Is Slavery the new green energy?

[gaz]

How many cyclists does it take to make a cup of tea? About 100, if you run your home on pedal power. This is the premise behind The Human Power Station, tonight's episode of the BBC1 series Bang Goes the Theory, in which an army of cyclists provides the energy used by a typical family. What's interesting is not so much the amount we use, as the implication that the only way to have an eco–friendly future is to bring back slavery.

This is the conclusion of Tim Siddall of Electric Pedals, the company hired to supply the bicycles and cyclists. For 11 hours, 100 volunteers rode furiously, getting no more than lunch and the chance to be on TV. "They were dead excited at first," says Siddall. "But after five hours they had had enough of the boredom and the pain."

One of the biggest problems was feeding the cyclists. "You would use more energy feeding them than the energy they produced," says Siddall.

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[Arch]

Of course, it depends on the appliances a bit. I'd like a human powered washing machine/spindryer. I could power it mechanically, but doubt I could power an electric one through a dynamo (and I'd have to pipe in the hot water.) A hand cranked juicer is better suited to human power than an electric one etc...

Likewise, my windup LED light gives half an hour of light, for a minute of winding, so that's a pretty good return....

I guess what I mean is, if you wanted to use human power to any real extent, you'd have to adapt your home, instead of trying to rig cyclists up to a load of conventional appliances. Anything mechanical would be better turned directly, than via generation of electricity...

 

[mickle]

Amazing. Not. How the f did they managed to eke so little power out of so many cyclists?

Especially when you consider that using nothing more than the recycled contents of a couple of East London skips these hippies are able to power a whole sound system using the output of a handful of stoned students? It's proper loud too.

http://www.magnificentrevolution.org/projects/pedal-powered-sound-system/

 

[I am Spartacus]

Amazing. Not. How the f did they managed to eke so little power out of so many cyclists?

Especially when you consider that using nothing more than the recycled contents of a couple of East London skips these hippies are able to power a whole sound system using the output of a handful of stoned students? It's proper loud too.

http://www.magnificentrevolution.org/projects/pedal-powered-sound-system/

maybe this is the reason

The cyclists were not normal people, or even those used to participating in the hell that is a gym-based cycling 'spinning class', but instead were members of some of Britain's most elite cycling clubs. You might think they would find the task easy.

 

[Arch]

Recumbent bikes would have been a start - not that you can get more power necessarily, but you're more comfortable.

I'm assuming they did at least use dynahubs, not bottle dynamoes?

 

[Wigsie]

I may employ a heavy set lady (like a kent based MacB) to give me a piggy back ride to work ( just until my back is sorted and I can get back on the bike) to become "greener", it will save me some money too! The new motor is not exactly frugle!

 

[tyred]

If we could just find a way of harnessing the hot air which comes out of Bono's mouth, all energy problems would be solved.

 

[snakehips]

This is what we all need .................

 

[Arch]

Recumbent bikes would have been a start - not that you can get more power necessarily, but you're more comfortable.

I'm assuming they did at least use dynahubs, not bottle dynamoes?

No, they appear to be using friction dynamoes driven off turbo trainers, so I'm assuming that's immediately less efficient, since a hub dynamo has very, very little resistance - it would be like pedalling a completely free wheel.

I wonder how many of the people who set this up are actually cyclists, or more importantly, cyclists who use dynamoes on a day to day basis. Or maybe they couldn't afford that many hub dynamoed bikes.

Sadly typical of a lot of populist science programming these days.

On the flip side, I suppose, this isn't meant to make cycling look easy, it's meant to make people aware how much energy is used and how hard it is to generate it. So on that basis, exhausted sweaty cyclists is the 'right' result.

 

[TimO]

I guess the generators must be a bit more powerful than the average bicycle hub or bottle dynamo. As I recall, most bike dynamos are around 3W.

On the programme, I think they said that they needed all 80 cyclists going when the shower was in use, and it's a 8.5kW shower, so that's over 100W per cyclist (at peak), which is quite a bit more than a 3W dynamo.

 

[Arch]

I bow to your superior knowledge...

 

[Arch]

Oh, that's the limit. They just had a lady expert in something or other on, and said "are you going to have a go?" and she said, "I'd love to but I can't in these shoes" (lowish stilletoes) That and the pencil skirt. Don't kid us love, if you wanted to have a go, you wouldn't have dressed like that....

 

[TimO]

I seem to recall (from Bicycling Science) that you can produce about 0.3hp, which according to Google is over 200W, so 100W each isn't too bad, but assumes perfect efficiency from the generators, which is highly unlikely.

Additionally, the poor sods are doing this with minimal cooling. The effect of the airflow over you when you are moving does cool you down a lot, so not having that will make them very very hot. Hence most people using turbo-trainers putting a towel over their bike to catch the sweaty water, and stop it rusting the bike. I hope that the building they're using is relatively cool.

 

[gavintc]

I do not believe there is a direct connection between the cycling and the house. I think the power is being measured using power meters on the bikes and these are linked to provide a 'notional' power output from the cyclists. I think the demand from the house is simply a metered output and we are seeing a not terribly complex voting style swingometer to represent power plus and minus.

 

[Night Train]

Interesting way to demonstrate the energy wasted, and the energy produced by a cyclist.

The thing about 'stand by' is a bit of a red herring in part. I didn't realise showers have a stand by. They have just left it on at the switch and the neon is on, that is all. The clocks and dvd recorders are a pain if you switch them off as they then need resetting each time.
I wonder how much of the energy was used in running the cameras placed in the house?