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| Home > Misc > Random Thoughts > Solving The World's Energy Crisis Through Health Clubs |
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Below is the random thought titled "Solving The World's Energy Crisis Through Health Clubs". Be aware that these thoughts may be based on opinion, and my opinion might not agree with yours. Also, the thought below may be based on mood, time of day, or any number of other factors. Please keep this in mind.
I just had a wacky idea. It occurred to me that there are a great number of people every day who drive to the gym for exercise. This in itself I have never understood because instead of driving halfway across town to some gym you could just ride your bike the same distance and get the exercise for free, but that's beside the point. My real point is that these people spend hours running on treadmills and riding stationary bikes, essentially burning up their energy in heat and friction. Well why not take all those exercise machines and replace their load generating components with small electric generators? Connect the generators to the grid and basically have a small human powered power station. The gym could lower their membership fees due to the money they make by selling the power, and everyone involved would get warm fuzzy feelings because they are contributing...
OK, so I doubt I'm the first to think of this idea but you have to admit it has merit. Maybe it won't exactly solve the energy crisis, but at least it's better then just putting all that potential energy to waste.
| dang! and here i thought i had a n original idea! i guess i'm not the only person to use this devise to generate electricity. AINT THE HUMAN MIND AMAZING? seriously, could i suppplement my income by selling this energy back to a provider? and would't the federal gov't reimburse the user an equal amount; thereby doubling the income of the user? | ||
| Yours is the first site I have discovered that addresses what appears to me as a monumental opportunity to capture a "free" renewable energy source. The powered treadmills are just a small part of health club equipment compared to all the non-powered machines which can be tied in together and routed to a large storage battery and/or generator. I am wondering if health clubs can do this with existing equipment connected with wires or possibly wireless. I am not an electrical engineer. I do believe we are at war and this could be an effective way of fighting without guns. If we can send a man to the moon why can't we utilize this help club potential? (Editor's notes: Meh, sometimes ideas are so obvious that no one thinks of them. I can't be the first...) |
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| Or maybe the Americans could start by removing the escalator from in front of some fitness centers. No, that really happens. It's in the "Only in America" google search. | ||
| I have looked at this idea and even though there are gyms starting this concept the potential is huge. I have plenty of marketing resources and capital to access if someone on this blog has started it. | ||
| No more discussions. Just go to google and type "human powered gyms in hong kong". Click the very first site.. OR Go to youtube and browse "Go green with this light gym workout" And Watch the practicals. Thanks to Gurnish singh. | ||
| sure,but great ideas are not to be limited to power production.We can use man power to have any power like we play to shoot with guns but we can do that with hands to hit some goals so that no new energy is produced but no new energy is spent. | ||
| The obesity problem nationwide... the energy crisis... unemployment... the right machinery could start whittling away at all 3 of these problems at once... Imagine an entire legion of unemployed overweight people selling electricity back to the grid... this plus the new 3 dimensional Solar Collector 500 times more efficient than current one... Let all the gyms Compete against another... a computer could control the national grid and the daily results ... averaged out by the # of participating members. Could be fun and useful | ||
| yes friend u r right ,u r not first to think on this ,,a gym in hong kong has develoved many electricity generating equipments,,and also many others r doing so. i am designing a new mechanism as part of my final year engineering project ther is great scope in this area i think | ||
| I read an article about a university that invented a lamp that was powered by a falling weight- the weight took 4 hours to fall to the bottom- creating electricity along the way to power the light. This got my son and I thinking about the topic of electricity generation from exercise equipment- googling the topic I found this site. Further research found that NordiTrak has a patent for such a device that was submitted in 1994 and awarded in 2000. As links aren't allowed - google patent 6027429 Part of the patent description is " A shaft member passes through a through-hole in the containing means and is connected with the rotatable member. The shaft member is rotated by a user applied force, which in turn causes the rotatable member to rotate against the variable resistance. An external power source may provide electrical power to supplement the electrical power generated by the electrical generator, and an energy storage device, such as a battery or capacitor, may be used to store at least some of the electrical power generated by the electrical generator. " The source for this is the patent page describing the invention. | ||
| I've had this idea as well and I think its great. Several gyms have already implemented this idea as an experiment. I think the most important thing to concentrate on, however, is how to increase the amount of electricity the generators themselves can produce. Research will be an important part of this idea. The first group to develop a small high-yield generator will be the most successful in this endeavor. | ||
| Does anyone know how we could make this a reality? I'd be willing to donate time and/or money to develop and promote power generating exercise equipment. Does anyone have to technical know how to do something like this? (Editor's notes: Wow, people really will give money to anyone! I wrote this kind of tongue in cheek. While it's true that exercise bikes would provide some power, most gym equipment takes more power to run then the human could produce.) |
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| I've heard of a similar idea using sidewalks, or something like that. When one is walking, tiny pressure plates are pushed down and produce power. Quite a smart idea, although would need a large investment to get it started. In response to Kaytlin: So, aniway, ummm... does tis have anyting to do with aroooon carter? Isnt dis his webslite or sumtin? Oh ma godddd, i sooooooooooo luve arroooon cartere!!! ****SARCASM**** | ||
| Treadmills should not be used at all. An exerciser at full power develops about 1/5th horsepower or 150 watts. The motor driving the treadmill will be 2 or 3 Kilowatts which is burning TWENTY TIMES the amount of energy that he is trying to burn off. | ||
| It is a great idea. There is some good work being done on this. I think it will be standard in fitness clubs over the next 15 to 20 years. | ||
