80 cyclists power family home - channel 1 right now!

10kwh / 12 hours = 833 watts per hour = 10watts average power output per rider over an hour???....not exactly Lance Armstrongs were they?

did you see how they were pedaling?

did you see how they were pedaling?

Saw it for a bit, but would it make that much of a difference? apart from the cyclists tiring out quicker? And a lower rpm?

If a larger person was put to work as a generator, they wouldn't stay fat for long. They could then be allowed to return to normal life. I'm sure there are larger cyclists than me here who would kick my arse in a speed or endurance race.

If a larger person was put to work as a generator, they wouldn't stay fat for long. They could then be allowed to return to normal life. I'm sure there are larger cyclists than me here who would kick my arse in a speed or endurance race.

Would be an interesting experiment, body fat percentage compared to technique....

Bring it on. Perhaps we could time ourselves tomorrow, not cycle till after christmas dinner, then time again. As I type I see the error.

Using the same bikes both times would be interesting.

I was involved with this, both the HHV test and the programme. Bloody hard work and I was almost too tired to sleep at the end of the day.

crimsonape - the company 'Electric Pedals' who were involved in the programme sell the rigs that were used on the programme via ebay. So if you fancy powering some of your household gadgets...

winston - seems like a low power output, yeah. Frustratingly, the rigs were apparently only 25% efficient so a shedload of potential power was lost. Also, a lot of people were spinning on very low gears for the first part of the day, not realising that they weren't putting anything into the system.

Write up here by a Hitchin Nomad rider there on the day

September 15th page http://www.hitchin-nomads.net/news.asp

On Beeb news website now. Digger on there? Good job everyone!

I work for one of the big bad energy companies - will runt he idea of fattie power stations past my boss

Would love one of the rigs set up more efficiently than 25 percent for my house.

Anyone know if directly driving the motor rather than transfer through the tyre and better setup bikes would do the job?

@ opiumia - Many thanks. Not cheap, and not efficient. I couldn't run my tv and play a game without a few of them.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140358730686&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_1089

From the ad above

[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=4]How much power can a cyclist expect to produce with the Bike Power Generator? The average person can expect to produce in the range of 50-80 watts sustainably. Of course if you are a fit cyclist then this will be much more. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[SIZE=4]So what can I do with it? Well it’s really down to your imagination. We use a single bicycle-generator to power:[/SIZE]

• [SIZE=4]small PA system[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=4]LED lights[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=4]small LED projector (for making your own pedal-powered cinema)[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=4]low voltage light bulbs[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=4]Scalextric[/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=4]charging a 12v battery [/SIZE]
  
• [SIZE=4]small TV... and so on. [/SIZE]
  

the one calculation i really wanted to see was how many penniesworth of electricity they generated ?

was a great programme so fascinating to see the energy consumption of electrical items
don't leave the overn open peeps
and for gods sake switch off lights when not in use and definately when you leave the house
it should be a criminal offence to leave lights on in a room not being used

They had GEARS!? What!? Bad idea, too easy! Shouldn't have let the lazies stay on the granny ring.

Strikes me that this somewhat inefficient 'experiment' will now be used as 'evidence' that only

BURNING FOSSILS WILL SAVE US!!
and the like.

I've got a friend who has recently, almost by accident, started a business converting watermills into generators, and he has loads of people on his waiting list. Micro generation seems like a great idea to me. Would make us use a lot less if we knew how hard it is to make power with our own physical effort.

Going back to the fatty vs skinny thing, in favour of the fatties would be that they would need to take in less calories as they would have plenty to spare, so this in a sense would be free energy, raising thier cost to output ratio!

I just turned on BBC1, this isn't on. This thread titles LIES!

the one calculation i really wanted to see was how many penniesworth of electricity they generated ?

1kWh = 16p at average national rate.

14 hours ago!

Was a good show as well, the washing machine/cooker/ kettle output was really shocking. Made me think twice.

Would be an interesting experiment, body fat percentage compared to technique....

Could be interesting, would like to see peak wattage generated, and power to weight ratio's as some people are better at generating lots of power over a short time/distance.....
For instance at the first Hackney Drag Sprints last time, I placed about 12th out of 54, despite being a little bit drunk. I am far from one of the fittest people in terms of endurance on here, however most of the people that were faster than me were at least carrying 2-3 stone less in bodyweight, some as much as 6 stone less, and people on here who I know, without a doubt would kick my arse over any kind of medium-long distance, were wayyyy behind me time wise.

So if it takes 80 people to power my house, I will need to buy at least 240 people because I probably cannot expect them to power my house 24/7 without dying.

I will have to house them somewhere. It will take more people to power their dormitory. I will need overseers and they will want superior accommodation.

We are probably talking in terms of 500+ cyclist-slaves to keep me in electricity and I suppose they will all want feeding.

Economically, I am not sure that this is the solution to my electricity bills but the idea of having 500+ people devoted to providing me with comfort has some attraction.

Don't forget the cost of the bikes and the £190 for each generator.

I must say, the slavery idea is most commendable...maybe there are some clever people on this forum after all.

Course, it was my idea first. If I had been registered yesterday I would have already posted it.

@ opiumia - Many thanks. Not cheap, and not efficient. I couldn't run my tv and play a game without a few of them.

Yeah, I guess the problem is finding a way to store the energy produced in a way that you could draw on it later. If you harnessed the energy from turbo-training but could draw on it later to power a light, or stereo or whatever you'd be able to see the results of your labours.

Someone mentioned to me that a guy has been experimenting with harnessing the power from his daily commute - though it involved a heavy battery pack arrangement being attached to the bike. Early days yet but hopefully there will be enough interest in this (and similar ideas) to be able to develop more efficient machinery in due course.

surely it would be more efficient to just kill all the fatties and burn their fat corpses for fuel?

solves the food production problem as well. and probably house pricing. the kebab industry would be fucked, though (there's probably a cabal of kebab industry lobbyists loitering around Parliament already, poisoning the minds of our honest pollies).

The storage thing is tricky- maybe some form of pumped storage?

surely it would be more efficient to just kill all the fatties and burn their fat corpses for fuel?

solves the food production problem as well. and probably house pricing. the kebab industry would be fucked, though (there's probably a cabal of kebab industry lobbyists loitering around Parliament already, poisoning the minds of our honest pollies).

Eventually there would be no more fat people to burn and the problem with oil running out would be back. What if they dieted before being useful? Someone could start a survey of the least liked nationality and they could be fed up and burned to keep us running. We work down the list until noone else remains. Pigs are more equal.