In the future, you'll grind just to LOG IN to MMOs

[Triforcer]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/01/Human.power/index.html

Actually not a terrible idea if one has kids and desires them to exercise. 

[tmp]

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=305

[WayAbvPar]

I saw Ed Begley Jr. doing this on HGTV or whatever the new 'green' channel is- he went out on the porch and rode an exercise bike for 10 minutes or so to cover the electricity to make toast. If they could make the initial costs low enough, I think this would be huge, especially if you could roll wind power and solar power into the bargain and let people sell back their excess energy to the grid.

[cosapi]

And another market for botting utilities/paying chinese people is born!

[Murgos]

What if I just use a small electric motor to turn the pedals?

[Cyrrex]

Shit like this will never work on a large scale.  One of the very reasons we have all these different technologies is to make life simpler.  The vast majority will not run on a treadmill for a half hour just to boot up the PC. 

Though I would discount a small niche of people being keen on this stuff.

[Nebu]

Mom... I want a dog!

followed by: Jimmy, what's the dog doing on the treadmill?

[cevik]

I worked for a company once that designed small battery powered devices.  There was a flaw in the hardware causing the battery life to be much shorter on the device than it should have been (and thus shorter than the requirement).  The hardware engineer assigned to the task of solving the problem was in over his head, he couldn't find the issue.

His proposed solution:  He would design a small mechanical device to be placed on the heal of the shoe of every operator so that the device could be charged by the energy harvested from the operator walking around all day.

That was one of the best meetings I've ever attended.

[Murgos]

I think I work with that guy.  A whole building full of him.

[Righ]

[Oban]

What if I just use a small electric motor to turn the pedals?

 

[Xanthippe]

I have often wondered why someone doesn't come up with simple human powered generator connected to a battery that can run appliances in the home. 

Look at all the people with gym memberships, people who own treadmills or exercycles. 

Not only would they be exercising, but actually using their energy.

Couldn't such a scheme work if it was set up as an option?  In other words, you could run some appliance off either a battery or plug it into the wall socket.

[pxib]

I have often wondered why someone doesn't come up with simple human powered generator connected to a battery that can run appliances in the home. 

Because it requires a LOT of human power to create even a little electricity. If you'd like exercise to run your appliances get a push mower, a crank-powered egg beater, a wooden spoon or whisk instead of food processor, and wash your clothes in a wooden tub with a wringer. All of those were designed to maximize human power in human ways. Hook pedals to even a spectacular generator and, at the equivalent to 8mph uphill you could possibly power a laptop. Even an athlete would get winded trying to keep a refridgerator going for more than a few minutes... and an electric stove would be impossible without a dedicated team working in shifts. We use electricity because it's an easy way to produce work a long way from the source of power, not because it's particularly efficient.

[Trippy]

I have often wondered why someone doesn't come up with simple human powered generator connected to a battery that can run appliances in the home. 

Look at all the people with gym memberships, people who own treadmills or exercycles. 

Not only would they be exercising, but actually using their energy.

Couldn't such a scheme work if it was set up as an option?  In other words, you could run some appliance off either a battery or plug it into the wall socket.

It's doable if the power requirements are low. The OLPC was original designed to be powered, if necessary, by a hand crank but they couldn't design it cheap enough to withstand the forces involved so now they've moved to a foot powered "string" attachment of some sort (haven't seen it in action).

As pxib said above for the stuff that requires a lot of power it's just not practical. As a rough measure a world class cyclist doing a time trial will generate a sustained 0.65 HP over a one hour time trial which is roughly equivalent to 500 Watts of power. A recreational cyclist can generate approximately 0.35 HP sustained over a two hour time period or roughly 260 Watts of power.

Assuming a perfect conversion of energy generated on a bicycle hooked up to a generator and battery system (which doesn't happen but I'm not sure what the losses are) you could in fact power a modest computer in "real time" (e.g. for every hour spent on the cycle you could use the computer for one hour).

However something like a microwave oven which are typically around 1000 Watts or more would require a 4x or greater investment in bike time to appliance usage (again assuming perfect power conversion). So to heat something for 10 minutes in the microwave would require 40 minutes+ on the bike.

Edit: OLPC = One Laptop Per Child project and here's a site with an actual bicycle powered generator/battery storage system:

http://www.econvergence.net/electro.htm

They are claiming an average rider will produce between 125 and 200 Watts of power on their system.

[Trippy]

I'm not sure why this is in MMOG, moving to General.