
Pedal powered farms and factories: forgotten future of stationary bicycle (2011) - bryanrasmussen
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/05/pedal-powered-farms-and-factories.html
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jesperlang
As a high-tech (electrical tech?) geek, i love low-tech magazine. One thing
that this article (and many of their other ones) does is to highlight how
incredibly wasteful our lifestyle is energy wise. Sure we can be impressed by
95% efficiency motors of new electric cars, it is still +150'000 watt used to
transport 70 kg of human flesh. Compare that to 75 watt of pedal powering your
transport. Not saying we are going to replace cars with bikes, but it's good
to remind ourselves how much energy we actually use in real numbers.

It's like we all have our own army of personal slaves by the thousands that
run on ancient sun light to power our excessive needs..

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Theodores
75w - 1hup sounds good to me. I could power a computer, a light and monitor
with it going into sleep mode when I stop pedalling. This is the level of
power I like to use most of the time anyway.

I might not be able to power a kettle, keep the fridge on and all those things
that take 10-20 x 1hup but, most of the time I don't need those things.

What I would like on the bicycle is a general purpose recharegeable battery
that works off a dynamo and powers the lights on the bike. If it can charge
for free on re-gen braking and give a feeble power assist if need be then that
would be helpful. But not something actually heavy.

The problem with batteries is they always come in boxes that need other
containers that need housings and brackets and even more mounting hardware.

I would like a battery to be practically structural, so, in the bicycle
implementation the battery would use the frame tubes, to be more like an
internal layer of paint than something big and heavy.

Anyway, it would be great if a bicycle could harvest electricity and store it
in a way the EV cars are talking about, but to return electricity to one's
personal grid of USB powered devices so, even if you did not have mains power
you could always get everything charged.

~~~
masklinn
> 75w - 1hup sounds good to me. I could power a computer, a light and monitor
> with it going into sleep mode when I stop pedalling. This is the level of
> power I like to use most of the time anyway.

There's a pair of issues with that plan:

* 75w is mechanical, factor in the converter and you end up with quite a bit less.

* 75w is what you can produce doing nothing else, you're not really able to use that computer while you're doing that. It's not strenuous exercise, but it's continuous work.

> I might not be able to power a kettle, keep the fridge on and all those
> things that take 10-20 x 1hup but, most of the time I don't need those
> things.

OTOH you can't really need a fridge only some of the time. At that point
you're better off with some sort of evaporating cooler or (dry-)ice box.

> What I would like on the bicycle is a general purpose recharegeable battery
> that works off a dynamo and powers the lights on the bike.

… buy one? Get a dynamo-charged buffer battery and plug a USB headlight in it
or whatever.

> I would like a battery to be practically structural, so, in the bicycle
> implementation the battery would use the frame tubes, to be more like an
> internal layer of paint than something big and heavy.

A battery is big and heavy by definition. And will remain thus until we get an
absolute breakthrough.

> to be more like an internal layer of paint than something big and heavy.

Magic, got it.

~~~
Theodores
No need to be so cheerful!

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tty2300
This isn't even an efficient way of doing things since muscles are less
efficient than electric motors. Just stick a solar panel array on your factory
and be done with it.

~~~
masklinn
> This isn't even an efficient way of doing things since muscles are less
> efficient than electric motors.

Even more so if you factor in the entire human biological system. Humans are
pretty shit at converting food to mechanical energy, to say nothing of
considering the entire chain from sunlight on. And our average power output is
nothing worth speaking about either.

A pedal-powered work bench of some sort (where the pedalling is an ancillary
activity to the primary work e.g. pottery wheel or loom or whatever) can make
sense, the mechanical energy requirement are limited and most of the work is
relevant to human skills. But for primary power production it makes limited
sense, at least in developed countries.

> Just stick a solar panel array on your factory and be done with it.

For factories sure but there is a huge advantage to pedal-powered prime
movers: they're very easy to slap together and maintain. Solar panels are not
always easy to have in low-infrastructure / developing country environments,
slapping belts and rods onto a bicycle frame is much more accessible.

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stareatgoats
A lot of these suggestions bear the hallmark of that endearing village crank
(pun intended). But at least two things are worth considering:

1\. The tendency to have electric appliances for every thinkable mundane task
does our bodies no good (nor the environment). While we can go to the gym once
in a while to alleviate some of the ill effects, it is much better to
incorporate some physical exercise into our daily routines.

2\. To be totally dependent on a centralized grid is a recipe for disaster.
Many million can be put at risk by a single hacker in a basement as it stands,
not to mention when state actors are involved. Electricity should really be
supplied by local semi-independent grids fed by local renewable energy sources
that are resilient to a collapse of the centralized system. Pedal power could
play one (minor) part in such resiliency.

~~~
masklinn
> Pedal power could play one (minor) part in such resiliency.

It's less "minor" and more "insignificant". A healthy and motivated laborer
can sustain ~75W mechanical over a continuous work day, that's an entry mat
worth of solar cells, or a small turbine / windmill.

