
Creator of 5-hour Energy Wants to Power Homes with Bikes - wallawe
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/10/151006-energy-drink-billionaire-wants-to-power-homes-with-bikes/
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grecy
I built and operated a pedal powered generator [1] It's a regular bike on a
stand, with a belt turning a 110v AC motor.

I can tell you, pedaling to making electricity is _hard_. It requires a lot of
effort. On the flip side, if you told people they had to pedal _before_ they
could use the electricity for stuff like TV, xbox, etc., people would be doing
those things _a lot_ less.

I ended up giving it to a friend who powers his house with the bike, a 70W
solar panel and three old car batteries :)

[1] [http://theroadchoseme.com/smoothie-
bike](http://theroadchoseme.com/smoothie-bike)

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mcbain
You can ask people if they want some toast, are they as strong as Robert
Förstemann (hint: no, they are not):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ)

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vacri
Well, he could have toasted two slices - they didn't disconnect the second
slot in the toaster.

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hugh4
An hour per day of cycling is a lot. I know it seems like good fun exercise to
us decadent westerners but as Tom Sawyer would point out it quits being fun
when you have to do it.

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depsypher
Indeed. And I'm sure you'd work up a sweat doing it. If you want a hot shower
afterwards any energy gains would be totally lost in heating the water.

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hugh4
In India I'd probably want to turn up the air con.

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depsypher
Ha, yeah me too. Wouldn't want to power it by pedaling though.

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rmason
With the low energy requirements of LED's it would seem much easier to give
people a solar panel and a battery. Manufacture everything in Africa to create
local jobs.

This kid, William Kamkwamba, in Africa did it with wind power. If I were this
billionaire Bhargava I'd fund this kid with a foundation in Africa, probably
for the price of a single engineer in Ann Arbor. Want to bet who would get the
better results?

[http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/](http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/)

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nathancahill
While that's true, you still need sun for solar panels. I grew up in the cloud
forest without electricity, and solar panels are a drag. Hydro is a much
better option there.

Alternative energy isn't a one size fits all sort of deal. And it's not an
either-or deal either. The more research is done in any area benefits
everyone.

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Uptrenda
You might also like this documentary about the CEO of Five-hour Energy, Manoj
Bhargava.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=49&v=YY7f1t9y9a0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=49&v=YY7f1t9y9a0)

It details a lot more about his philosophy towards philanthropy and the
inventions he's currently interested in. Interestingly enough, the result is
something quite similar to YC Research in a way so I guess you could say YC
Research is already market-validated.

Things like this give me a lot of hope for the future of humanity (though
we're still honestly depressingly behind in funding for space exploration
which I hope can still be fixed.)

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jcslzr
Google had a contest years ago about landing any device in the moon but later
was canceled. I believe the elite does not want to explore space because it
will make clear that it was a lie that we landed on the moon on 1969.

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tempestn
It would be nice if there were some more (any) technical details on the bike.
However, I can't see someone generating more than a couple hundred watts on
something like that. Even in India, the average household power usage is
apparently about 3kWh/day (less than 1/10 of the average in the US and
Canada). Even if we say a very optimistic 300W generated, that's 10 hours of
pedaling.

It could keep a few LEDs on with an hour of pedaling, but I have trouble
seeing, "...can power a home's lights and basic appliances for an entire day."

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hakcermani
A average person is lucky to get 100W sustained for an hour. 100 Whr can
probably run a tablet for 24 hrs

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durkie
and a kilowatt-hour from the power company costs $0.13. As much as I love
bikes and wish I were riding one right now, it just makes no sense.

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thejerz
After you drink a 5-hour Energy, bicycling is effortless.

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kruhft
Reminds me of that episode of Black Mirror.

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okonomiyaki3000
Reminds me of that episode of Rick and Morty. The one with Colbert.

