Notions of Expenditure
by TreeHugger on 04.11.05
Think about it. We go to the gym every day, get on a machine and expend great amounts of energy. Multiply that by everyone in your gym, in all the gyms in all the world and what have you got? a lot of power! This project is a request "for speculative proposals to re-design exercise equipment to generate and store energy; and/or to retrofit gyms to function as local power sources linked to the grid." It envisions a redesign of gyms into power hubs and a linking together of the power hubs into a massive power network. All this and get fit too. ::Notions of Expenditure via ::Daily Dose of Architecture by [LA]
I believe Purdue University just won the Rube Goldberg for some invention that used human power to turn on a flashlight. Check it out!
i think "driving to the gym" might be one of the strange things about the modern American lifestyle.
I find it easier to bike around for a few errands, and get the bike + transportation benefits.
I understand that the Danes, in far worse weather than I have, bike for something like 20% of their journeys.
I think the gym is part of the "treadmill life" in more ways than one!
Oh, my suggestion for a full treehugger endorsement:
The Marin ALP series:
http://www.marinbikes.com/bicycles_2005/html/bikes/bike_series/bikes_ser_alp.html
especially the Lucas Valley ($860) or Mill Valley ($1120). They'll be fast, stable, light, and leave those funky folders (and even e-bikes) in the dust.
(I don't have one myself, just like their style.)
Lets see... A human can put out something like 100watts. If the machine is busy 10 hours a day at the gym that is 1kilowatt hour of electricity per day. That's about $0.08 for me, though production costs are probably only $0.04. $14/yr of electricity.
This isn't enough power to light the room, much less put any into the grid or pay back the energy used making the generator and bike.
I used to joke with friends that you could collect fees from yuppies to drive them to a worksite and have them dig out foundations as part of a "naturopathic" exercise regimen. The Brilliant part of the plan is still charging the construction costs of digging the foundation to the developer. Money from both directions! :-)
Seriously, It's got to be more efficient to get your exercise building stuff, or legging it to the grocery store, or mowing the lawn than trying to "recover" some of the energy expended on a nautilus machine.
Bike machines and treadmills are pretty silly compared to a hike or ride around the lake, but I go to the gym to use resistance equipment to build muskles. I have seen bikes used in off-grid villages in africa to provide light at night, which is awesome, but I wonder if building all those dynamos in an american gym wouldn't use more resources than you'd get back. Maybe in a small free community gym that would promise more constant use. That'd be wonderful actually.
I always thought that a bike which could create enough electricity to power the tv was a great idea. When kept in the home, you would have to excercize to watch tv.