .5 kWh of power. The article says .2-.4 (well they say watts, but I assume thats Wh) so it still seems low to me.
I also wonder what exactly they were measuring for me. Say I was doing 272 watts for 11 minutes, that would be just about 50 Wh. Perhaps thats what they meant.. - nickpick, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2Look, we all know that it's all a big lie and they're really using all that energy (Jigawatts, I'm telling you) to power the Large Hadron Collider.
- xyzzzabccc, on 09/10/2008, -1/+2No kidding. People need to learn the difference between power and energy. Watts are not the same as watt-hours, and with their article using the wrong units all over the place (they clearly mean to talk about energy, but they use units for power), it's impossible to tell just what the numbers actually mean.
- st00f72, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1get on ebay and enter search terms: dc wind motor
I've been thinking of making one myself since solar panels and wind turbines are so expensive. - thentro, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1I have been thinking about building one too. People have been very successful at building fairly powerful ones. The trick is building one that will survive its first storm with out breaking.
- nickpick, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1But can it run Crysis?
- uberdeutsch72, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Now if they could just harness the power of tank tops!
- asus2000, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1I guess people will look at you cross-eyed if you're using free weights..
Like, can't you help out here? We're peddling our asses off to cool this place down! - AlpineStars777, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Already been done in China or Japan (can't remember exactly) years ago.
- thentro, on 09/10/2008, -1/+2400 watts pr hour with 4 people?? No way. I was just on a bike generator with a meter at a promo event, and it took me 11 minutes to make 500 watts. I bike quite a bit and was going flat out, but even according to their conservative estimates the average person takes 20 minutes to make 500 watts.
So either the people at this gym have stick legs, his bikes have bad generators, or he has no clue what he is talking about. - inactive, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Yes that's low. I think it might be some misconfiguration or something. Or probably the peddlers reached the limit of the generator which is about 400W.
- paulvq, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Just because you don't use them doesn't mean doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't either. Plenty of people still use incandescent lightbulbs because to them it seems cheaper(I know it's not).
- jacobhill69, on 12/05/2008, -0/+1Seems futuristic
http://www.curemysweatyfeet.com - Higgles, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Old.
- inactive, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Yeah that would make motorbikes out of those gym bicycles.
- maaneschijn, on 10/12/2008, -0/+1That's what I call a brilliant idea.
- KingGorilla, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1I'm going to slap myself in the face for reading it
- dzhuang, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Wow this is surprisingly fascinating. I guess this is an old idea, but still, I would definitely like to see more of it happen.
- conradmstroud, on 12/21/2008, -0/+0I used to buy those plastic "Snack Saver" clips to close up potato chip bags, cereal bags and other food containers. "Snack Savers" are cheap- you can buy 3 on a card for a buck. Unfortunately, I found that "you get what you pay for" because the cheap plastic closers were always breaking. Once I got bright and
http://www.advanceddatarecovery.co.uk/
http://www.easyrecovery.co.uk/
http://www.lawyer'sMarathi.com/MarketsLabel
http://www.LeeMani.com/Marathilawyer's - EdgeOfEpsilon, on 09/10/2008, -1/+1>So it's not a lot," said Michael Tagget, president of Henry Works, adding that on his or her own, an individual can create 50 to 100 watts of electricity.
>In other words, you can barely power one light bulb.
Who uses incandescent light bulbs anymore? There's not a bulb in my house that uses more than 15 watts. - xamox, on 09/10/2008, -1/+1They forgot one variable in the equation, Americans are fat and lazy and don't want to work out.
You lose. - palm4452, on 11/30/2008, -0/+0Great idea. Will it catch on?
http://toponlinenewssite.blogspot.com/ - thentro, on 09/10/2008, -1/+1You can, the number quoted in the article are way low. The average person should be able to generate 500 watts in 20 minutes of biking.
Go buy this thing: http://www.windstreampower.com/Bike_Power_Generato ... - hamobu, on 09/10/2008, -3/+1Not really. Gallon of gas pushes a car 30 miles. pushing a car is more resistance than 3 people face on their stationary bikes.
Second thing is that according to article, there is no wasted energy. Article specifically states that there is no excess heat created, therefore there are no brake pads that you are describing. If the bike is making energy, than the resistance would be provided by the load on the bike generator. There would be no need to add brake pads on top of that.
I don't know if you could also increase resistance (and the amount of energy created) by increasing the magnetic field in the generator. - japerr, on 09/10/2008, -12/+0If you had been talking about if for years, why didn't you do something about it. Or were you looking for a pat on the back for the idea?
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