Potenco: Powering Possibilities
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 12.14.06
At TreeHugger, we've seen our fair share of power generators that don't bother with conventional energy and rely instead on good old human power, like this wind-up charger and this DIY job for your iPod. Now, a company called Potenco has developed a patent-pending portable power generator. Just pull the cord for a minute and generate enough electric power for several hours; the company claims it can deliver five times more power than regular cranks, and can be pulled five times longer before the user senses fatigue. Founder Colin Bulthaup knows a thing or two about electronics and DIY power; he's the also the founder of engineering design & tech firm Squid Labs and DIY super-site Instructables.com. The charger can be used to power mobile phones, PDAs, lighting products, digital cameras and more, and it's been selected for the power source of the $100 Laptop/One Laptop Per Child project. Further details on the operation are scarce at this point, but anything that'll power thousands of laptops around the globe has got some good things going for it. ::Potenco via ::Cocolico
The energy efficiency should be very high indeed!
Looks like it could also provide a bit of a workout for the old lat muscles! Perhaps competitive power-pulling would become the next extreme sport!
If this delivers on its promises,
this gets my vote for invention
of the decade.
Pedal power is the most efficient for generating energy from a human. This smaller, handpowered device is clearly a great thing to have as an option for portability and for convenience, but for the serious power, a bicycle shaped generator is really the way to go, and I really don't understand why they aren't readily available, either as a two-fer exercise bike or as an add on kit for a regular bike.
Turil - Pedal powered generators are indeed available.
http://www.windstreampower.com/humanpower/hpgmk3.html
This above seems to be one of the few such generators that can be bought off the shelf. There are several other DIY (do-it-yourself) generators that hobbists have created around the world. Here are two:
http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html
the one here uses ultracapacitors to store energy
http://www.econvergence.net/electro.htm
this site offers plans to make such generators on your own
Then there's MAYAPEDAL that has a host of pedal-power solutions for rural applications:
http://www.mayapedal.org/bicimaquinas_in.html