I am a final year student at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK studying Design & Technology for Industry. I am currently in the research stage for my major project and I am keen on looking into the problem of climate change and the possible solutions available through sustainable energy, whether it is big or small; as I think every little helps.
I am also interested in maybe combining the problem with obesity, which is becoming a massive health problem in the UK. I was considering the prospect of converting the mechanical energy created by exercise to electrical energy so that the individual is getting the two benefits of improving their fitness and creating green energy. Or I was thinking of looking into the energy requirements of Less Developed Countries and how their plight for development demands heavily on using electrical energy.
As I am in still in the research stage of my project I have actually no idea on which way I will take this project but I feel very strongly on the subject.
I was hoping that I might be able to pick some good information for my research through people who are keen on making a positive difference or what people think about the problems mentioned above.
Thank-you
University Research
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Hugh Janus
- Posts: 355
- Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:55 am
University Research
So! You're thinking of using exercise bikes, attached to generators eh?
Or maybe treadmills providing rotational force, using large belts to transmit the rotation to a factory full of machines? Something like the old mills that used to dominate Manchester... Somehow, I don't think it will catch on...:sneaky:
Or maybe treadmills providing rotational force, using large belts to transmit the rotation to a factory full of machines? Something like the old mills that used to dominate Manchester... Somehow, I don't think it will catch on...:sneaky:
University Research
Ummmmmm!! Not actually but I see where you going with it!
No, I don't plan on doing anything like that because that is already possible with bikes by connecting a generator to it if wanted.
I'm actually in the research stage as I have already mentioned so I don't know what the outcome will be yet.
But thank you for taking the time for susch an insightful message!!
:-5
No, I don't plan on doing anything like that because that is already possible with bikes by connecting a generator to it if wanted.
I'm actually in the research stage as I have already mentioned so I don't know what the outcome will be yet.
But thank you for taking the time for susch an insightful message!!
:-5
University Research
DK13;704952 wrote: I am also interested in maybe combining the problem with obesity, which is becoming a massive health problem in the UK. I was considering the prospect of converting the mechanical energy created by exercise to electrical energy so that the individual is getting the two benefits of improving their fitness and creating green energy.
You need to do some order-of-magnitude sums on the back of an envelope.Shall we stick with just the UK, for an instance? What proportion of our national energy need can be met by human muscle?
The UK Electricity production is around 382.7 TWh (2004)
and a Watt is one Joule per second, so
3.827E+14 x 60 x 60
= 1.38E+18 J / year
On the other side of the equation, we have Population, 6E+7
Let's assume we can get them, pensioners and small girls included, to eat a consistent 5,000 excess Calories a day (which were previously making some of them obese) and power treadmills at 100% efficiency, for a maximum possible human muscle energy input to the National Grid:
(The large calorie or kilogram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 kJ, and exactly 1000 small calories.)
= 6E+7 x 5E+3 x 4.184E+3 x 365 J
= 4.6E+17 J / year
so 460 / 13.8 = 33% of UK Electricity production could be generated by human muscle.
Currently (2004) 74% of UK Electricity production comes from fossil fuel (with 19% nuclear and 5% hydro/renewables)
so you could save 45% of the UK fossil fuel burden by flogging your population into burning 5,000 extra Calories a day into the power linesOnce you have that initial figure of 45% of the UK fossil fuel burden in exchange for 5,000 Calories at 100% efficiency, you can start to bring in other aspects.
What proportion of the population will voluntarily take up feeding the grid?
What proportion of this theoretical maximum 5,000 excess Calories will they actually manage to consume? What's the energy footprint of the excess food you're feeding them? Would they have been eating it anyway?
What actual efficiency can you expect to get from the exercise machines? What's the energy footprint of building and maintaining the exercise machines?
Perhaps you'd like to work out whether you end up with a net benefit, taking all that into account?
You need to do some order-of-magnitude sums on the back of an envelope.Shall we stick with just the UK, for an instance? What proportion of our national energy need can be met by human muscle?