You can derive some productivity from your exercise, but humans as power
source is inane unless you have literally no infrastructure worth speaking of
and no other options (e.g. no wind or water streams).

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m-i-l
I love the concept of this. Not so much to capture energy from individuals who
are using the devices purely to produce energy, but to capture the energy
produced from large groups doing something that they would be doing anyway,
e.g. people using exercise bikes and treadmills at a gym, or prisoners
exercising in a prison exercise yard.

But, unfortunately, some quick sums suggest this might not be particularly
economically viable:

\- 75W sustainable energy output per person, i.e. 0.075kWh

\- 33% efficiency of energy conversion, i.e. 0.025kWh

\- GBP0.05 per kWh to sell back to grid, i.e. GBP0.00125 per person per hour

\- 8 hour day = GBP0.01 (i.e. 1p) per person per day

\- 100 people in a gym, or prison, or whatever = GBP1 per group per day

i.e. unlikely to cover the cost of lighting and heating. Even if you could
improve to 100% efficiency, and offset against electricity purchased rather
than reselling back to the grid, you'd still only be looking at increasing
that by a factor of 10.

~~~
antisthenes
> i.e. unlikely to cover the cost of lighting and heating.

You forgot the most important factor in this - extra food.

Those people will burn a lot of calories, and surely enough compensate for it
with a snack or maybe an extra meal. That alone makes any sort of human
electricity generation scheme generally not viable.

~~~
sopooneo
We're assuming the people would have been doing the biking regardless.

~~~
m-i-l
Yes, they would be doing something they would be doing anyway, e.g. exercising
at a gym, with the electricity generation just a useful byproduct. Wasn't
thinking along the lines of something like a Matrix-style human power plant.

~~~
antisthenes
Ah, my bad then. I remember Top Gear or some-such show attempting this
experiment and having stationary gym bikers charge their EV.

It didn't do too well.

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soperj
Always thought it would be pretty awesome to have a massive compost bin that
could flip from side to side via pedal power. It would be easier to let air
in, and make it so that it composted by aerobic bacteria instead of anaerobic,
which results in a much fast composting process(and higher temperatures).

~~~
fian
Do you mean a compost tumbler? Something like:

[https://www.gardeners.com/buy/extra-large-compost-
tumbler/36...](https://www.gardeners.com/buy/extra-large-compost-
tumbler/36-662.html)

These are easy enough to hand crank and you don't need to tumble them a great
deal each time.

Maybe if you had a hobby farm and many such tumblers, adding some sort of
pedal drive you could temporarily attach to each tumbler might make sense.

~~~
soperj
You can't fit enough waste material in a tumbler for it to get hot enough to
really break stuff down. You need about 4 cubic feet of material.

------
jotm
Now replace the human with an animal and we're back to pre-industrial times -
but this time, it's environmentally friendly, not necessary!

Only half joking, because bulls and donkeys were used to power a lot of
machinery and still are, and even dogs were used on hamster wheels to power
rotisseries (their depictions were sad, indeed).

But I would like, and have thought about, a treadmill or stationary bike to
exercise and recharge a power bank or two, for example. It wouldn't be much,
but it's not hard to implement and I'd rather have several smartphone charges
than just excess motion/heat.

On that note, it would probably be more efficient to grow crops, distill
alcohol, quit drinking and use that to power a generator... That or compost it
to gas, biofuel :D

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oconnore
> Cranks and pedals are not a solution at all if we decide to cling to an
> energy-intensive lifestyle - but then, neither is any other renewable (or
> even non-renewable) energy source. The main problem with our approach to
> pedal powered machines is that we compare them to fossil fuel powered
> machines and not to the inefficient human powered tools and machines that
> went before them.

I’d prefer to take my renewable energy with no quality of living sacrifice,
thanks.

~~~
icebraining
Let's hope that's possible.

~~~
adrianN
It is possible, it just takes political will and a lot of money.

~~~
reallydontask
I think _renewable energy with no quality of living sacrifice_ and a lot of
money means that this will not be possible for a lot of people without other
changes.

I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford to pay twice as much for the
electricity we consume and not have to sacrifice anything. I'd guess, based on
your comment, you are on the same, privileged, boat. Others are not so lucky,
which means that they will need some sort of help, which might not be
politically palatable because, mainly shortsightedness.

~~~
adrianN
Adding wind or solar is currently cheaper than adding coal. The marginal costs
of renewable energy are pretty low. The investment costs are also lower than
the damage climate change will cause. If we really wanted to we could switch
to 100% renewables, for example by printing more money. But just stopping
subsidies for fossil fuels or setting up a carbon tax would be good steps.

~~~
reallydontask
I was hardly advocating adding more coal.

Removing fossil fuel subsidies and setting up meaningful carbon taxes are
steps in the right direction, but this means that the price the consumer pays
will, ultimately, be higher, which is the point I was trying to make.

FWIW, it's something that I strongly believe we should be doing but through a
combination of circumstances will only very slowly happen.

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scotty79
I was looking for something that looks comfortable to sit on while pedalling.
I found none.

