Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Knitic energy

Status
Not open for further replies.

Gronkdude24

New Member
I think this is the coolest idea there is when it comes to energy. Currently there are some gyms that get powered by the movement of the gym itself. The energy from bikes, treadmills, and such help power the gym itself. Image if this energy can be applied to cities. Image a city using nothing but clean energy because it is running off the movement of the city itself.
 
Nice dream, but have you put any numbers to paper to see how realistic it may be?

Example: Cleveland, OH is a city of abut 400,000 people and 191,000 households. How much power can those peole produce?

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-powered_transport
<snip> In lab experiments an average "in-shape" cyclist can produce about 3 watts/kg for more than an hour (e.g., around 200 watts for a 70 kg rider)<snip>

Assuming that every person in Cleveland regardless of age, physical ability, or sex put out 200W per hour for 2 hours per day of recoverable energy, that would be 160,000,000 watt-hour per day (160,000 kWh). A lot of power?

The average household in the US consumes 30.16 kWh/day. The 191,000 households would consume 5,760,560 kWh/day.

Thus, if the model of every person putting out 400 Wh per day could be attained and the energy captured, it would only represent about 2.8% of the total households' needs. Of course, you have automobiles, industry, hospitals, schools, etc. that require even more energy.

In our obese American society, do you really think that 100% of people will put out that much work for 2 hours every day, 365 days per year?

John
 
Last edited:
I think this has originated in Hong Kong and is now in the US. There is a certain gym in Seattle that is using the power generated by it's gym equipments in order to produce electricity. I think this is a good idea to save money and utilize the energy. This "green gym" is not only giving it's clients good health but also good environment. I just wonder how much it will take to completely transform the gym to a green one and how many people will it take to make electricity to supply the whole gym. - N.B.
 
Last edited:
In the 1960s houses were powered by the wave 'action' in water beds. Kept every one warm. lol

If you remember the 60s you weren't really there.
 
You can also strap an elastic band around your chest with piezo generators in it. Then when you breath why playing on ETO, you can generate your own electricity.

I remember the old water beds. Had to sleep on one in Indio, CA. Hated it.

John
 
Or, ... we can just go "The Matrix" route to human powered civilization. :rolleyes:
 
All around humans make terrible power sources.

Even at 100% conversion of our biological energy we would still barely top 4 KWH per 24 hour period which can easily be out done by a solar panel array or even a small 5 -6 foot dia wind turbine in good wind conditions. :p

To be honest if we were left to dry out in the sun most of us would produce far more energy just by being burned as fire wood! :eek:
 
The average household in the US consumes 30.16 kWh/day.

Here in the UK I manage about 3-4KWh/day and we are being told to cut this down. I don't see the point seeing this.

OK we don't need air-con 24/7, but we need to heat our houses 24/7.

We have school playing fields lit 24/7 with huge halogen lamps for reasons that are beyond me.
 
Here in the UK I manage about 3-4KWh/day and we are being told to cut this down. I don't see the point seeing this.

OK we don't need air-con 24/7, but we need to heat our houses 24/7.

We have school playing fields lit 24/7 with huge halogen lamps for reasons that are beyond me.

Here in the little town where I live, all public lighting has been converted over to LED. So far, the streetlamps converted to LED are far brighter, and put out a far more more pleasant coloured light. They completed the conversion over 3 days. The next step will hopefully be to actually have each light solar powered, instead of being powered by the mains.
 
OOOH! OOOH! OOOH! i might not know MOST of what anyone's talking about in these forums, but i have something to contribute to THIS thread!

DANG IT! i didn't bookmark the story i read just last week, but it's related to this story about microscopic piezoelectric generators:
https://energyblog.nationalgeograph...ne-one-day-suggests-new-tiny-generator-study/

the breakthrough in the other generator was using carbon fiber, or nanotubes as the outer layer in a design that looked like this, slightly different take on the subject.

the innovation was that the carbon outer casing doesn't just serve as protection for circuit durability, but also conducts electricity opening up a wide range of uses including clothing that can charge cellphones etc. man i wish i'd saved that bookmark. the innovation was either related to simplifying the circuit and/or making it lighter and/or smaller as well as easier to manufacture and cheaper.

this might be the same idea with different text and graphics
https://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=25137.php
more on this specific tech
https://www.gizmag.com/low-cost-large-area-piezoelectric-nanogenerator/22468/

still not finding it, but here's another similarly themed concept based around rubber & stretching
https://www.idtechex.com/research/a...lastic-energy-harvesting-arrives-00008256.asp

MIT has built a kinetic generator that's supposedly 100x more efficient than other designs
https://inhabitat.com/mit-unveils-t...s-100-times-more-power-from-small-vibrations/
 
Last edited:
Who says humans are poor power sources???

barsignmileage.jpg
 
Is that the new Vogon Warp Drive? I think the Galactic Times had an article about that last week :D.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top