The UK Electricity production is around 382.7 TWh (2004)
and a Watt is one Joule per second, so
3.827E+14 x 60 x 60
= 1.38E+18 J / year
On the other side of the equation, we have Population, 6E+7
Let's assume we can get them, pensioners and small girls included, to eat a consistent 5,000 excess Calories a day (which were previously making some of them obese) and power treadmills at 100% efficiency, for a maximum possible human muscle energy input to the National Grid:
(The large calorie or kilogram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 kJ, and exactly 1000 small calories.)
= 6E+7 x 5E+3 x 4.184E+3 x 365 J
= 4.6E+17 J / year
so 460 / 13.8 = 33% of UK Electricity production could be generated by human muscle.
Currently (2004) 74% of UK Electricity production comes from fossil fuel (with 19% nuclear and 5% hydro/renewables)
so you could save 45% of the UK fossil fuel burden by flogging your population into burning 5,000 extra Calories a day into the power linesOnce you have that initial figure of 45% of the UK fossil fuel burden in exchange for 5,000 Calories at 100% efficiency, you can start to bring in other aspects.
What proportion of the population will voluntarily take up feeding the grid?
What proportion of this theoretical maximum 5,000 excess Calories will they actually manage to consume? What's the energy footprint of the excess food you're feeding them? Would they have been eating it anyway?
What actual efficiency can you expect to get from the exercise machines? What's the energy footprint of building and maintaining the exercise machines?
Perhaps you'd like to work out whether you end up with a net benefit, taking all that into account?
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
University Research
spot;705370 wrote: You need to do some order-of-magnitude sums on the back of an envelope.Shall we stick with just the UK, for an instance? What proportion of our national energy need can be met by human muscle?
The UK Electricity production is around 382.7 TWh (2004)
and a Watt is one Joule per second, so
3.827E+14 x 60 x 60
= 1.38E+18 J / year
On the other side of the equation, we have Population, 6E+7
Let's assume we can get them, pensioners and small girls included, to eat a consistent 5,000 excess Calories a day (which were previously making some of them obese) and power treadmills at 100% efficiency, for a maximum possible human muscle energy input to the National Grid:
(The large calorie or kilogram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 kJ, and exactly 1000 small calories.)
= 6E+7 x 5E+3 x 4.184E+3 x 365 J
= 4.6E+17 J / year
so 460 / 13.8 = 33% of UK Electricity production could be generated by human muscle.
Currently (2004) 74% of UK Electricity production comes from fossil fuel (with 19% nuclear and 5% hydro/renewables)
so you could save 45% of the UK fossil fuel burden by flogging your population into burning 5,000 extra Calories a day into the power linesOnce you have that initial figure of 45% of the UK fossil fuel burden in exchange for 5,000 Calories at 100% efficiency, you can start to bring in other aspects.
What proportion of the population will voluntarily take up feeding the grid?
What proportion of this theoretical maximum 5,000 excess Calories will they actually manage to consume? What's the energy footprint of the excess food you're feeding them? Would they have been eating it anyway?
What actual efficiency can you expect to get from the exercise machines? What's the energy footprint of building and maintaining the exercise machines?
Perhaps you'd like to work out whether you end up with a net benefit, taking all that into account?
OMG! I can't believe you actually came up with this. I have no time or patience to sift through this, whether your calculations are correct or NOT (which they prob are NOT!). This is one problem I've seen, dear spot, with all your pickyass calculations. Who can keep track of this, whether they are right or not!!
goodbye,
Erin
The UK Electricity production is around 382.7 TWh (2004)
and a Watt is one Joule per second, so
3.827E+14 x 60 x 60
= 1.38E+18 J / year
On the other side of the equation, we have Population, 6E+7
Let's assume we can get them, pensioners and small girls included, to eat a consistent 5,000 excess Calories a day (which were previously making some of them obese) and power treadmills at 100% efficiency, for a maximum possible human muscle energy input to the National Grid:
(The large calorie or kilogram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 kJ, and exactly 1000 small calories.)
= 6E+7 x 5E+3 x 4.184E+3 x 365 J
= 4.6E+17 J / year
so 460 / 13.8 = 33% of UK Electricity production could be generated by human muscle.
