I think you may be onto something here. Of course, the amount of electricity (and its market value) would be almost negligible; however, I like the concept of providing "bonus points" for higher levels of activity.

Maybe this is already being done (certinaly not at my gym though), but the concept of rewarding attendance and effort at the gym serves the patrons real goal: to become more healthy.

Charge a relatively high monthly fee to gain admission/membership; then discount the membership proportional to amount of effort exerted: time * effort/unit time.

A variation of this concept would be to not do it based on effort, and instead do it based on results: lost weight, inches around the gut; etc. Of course this method would have a point of diminishing returns once the weight was lost, so I still like basiing it off of activity instead. That gives ongoing incentive to remain active.

The result: people would have added incentive to actually USE the facility, the people would become more fit AND word-of-mouth would make it THE place to work out.

At least the person could be powering the exercycle they're riding, which would save the facility some electricity. Seems like the manufacturer might want to get in on this idea...

I'm not certain that Gyms would necessairily go for this - or would they? It is the exact opposite of the "User Pays" principle - the ones wearing out your equipment are already the least profitale, and this makes that business aspect worse.

Then again, perhaps I'm being too cynical. And if it got more customers, it might work out anyway.

At least it would make people think more about energy use.

"What only 5 Watthours? And I'm exhausted already!"

Great concept but the economics aren't there. After doing some rough calculations it seems that the energy savings generated by one human for 1 hours is about 2 cents. (.25hp/hr) x (.25 hp/1 hour) x (75W/.1hp) = 187 W/hr

I once had the opportunity to ride an exercise bike that was hooked to a generator and it was hooked directly to a 100 watt light bulb. It took considerable effort to light up the light bulb to full intensity. I could only sustain it for about 10 seconds.

However, I could easily pedal with a dimmly lit light. It's not a bad idea, it has merit because a robust generator that has a long lifetime of use can easily be made, and by controlling a transistor you can create back emf to control the torque needed at specific rpms. Exercise equipment like stair climbers already use this technology to implement their climbing profiles.

Personally, I like the exercise bikes that run a fan which helps keep me cool while I work out. I think they are called AirDynes.

You could probably make an outlet for people to plug in their cell phones to help charge the batteries, run a small radio or tv, portable fan, ... while they work out by using a DC generator and feeding an inverter. The inverter would have to sense the supply voltage and shut down completely when the voltage dropped off to prevent low-voltage damage to equipment plugged in.

Following up on the comment wh26504164, Aug 16 2006, the numbers sound small, but scale them up into monthly or yearly savings. He estimated 187 W/bike (Note: his units were W/hr/bike but should have actually been simply W/bike). Assume one bike investment by a gym. But let's say the utilization/day is 8 hours (this is a busy gym) so 8 hours * 30 days = 240 hours/month of usage. To calculate the monthly savings at ~$0.07/KWhr, do this: Cost/month/bike = (0.07 $/KWhr) * (240hours/month) * (0.187 KW/person/bike) = $3.15/month/bike. Generating $38/year/bike in electricity could justify the additional capital expense required for such a bike. I'm taking a wild guess that the extra cost over a traditional exercise bike might be $200 so this could have a return in less than five years.

Can anyone explain how I could power an electric iron from a step or cycle machine?? I'm refering to the kind of stepping machine that is portable, having no handlebars. Since the clothes are being ironed wet, not too much heat is required.

Quote:

"You could probably make an outlet for people to plug in their cell phones to help charge the batteries, run a small radio or tv, portable fan, ... while they work out by using a DC generator and feeding an inverter. The inverter would have to sense the supply voltage and shut down completely when the voltage dropped off to prevent low-voltage damage to equipment plugged in.

junkstopshere@yahoo.com,"

Maybe if we all contribute in small ways we can save the planet. I was watching a forecast for weather systems for the year 2050, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, and the future looks pretty bleak if we don't make changes. There are many old cultures around the world that contribute nothing to global warming and they have healthy, active lifestyles. Human's naturally generate energy. Maybe the future is about a compromise between reducing the amount of electric we need by doing things manually and expecting a little bit less from life.