Sustainable power from gyms???
I came across this a while ago - http://www.nonsensical.com/work/portfolio/power.html
It does seem like a silly, nonsensical idea on the face of it, but it's an interesting idea to think about. Would it generate enough energy to be worthwhile? If it produced enough to power a building, say, it's not going to single-handedly climate change, but at the same time it can't hurt, if it's cost-effective.
It's likely to be a very irregular - peaking at lunch times and after work - and this seems to me like the big problem that would not be solved without new, more effective forms of energy storage.
At a minimum, one would hope
At a minimum, one would hope that the gyms themselves are not net consumers of energy! Seems like they would have some incentives to buy equipment that helped them cut their electric bills. Instead, I would expect that most equipment currently draws power from the wall socket... But suppose you're a gym owner... What do you do? I suppose that's the place to start: can you buy exercise equipment that generates power? What changes to the wiring are required to capture the generated power? What's the cost benefit? Seems like you could get some good publicity, for a start!
I suppose I should have read the initial article...
- CurtB as user1 (wiki user page)
Issues
I think of this every time I step on a cardio machine (not to mention the "why do I work all day sitting down, so I can come and pay to move/why am I not outside" thoughts". Here are some issues:
But definitely possible, here is a chain of Hong Kong gyms already doing it - http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-03/2007-03-11-voa14.cfm?CFID...
Working out to run a TV
Paying to work out always strikes me as odd - especially when people drive to the gym to use treadmills. Not my thing at all!
But I like this:
"Clinefelter's other vision for the future: he says he plans to hook up the club's television sets to the human-generation system. If you want to watch TV while working on the stationary bike or the Stairmaster - you are just going to have to pump harder."
A bit of incentive to exercise harder - makes sense from a motivational point of view. It also reminds me of an article I saw years ago (early 80s?) in an Australian newspaper, about a father who hooked up the family TV to a stationary-bike-powered generator. The main idea there, though, was to discourage excessive TV watching - the kids had to really want to watch the program.
-- Chriswaterguy (wiki homepage)
Renewable & clean energy
Every time I saw the link Sustainable power from gyms??? I thought it may me something greek or roman to me. It is really interesting & as familiar as air & water! As Chris (Sun, 12/09/2007 - 12:13 — Chriswaterguy) remarks peaking at lunch times and after work is very likely, but it may not be a difficult problem to solve. More users means more machines & more power at peak hours, no? If we go for distributed storage (seperate storage battery for each machine) it appears that the problem gets solved there itself. On the other hand if we are having centralised storage system, with a proper choice of 'constant voltage' or 'constant current' charging set up the problem may be solved. If power beyond the requirement of the storage system is available, the excess quantity can be directly used for lighting, fan etc.
Spatial flexibility can be achieved by detachable flexible connectors. That should not be a problem, I feel. Regarding the 'to pay off the additional cost' issue carbon trading (too many sites to give a link) appears to be a prospective candidate worth attention.
Georgedappilly
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