| Hey yea the begining of that sounded like my dad talking. And your right, but you may not want to tell them that they are contributing to society (or at least definatly not in America) Because they would then stop because it sounds more like work to them. | ||
| This is just good sense. Exercise equipment manufacturers should look into this... why waste all that energy as heat? It may cost more at the beginning, but if you can even come close to breaking even in the lifetime of the equipment, it's worth it in saving tons of electricity (and CO2 emissions from power plants). In a health club you could offset a considerable amount of energy if you had 50-100 machines with a good level of utilization... that would translate into $ really fast. In a home environment, it's not going to save that much (contrary to a gym, you can't keep the equipment utilized very many hours per day with only a couple people), but it could be enough to offset your lighting (flourescent/LED) for the day... and it would give you a good incentive to exercise more often and not just sit on your butt. | ||
| I think it's a purrrrr-fect idea. I have been thinking about doing this for a science fair project when I was in kindergarden, and I am now thinking about doing it for an Exploravision project. In the project I think of a problem: Energy Crisis; Way to solve it: through health clubs; & evaluate the pros and cons. I also have to explain the mechanics of it. | ||
| I also have had this idea. I am in Canada and work out at a fitness gym regularly. I don't see why this idea can't work. Why don't we form a discussion on this matter with some serious engineers and see what costs are involved and if the money can be raised to test this idea in more detail. Wouldn't it be interesting if memberships at gyms were offered for free? This would attract a huge amount of interest and thus provide an endless amount of people willing to contribute to creating electricity. ??? | ||
| This is a great idea!!! I live in California where the Governor (Arnold) is someone who promotes a few things like future energy sources as well as obesity in children. Why not do both? Put these stationary bikes and treadmills in our schools!!! 15 minutes a day by hundreds of thousands overweight kids...think about it!!! I also like the prison system idea utilizing this!! These guys need less weight training and more cardio anyways!! Gotta hit the GYM!!!! | ||
| I have had this idea yesterday while working out, so today I thought I would google it and, of course, it was not new. I think it is fantastic and the first to manufacture such equipment at an affordable cost would be in for good business. | ||
| I have been thinking about this also for some time. I am glad to hear that someone in looking to turning it into reality. | ||
| I definately like your idea here. We need to find more efficient ways of generating power (Wired had a good article about 8 months ago regarding new ways people are powering their houses). I really don't see why this wouldn't be a possibility. | ||
| Maybe the electricity could be used to power all the lighting in the building. By using solar regulator like systems you can use human power when there are people in the gym, and normal power when there's noboby around. | ||
| I just found your page. I've had the same idea for a while and I'm working with a couple of people to make it into a reality, there's many different angles on how to attack the problem, we'll see how it goes | ||
| I own a health club and I have often thought about this.... I think it's a great idea, but the logistics of it, seem very complicated, but I would gladly be the first one to try it out if someone needed some field testing...... I'm in the Midwest, US and our A/C electric bill in the summer months is between $6,000 and $8000 a month, so even if we could displace this cost a bit, it would be huge!!!! Not only could the cardio equipment generate electricity, but also the selectorized stack weight training eq. could be outfitted to generate something as well..... | ||
| I thought we were talking about Aaron Carter I dont see his name menchaned up above anywhere
(Editor's note: Nah, too easy...) |
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| Its a good idea to provide power from people who have more money than sense. Also the sweat produced can be filtered and stored to help prevent future droughts or to sell back to these "healthy people" as bottled water and thus paying for the generators in the Gym. But seriously it is always a wacky idea, that on closer inspection, can make sense. | ||
| If any one does not see this as a great idea than you shouldn't read any further. The plan: To get your fitness customers to produce electricity, brilliant. Peolple love to do something that will reword them and this is it. You could give each person a card which they would place in the machine they are using and the card would record how much energy they produced. At the end of the month or year they could turn this in for a rebate on thier gym mambership. | ||
| good idea, not the first one who thought of it though :-P. A human can produce about 300 watt of energy, but not for long. lets say for an hour, 170 watts continu. couple the threadmill to a small permanent magnet generator, connect that to a special grid feeding converter (like used for solar energy systems coupled to the grid) and voila, 100 watt in the grid per person running on a threadmill. not much but if you have 20 threadmills continiously working (possible in a gym), then 50 Kwh a day are generated. thats quite a lot, a normal house uses maybe 10 (?) a day.... cheers, JW | ||
| Good idea. In response to Mr. Jahr, I seem to remember treadmills that had absolutely no need for electricity, they used an adjustable tension belt and a flywheel. I guess if you need to have biofeedback devices (heart rate monitor) that would take some electricity, but if you are excercising, why do you need the tread to be powered for you? The answer is that people go to the health club TO BE SEEN AT THE HEALTH CLUB. | ||
| I forgot where I left off when I either submitted or cleared my previous message. But another idea would be to use a prison gym for generation of power. you could give them crystal methedrine and watch them run full tilt for three days. ( I speak not from personal experience) Or you could shove a probe in the cornhole to harness methane released from the bouncing while running- ever go running and have a fart go on for like thirty seconds? I have, although perhaps it is due to being released in little pulses, instead of one big rip. I have no idea what I am saying anymore. have to go wash my hands again. | ||
| aaron that's a great idea, but there's one problem. The problem is that. One, it'll cost alot. Two, some of those machines need electricity (i.e. treadmill) so it'll merely be powering itself and not produce electricity. Three, the gym would have to have a power distributor and resistors and all this equipment so the place doesn't let out a huge current that would fry everything, but other than it's a great idea.
(Editor's note: Problem number is easy...government money. Number two is a non-problem. A teadmill that powers itself still saves electricity. Number three is also a non-problem for anyone with even a minor knowledge in how the electrical grid (and electricity itself) actually works.) |
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