At a homeless center in Michigan, residents who live there work out on these special outfitted bicycles that sends power back into the building as they are working out. Many of the people takes turns on a stationary bike to power their TV in order to watch their favorite shows. As a reward of using these bikes to provide electricity, Copenhagen hotel began to offer free dinners to guests who sweat it out on the power-generating exercise cycles.
A regular 30 minute workout creates about 50 watts. 50 watts is enough electricity to run a laptop for one hour or a phone charger for six full charges or one energy-efficient light bulb for 2.5 hours.
The human and solar power at the gym generated 36 percent of its electricity, which saves about 37,000 kilowatt-hours in 2009. The average annual electricity consumption for a US residential utility customer is about 11,000 kilowatt-hours. This idea is not that popular right now however will develop in the next few years.
I think this is such a great idea, even though it won't solve all the global warming problems it will somewhat help. Having the idea not be that big is not a great problem. Hybrids, when they first came out was not big at all. You could only see a few people on the streets with them. However now you see Prius hybrids everywhere.
Opinions?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
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6 comments:
I think that they idea of working out to make your own electricity is pretty cool. It will definitely keep homeless people in shape at the homeless shelter. Its pretty cool that they can get a free dinner too by working it off; however, the homeless people might just work too hard just to get food and electricity that they faint and pass out. It is possible that they overwork themselves just to get some food and electricity. I do think its a good idea, the people running the homeless shelter just has to make sure that the homeless people can work hard but not over work themselves.
I think it's definitely a neat idea to use human energy to solve two problems at hand: a sedentary lifestyle that produces obesity, and an energy inefficiency problem. It'd be awesome for more of these bicycles to be placed in gyms or even in homes. Though it'd be a hassle, I wouldn't mind having to exercise in order to power my computer on and run it for a while. That being said, I wonder if such devices like these can be the beginning to the end of a sedentary and obese lifestyle.
It would be amazing if more gyms would start using bikes like these. It seems like the same concept could be applied to other exercise machines as well, not just stationary bikes. If every eliptical, bike, treadmill, etc. was outfitted to produce power, gyms could create a good portion of their own electricity. While a transition to energy-producing machines would be gradual, it would definitely be a step in the right direction.
This sounds like a good idea. I don't know if this is exactly a plausible way to put it to use, but I hear that states spend significant amounts of money on maintaining federal prisons/prisoners. Also, since prisoners have to do some type of manual labor during their time in prison, why don't you just send these prisoners in shifts to these workout stations to help power the prisons? The states wouldn't have to spend so much money on energy for prisons, and the prisoners stay occupied. It's just an idea of putting this concept to use.
I read this post and immediately thought of an article I read about this night club somewhere in Europe where the dancers are the power supply. Of course, they're not the main supply, but their movements do generate a lot of the club's energy.
Here's an article I found about a similar one in Britain.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1027362/Britains-eco-nightclub-powered-pounding-feet-opens-doors.html
I have to agree with everyone else. This is definitely an idea that should catch on throughout the nation. But I do have to say that the idea is relatively new to the public, meaning it won't be a nationwide trend anytime soon. Like everyone else who has commented on this blog, I too think that gyms should start featuring this new product as soon as possible. I think people are just starting to catch onto the reusable-items trend, so it will take time for this product to get some needed attention.
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