[UgaBYTES] Fw: Pedal power

Tue Nov 18 06:55:35 GMT 2008

Interesting read ....

--- On Mon, 11/17/08, Subbiah Arunachalam <subbiah.arunachalam at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Subbiah Arunachalam <subbiah.arunachalam at gmail.com>
Subject: Pedal power
To: "Chairman" <chairman at mssrf.res.in>, "Senthil" <senthil at mssrf.res.in>
Date: Monday, November 17, 2008, 3:08 PM

Dear Professor:Here is a news report from The Christian Science Monitor. You might wish to try this innovative way to produce electricity in the MSSRF Village Knowledge Centres. Regards.

Arun
[Subbiah Arunachalam]

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An electric workout through pedal power    

    Gyms hook up exercise bikes to TVs, laptops, and batteries to let their patrons power the place.

        By Vijaysree Venkatraman|

    Correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor/    November 13, 2008 edition

    Watch Video

MIT student Kendra Johnson explains how she and several classmates reconfigured an exercise bike to power a laptop computer.

                    Cambridge, Mass.

        After classes, Sally Peach, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a long list of to-dos.
She wants to hit the gym, tackle school work, and, as captain of an
intramural soccer team and member of a campus health advocacy program,
she has plenty of e-mail to respond to every evening.
"Though I know I am being productive, it feels like a complete waste
of time to sit there and do just [e-mail replies]," says Ms. Peach.
So, once she arrives at the gym, Peach makes a beeline for a special
stationary bike that has a laptop built into the front. The computer is
not plugged in. There is an empty space where the battery once fit. But
when Peach starts pedaling, the computer fires up. Her spinning workout
powers the laptop – and lets her cross off two tasks at once.
Pedal power has been a small-time alternative-energy source for
ages. Many innovators have tried to tap the simple motion to power
devices – especially those engineered for developing countries, where
power grids are unreliable. But few designs have stuck. People aren't
willing to exert much energy just to run simple devices.
But in gyms across the country, ecoconscious patrons are asking why
cardio equipment needs to drain power, when the exercisers are already
eager to burn calories. Now, fitness centers are beginning to
experiment with ways to put muscle strength to good use.
"The idea pretty much sold itself," says Adam Boesel, a personal trainer in Portland, Ore.
He saw a television report about a Hong Kong gym with human-powered
equipment and set out to create an eco-friendly fitness center in his
hometown. Mr. Boesel's Green Microgym opened in late August and has
already registered more than 100 members.
The gym chose Team Dynamo stationary bikes, which harness the power
of four connected bicycles to generate an average of up to 200 watts
per hour. That's enough to power a LCD television and stereo system for
the duration of the ride, according to Team Dynamo inventor Mike
Taggett. "And you don't have to be cycling champ Lance Armstrong to do
this because it is a team effort," he says, referring to how four
bikers help charge the batteries.
At Green Microgym, electricity generated by the bikes flows into a
bank of batteries, which, in turn, powers devices. Boesel plans to
install a "grid-tie" inverter, which allows the generated energy to
stream directly into the power grid. This device allows creators of
alternative energy, such as solar and wind, to "spin the meter
backward" and sell power to their local utility company.
The idea is to meet the gym's power requirements – kept low by a
prudent use of plugged-in devices – with solar panels and an array of
energy-producing equipment, says Boesel.
Power bike setups of all sizes

David Butcher, a California Web manager, gets his daily workout on a
generator-bike he built three years ago. Pedaling at a steady pace, he
charges many appliances at once: the robotic vacuum cleaner, a set of
lights, and his laptop. Mr. Butcher webcasts live from his Los Gatos,
Calif. basement during these 40-minute sessions. Thanks to the
energizing workout, "I feel like a rocket now," he says, a little
breathless from his morning exercise.
Elsewhere, others are testing retrofitted equipment in
well-trafficked commercial gyms. A group spinning class can produce a
monthly output of 300 kilowatt-hours – enough energy to light six homes
for a month and cut 420 pounds of carbon emission, according to Jay
Whelan, founder of Green Revolution.
"There is no use it or lose it, or battery maintenance, because the
power goes right back to the grid," says Mr. Whelan, a clean-energy
entrepreneur who recently retrofitted bikes for the spin class at the
1,200-member Ridgefield Fitness Club in Connecticut.
Elliptical trainers, another popular piece of cardio equipment, are a good source of human power.
"They are even better than bikes since they involve both arm and leg
muscles," says Hudson Harr, founder of ReRev.com in St. Petersburg,
Fla. In April, his start-up company installed an array of retrofitted
ellipticals at the 28,000-member Gainesville (Fla.) Health &
Fitness Center. A student gym at the University of Florida in
Gainesville was next on his list. "Not doing this would be such a waste
of energy," says David Bowles, the school's director of recreational
sports.
How to balance the workout