Currently (2004) 74% of UK Electricity production comes from fossil fuel (with 19% nuclear and 5% hydro/renewables)
so you could save 45% of the UK fossil fuel burden by flogging your population into burning 5,000 extra Calories a day into the power linesOnce you have that initial figure of 45% of the UK fossil fuel burden in exchange for 5,000 Calories at 100% efficiency, you can start to bring in other aspects.
What proportion of the population will voluntarily take up feeding the grid?
What proportion of this theoretical maximum 5,000 excess Calories will they actually manage to consume? What's the energy footprint of the excess food you're feeding them? Would they have been eating it anyway?
What actual efficiency can you expect to get from the exercise machines? What's the energy footprint of building and maintaining the exercise machines?
Perhaps you'd like to work out whether you end up with a net benefit, taking all that into account?
OMG! I can't believe you actually came up with this. I have no time or patience to sift through this, whether your calculations are correct or NOT (which they prob are NOT!). This is one problem I've seen, dear spot, with all your pickyass calculations. Who can keep track of this, whether they are right or not!!
goodbye,
Erin
University Research
People keep saying I'm useless when it comes to telling jokes and I never quite understand why. I need therapy, that's all there is to it.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
-
chonsigirl
- Posts: 33633
- Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:28 am
University Research
5,000 calories a day for young girls and pensioners-wowzers, they would have to bike all day to keep fit!
I watch every calorie burn off at the gym-they should funnel those extra biking and treadmill miles into the grid.......
I watch every calorie burn off at the gym-they should funnel those extra biking and treadmill miles into the grid.......
University Research
DK13;704952 wrote: I am a final year student at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK studying Design & Technology for Industry. I am currently in the research stage for my major project and I am keen on looking into the problem of climate change and the possible solutions available through sustainable energy, whether it is big or small; as I think every little helps.
I am also interested in maybe combining the problem with obesity, which is becoming a massive health problem in the UK. I was considering the prospect of converting the mechanical energy created by exercise to electrical energy so that the individual is getting the two benefits of improving their fitness and creating green energy. Or I was thinking of looking into the energy requirements of Less Developed Countries and how their plight for development demands heavily on using electrical energy.
As I am in still in the research stage of my project I have actually no idea on which way I will take this project but I feel very strongly on the subject.
I was hoping that I might be able to pick some good information for my research through people who are keen on making a positive difference or what people think about the problems mentioned above.
Thank-you
Okay I will say something to you. First off you are a good lad to be studying climate change and devising ways to combat the repercussions sp? of human consumption/waste/byproduct/sludge/afteraffect and so I will just have to say I do not know the solution and at this point very few people do.
I doubt that you can harness the energy of obesity. Motivation would be key detriment to this idea. I'm not so sure about what you meant by developing countries relying on electric power so much. How could the solution to this be helpful in regards to climate control?
In my opinion investors with loads of money need to help out by investing only in renewable energy sources. Caveat: investors need to go to researchers like you and get advice to what sources of energy is best, not just make their own stupid conclusions. I hope you can, as a young person with an interest in this, help these people. I will then feel better about investing in these sources of energy myself. And possibly make some money from it. Which I would really like. At any rate, my advice is nix the obese energy source and scout the underdeveloped nations for answers whatever that might be. And most of all drum up some 'logical' reasoning for investing in renewable energy sources lest people with the bucks think you and your ilk crazy, haha. And please, email me if you hear leads in this area. I'm interested in buying up before stocks go up
.
Erin
I am also interested in maybe combining the problem with obesity, which is becoming a massive health problem in the UK. I was considering the prospect of converting the mechanical energy created by exercise to electrical energy so that the individual is getting the two benefits of improving their fitness and creating green energy. Or I was thinking of looking into the energy requirements of Less Developed Countries and how their plight for development demands heavily on using electrical energy.
As I am in still in the research stage of my project I have actually no idea on which way I will take this project but I feel very strongly on the subject.
I was hoping that I might be able to pick some good information for my research through people who are keen on making a positive difference or what people think about the problems mentioned above.
Thank-you
Okay I will say something to you. First off you are a good lad to be studying climate change and devising ways to combat the repercussions sp? of human consumption/waste/byproduct/sludge/afteraffect and so I will just have to say I do not know the solution and at this point very few people do.
