Posted on June 24, 2008 by Gerald Pugliese
One gym is turning to
ellipitical machines to help generate electricity. More from
That’sFit:
The elliptical machines at my local Gainesville Health & Fitness Center are being used for more than health and fitness. They're being used to convert the energy spent exercising into something pretty darn useful: Electrical power.
Credit for this energetic feat goes to Hudson Harr, the 22-year-old who came up with the ReCardio system -- a patent-pending technology currently wired to 15 elliptical machines and working to convert the kinetic energy from pushing pedals into electricity. The power produced by the machines is plugged straight into the utility grid, which helps produce power for the gym and offsets utility costs. Each elliptical machine can produce one kilowatt of electricity every 10 hours -- enough to charge the battery for a 2004 Toyota Prius once or a cell phone up to 397 times. So far, 150 kilowatts of electricity has been produced.
Pretty cool! I’m always on the ellipticals.
Putting on my engineer's hat, the claim in this article is not quite right. A watt is power not energy, ie a continuous rate, not a total amount. If they mean 1 "kilowatt hour" of energy every 10 hours, then that would be a power rate of 100 watts (enought to run a typical old style "Edison" lightbulb continuously, which is still useful).
Cheers, Steve
A kilowatt is not a unit of energy, it is a unit of power. Saying that 150 kilowatts have been produced is a meaningless statement, as is one kilowatt every 10 hours.
Thank you for helping spread the word about this test project here at our gym in Gainesville, FL. We hope as more people hear of Hudson's technology, it will catch on. It really is incredible.
Hey Gainesville-
You're welcome, keep up the great work!
Peace.
-Gerry