Is Slavery the new green energy?

[TimO]

It was interesting enough, although there were a few daft bits.

Wandering around the building and complaining about the standby functions was a bit naff, especially when she started saying things like "this Clock Radio, left on standby...". It's a Clock Radio, if you turn it off the clock bit doesn't work so well, and as others have said, it a shower doesn't have standby (at least most don't), it was just a neon.

Yes, leaving an oven on unnecessarily is going to be a big drain, but that's probably not the real issue. It's about things like replacing incandescents with CFLs and having better insulated houses. Those things just save energy "automatically" with no day to day effort required, so people will do them.

 

[kool4caats]

Strangely enough, I had an idea for a programme along these lines about a month ago. I was wondered how much energy could actually be generated from pedal power, and got a consensus from the internet of about 150w.

If people really had to generate their own power, I reckon they'd be a lot more resourceful with it. We all use way more power than we could physically generate, and that's just electricity, not including gas or petrol/diesel. I can't see how there is going to be a sustainable way of generating this power in the future.

As someone else said, the amount of power they were generating did seem small. I'm sure they'd been going for a couple of hours, and the guy said that the total was only 2kwh. Surely 10 cyclists could generate that in 2 hours.

The programme didn't go into much detail about the connection between the power being generated and that consumed, and what that volt meter was supposed to represent. Like someone already mentioned, there probably wasn't a direct connection between the two.

It was all very dumbed down though, wasn't it. The levels they have to sink to these days to engage the general public is amazing.

As we all know, though, the most efficient use for cycling is not generating electricity, but using it to get somewhere instead of using your car. A average car uses something like 1kwh per mile!

 

[buddha]

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

LOL - I had something similar to that. Although It had 2 sets of gears/chains instead of the big belt around the back wheel. NickM did an article about it in the BHPC magazine IIRC.
It lasted about 8 months (3 loads/week) until I decided to stomp on the pedals with the drum full of clothes and water. The 8mm steel bolts holding the drum in place sheared! with unrepairable results.
Anyway, it was hard work. Wash parts of the cycle (wash, rinses) required relatively little power. But the spin cycles (after each rinse) and the final spin needed more power than I could 'easily' output.
I think a solution would be to charge a battery during the wash/rinse cycles to run the motor to assist during spinning (with the aid of a capacitor to make starting the motor less of a drain). Just a few thoughts until I come across a suitable old washing machine to cannibalise.