I doubt that you can harness the energy of obesity. Motivation would be key detriment to this idea. I'm not so sure about what you meant by developing countries relying on electric power so much. How could the solution to this be helpful in regards to climate control?
In my opinion investors with loads of money need to help out by investing only in renewable energy sources. Caveat: investors need to go to researchers like you and get advice to what sources of energy is best, not just make their own stupid conclusions. I hope you can, as a young person with an interest in this, help these people. I will then feel better about investing in these sources of energy myself. And possibly make some money from it. Which I would really like. At any rate, my advice is nix the obese energy source and scout the underdeveloped nations for answers whatever that might be. And most of all drum up some 'logical' reasoning for investing in renewable energy sources lest people with the bucks think you and your ilk crazy, haha. And please, email me if you hear leads in this area. I'm interested in buying up before stocks go up
.Erin
University Research
chonsigirl;705396 wrote: 5,000 calories a day for young girls and pensioners-wowzers, they would have to bike all day to keep fit!
I watch every calorie burn off at the gym-they should funnel those extra biking and treadmill miles into the grid.......
I thought that was part of the fun of jotting down the sums, Chonsi. If they were burning off 500 Calories a day it'd bring their end weight lower by 50 pounds over a full year and I doubt whether many people could exercise more than that, so it reduces the total by 90% immediately.
What else brings it down... I doubt whether there's 30% of the population capable of that degree of exercise once you cut away the ill, the too-young, the too-old, the pregnant and the malnourished, so we're down to 3% of the initial figure.
Efficiency of conversion? When did you last see a generator that'd transform more than 50% of mechanical input into electricity? The running machines aren't an option for this, they consume energy to get the belt to move - this has to be leg-lift or arm-compression machines, or pedal or rowing equipment.
That takes the nominal 45% reduction down to 0.67% of the UK fossil fuel burden before you even start into energy footprint considerations. The whole approach falls by the wayside at that point and we're back to wind-farming.
There are genuine alternatives - thermal tapping to the mantle, for example, or using the rise and fall of waves or trapping tide differences - but the only reason they stand a chance is that they begin with several orders of magnitude more raw energy than human muscle power as a resource to tap. I'd do an estimate of wave energy per square mile of coastal waters but people might think I was being serious, and I'd just hate that.
I watch every calorie burn off at the gym-they should funnel those extra biking and treadmill miles into the grid.......
I thought that was part of the fun of jotting down the sums, Chonsi. If they were burning off 500 Calories a day it'd bring their end weight lower by 50 pounds over a full year and I doubt whether many people could exercise more than that, so it reduces the total by 90% immediately.
What else brings it down... I doubt whether there's 30% of the population capable of that degree of exercise once you cut away the ill, the too-young, the too-old, the pregnant and the malnourished, so we're down to 3% of the initial figure.
Efficiency of conversion? When did you last see a generator that'd transform more than 50% of mechanical input into electricity? The running machines aren't an option for this, they consume energy to get the belt to move - this has to be leg-lift or arm-compression machines, or pedal or rowing equipment.
That takes the nominal 45% reduction down to 0.67% of the UK fossil fuel burden before you even start into energy footprint considerations. The whole approach falls by the wayside at that point and we're back to wind-farming.
There are genuine alternatives - thermal tapping to the mantle, for example, or using the rise and fall of waves or trapping tide differences - but the only reason they stand a chance is that they begin with several orders of magnitude more raw energy than human muscle power as a resource to tap. I'd do an estimate of wave energy per square mile of coastal waters but people might think I was being serious, and I'd just hate that.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
University Research
spot;705395 wrote: People keep saying I'm useless when it comes to telling jokes and I never quite understand why. I need therapy, that's all there is to it.
This was a joke? Hmm no you probably don't need the therapy, I do. See, this is why I don't get politically involved. I can't tell when a politician is making up stuff or telling the truth!
This was a joke? Hmm no you probably don't need the therapy, I do. See, this is why I don't get politically involved. I can't tell when a politician is making up stuff or telling the truth!
University Research
spot wonders whether to claim his sums were incredibly accurate and decides he can't be entirely certain...
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.