Idea Volcano

read, share, suggest, and use cracking business ideas

1. Kirkdale 06.22.07 / 6am

   Good one, not sure why the treadmill guys are not on to it already. Maybe up until now energy was ‘cheap’. Is there the motivation building now?
2. Dan C 06.22.07 / 9am

   Yep, it’s one of these ideas that *should* work just because it sounds so much like common sense!

   I remember reading about this in New Scientist magazine’s “Last Word” section, although I can’t find it for reference at the moment. To summarise it said that the reason power isn’t recycled from gym equipment is because:

   a) the cost of the equipment necessary to achieve it more than offsets any reduced energy bills (I doubt it would even be Carbon Neutral given the amount of energy required to manufacture the additional equipment) and;

   b) the disappointingly trivial amount of energy that’s actually generated by their use (approx 0.1kWh per person).

   For more information there’s a similar question asked here:
   http://www.whynot.net/ideas/372
3. Jake Coltman 06.22.07 / 11am

   0.1kWh per person doesn’t make sense. To work that out you have to take into account a) the machine they are using, b) the work inputted and c)the time they use the machine for. Simply 0.1kWh is meaningless
4. Drew whitemore 06.22.07 / 12pm

   Well there is always a reason NOT to try things, I wonder who works out how much it will cost to manufacture a piece of equipment that does not yet exist?
   Sure there would be development costs, but as in everything else the price would come down.

   Amounts of energy used to power any premises can vary hugely! I have started using LED lights recently to replace more traditional lighting and the reduction in energy consumption is massive.
5. Chris 06.22.07 / 1pm

   Its being worked on already:
   http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/newspapers/sunday_times/scotland/article717879.ece
6. Drew whitemore 06.22.07 / 3pm

   Excellent! Good luck to them.
7. Hilary 06.22.07 / 5pm

   Nothing meaningless about 0.1 kWh per user - I know I generate (according to the machine’s microprocessor) up to about 150 W of convertible mechanical energy for up to about 40 minutes. Strangely enough, that makes, ooh say, around about 0.1 kWh a session. I guess I’m a fairly typical user - smaller than some, to be sure, but making up for it with fairly high intensity working.

   It’s quite a pitiful amount, to be honest. And the machines already use some of it to drive their internal electronics. Considering that most of the machines aren’t in use most of the time (apart from brief peak periods early morning/early evening), I doubt it’s a serious proposition.

   My actual calorie burn is a lot higher but that’s because muscles (like all engines) aren’t totally efficient the rest goes as heat. In winter that might reduce the gym’s overall energy needs but in summer it adds to their requirements for air conditioning/ventilation to keep things comfortable.
8. Drew 06.23.07 / 6am

   If I were trying to develop these machines my starting point would be a holistic approach towards the ‘culture’ of gym use.
   Everything about the place could be geared toward sustainability including the attitude of its users, instead of paying and taking something, they could be paying (maybe a bit less?) and giving something in return!
   Of course this will need some work to wake up folk in our society to the fact that it is ok to give your energy for nothing much in return…

   I would have thought that the storage for this energy was the biggest puzzle? As batteries become more efficient so hopefully they will be able to take in lots of small amounts of power to keep them charged, and overcome the memory problem.
   That 150w would power all the low energy lights in my house for an hour or so!
9. Patrick Wood 06.23.07 / 6pm

   In the 1980’s I set up my exercise bike in a tropical storm in South America and thought languidly about promoting a Tropical Gymnasium in a container business….. then I put my bike in the bath tub (enclosed on three sides) with power jet shower/steamer and it really worked well. Washed away all those calories from my body….I even got into Turkish steam mode….really cleans the body and mind especially since I could clean, exercise, listen to music, all at same time…….tried to persuade my father-in-law to put his rowing machine into his bath but did’nt fit !!!….Never worried about recycling my steam/hot water - just enjoyed it. This idea would probably never be carbon neutral - let alone negative….
10. john charlson 07.01.07 / 11am

    What does it matter how many Kilowatts are produced its free and its clean great idea every little helps the planet.
11. Ray Broadbridge 07.02.07 / 10am

    My local gym (Durham, UK) has no air con. It does have electric fans, which are generally in use - typical power 200 W. Some of the machines’ electronics are powered from user movement, which is a good start. An improvement would be to use user movement to drive strategically mounted fan(s) on the machine. The faster you work, the more cooling you get - and I bet it works out just about right.
    Or, to motivate those users who manage to do so little work that they may as well not be there, add a TV to the machine which relies on user power…
12. scooter 07.30.07 / 7pm

    Regardless of the actual power generated, the p.r. value and the publicity generated by a ‘green’ gym would be enormous.

    By the way, rowing machines often seem to have a pulley that turns a flywheel. Turning the flywheel side on to the user, and adding fan blades would be a great improvement
13. fetishpass 09.22.07 / 8am

    Restrict every household to 60 gallon can on trash a week

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