The idea of using human energy to power appliances – instead
of using batteries – is catching on for two reasons: fun and
environment-consciousness, says Arjen Jansen, a researcher in
human-powered energy systems at Delft University of Technology in the
Netherlands.
"Laptops and televisions have evolved and the designs are very
energy-efficient, says Jason Moore, a Fulbright scholar studying
bicycle design at the Dutch university. Now that these rigs are better
at capturing energy, gyms are can put them to use – powering little
perks such as TVs, laptops, and lights.
Still, few people go to a fitness center in order to generate electricity.
"People go the gym primarily to get a good workout," says Whelan
from Green Revolution. The workout equipment should feel just like it
did before the retrofitting, he emphasizes. Raising the resistance
level on these machines will increase the output exponentially, but it
might ruin the experience for his customers. He opts to let the rider
have complete control over the settings, same as before.
What's next for ecogyms?

"What we are doing now is taking baby steps in the right direction," says Boesel of Green Microgym.
All aerobic equipment, including Stairmasters and rowing machines,
can be retrofitted to generate power. Each device, however, comes with
its own set of engineering challenges. And while the industry is most
driven by retrofitting companies, "in the future, manufacturers may
offer power-generation as an option on cardio equipment," says Joe
Cirulli, owner of the Gainesville Health & Fitness Center.
Some energy savings could be incidental. "As the exerciser's output
exceeds the display needs, the extra power is 'shunted' to resistors,
which then heat up simply to shed the energy that is created," says Mr.
Taggett of Team Dynamo. The cardio room warms up and requires extra
air-conditioning in warmer climates. With these new machines, however,
the excess energy is channeled into creating power.
As exercisers become aware of the metrics of human power-production, it could push them to work harder.
"What we have been finding is that people challenge themselves to
work a little bit harder because now they can measure how much energy
they create," says Whelan. "It seems like there is a personal goal to
try and create just a little bit more than the last time they worked
out."
When they gravitate to these innovative systems, gym-goers could
also move away from power-hogging equipment. Once people figure out
that the average treadmill takes 1,500-2,000 watts to run, they may
switch to power-producing machines, says Taggett.
"Right now, it would take nine Lance Armstrongs or 15 nonathletes to keep one treadmill chugging along," he says.

        ( More stories )

    Comments

		  1. 
          Sie.Kathieravealu | 11.13.08

		  The above
said innovation is nothing new to the war-torn area of Sri Lanka. This
method of generating power has been going on for the last eighteen
years or more due to necessity. In the wqar-torn area electricity is
not available and torch-light batteries cannot be taken to the area. So
the people are generating power needed to activate their radios' - to
get the latest news from the outside world - by making use of the cycle
dynamos. 
There are many other innovations created due to dire necessity.

		  2. 
          Boyd Malloy | 11.15.08

		  Sentence prisoners to so many kilowatt-hours. Ditch the weights.

		  3. 
          John Imrie | 11.15.08

		  This is
cool. If you think about it, exercise is usually "artificial,"
replacing the hard physical labor our ancestors engaged in as part of
their natural routine (hunting, farming, etc.) By making something
useful out of a gym workout, we return, in a way, to the older,
healthier, more natural, and more eco friendly paradigm.

		  4. 
          pipa | 11.15.08

		  Kathieravealu
annae — You are absolutely right of course. I wish they would be this
creative in Tamilnadu as well, especially in these days of severe power
outages.

		  5. 
          JOHN MCGUCKEN | 11.17.08

		  Hook up the kids TV, it they wnat to watch they have to run for it.