[Quinny]

Just caught the end of a BBC program where they had a house powered by about 100 cyclists. A family of 4 then spent a normal day in the house and the cyclists had to keep up with their energy demands. They were pedalling non-stop all day and really struggled to meet demand, which wasn't particularly excessive. The also identified the energy inputs in calories, and digestive biscuits. Pity I missed most of the details, but it might be on I player later.

[PrestonSturges]

Sounds about right if person might make 100 watts for a short time, total of 10,000 watts

[frankthetank]

I want to see this. Sounds interesting. I'll have to look for a link.

[frankthetank]

found it
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8392451.stm

[shortonsense]

found it
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8392451.stm

That was really neat.

Strikes me as a bit extreme though, there was this teenaged clever monkey back around the time Malthus died who discovered that as long as the sun is shining, clever monleys sure don't have to self power ANYTHING they don't want to.

An electric shower though...I've never used one. Are they common in Britland?

[SeaGypsy]

http://www.nimbingoodtimes.com/archive/ ... 07wp15.pdf

Peter Pedals is probably Australia's premier exponent of pedal power, as well as founder of the Rainbow Power Company in Nimbin. In this article he goes into some detail about conversion and differing systems. he has also built a lot of machines based on flywheels and pedal power. The idea is to use a standard bicycle gear system to power up a large mass concrete and steel flywheel then 'dump' the energy onto a shaft by way of a clutch, he found go cart clutches ideal for this operation. The guy is a real wealth of knowlege on human power generation, efficiency and conversion technology. I highly recommend anyone really interested spend some time googling Peter.

[Quinny]

Electric showers are very common and relatively efficient. No storage losses. I pity the cyclists if the guy had run a bath! What sort of Solar setup would be needed to duplicate the cyclists and power the house as we normally use it in a day?

In the programme they showed the equivalent oil and coal that would be needed It really illustrates the power of fossil fuels in quite a scary way.

found it link

That was really neat.

Strikes me as a bit extreme though, there was this teenaged clever monkey back around the time Malthus died who discovered that as long as the sun is shining, clever monleys sure don't have to self power ANYTHING they don't want to.

An electric shower though...I've never used one. Are they common in Britland?

[shortonsense]

Electric showers are very common and relatively efficient. No storage losses. I pity the cyclists if the guy had run a bath!

What sort of Solar setup would be needed to duplicate the cyclists and power the house as we normally use it in a day?

Well, lets see. I use perhaps 700 kwh in a month, so lets call it 23 kwh per day. I run off to a cute little tool like this one:

http://bpsolar.cleanpowerestimator.com/bpsolar.htm

and I calculate up a quick 20,000 watt system for my specific area, site survey, etc etc.

Costs me $56,000 US and gives me a 10% investment return over 25 years based on my current rates and such. Its ridiculous we don't have such things mandated under building code all across the US right now.

And my needs will change when I collect, say, a Volt and it needs charging, transferring solar power to a battery, to later use to charge another battery in the car, I'm not sure that works well without a larger system, and sounds redundant, but I'm now replacing at least double my electricity costs because I'll stop buying gasoline, so even if I scale the system to a full $100G's, I'm now saving 3 times more because I knock gasoline useage out of the loop as well.

Now, I saw the size of the bedroom that the naked guy was stripping off his clothes in, and the size of the shower. I have closets the size of his bedroom, so the system I'm scoping in here is quite a bit larger than what he would need for what little of his needs which could be deduced from the video.

In the programme they showed the equivalent oil and coal that would be needed

It really illustrates the power of fossil fuels in quite a scary way.

It isn't scary. They just do what they do really, really well. Based on the massive size of the natural gas resources available to America and its low price on an energy basis, I'm betting micro-generation of some sort is much more reasonable....

http://www.climatechangecentral.com/pub ... big-impact

but I still like the all solar idea. But I'd bet a dollar that with the ease with which natural gas is moved around the United States, microCHP is the way to go. This solution may not be best for someone like, say the Brits, who are just becoming increasingly dependent on the Russians because they just don't have the sort of massive energy resources the North American continent does, but hey, that'll teach them to treat colonies poorly.

[dinopello]

That is a most awesome show ! Very instructive about energy slaves. Those poor cyclists would be dead trying to power a typical american household I imagine. Great way to raise conciousness though.

[PrestonSturges]

That is a most awesome show ! Very instructive about energy slaves. Those poor cyclists would be dead trying to power a typical american household I imagine. Great way to raise conciousness though.

Slaves indeed. Tour some of America's famous plantations, and many of the mansions were the size of modern "starter homes" under 2000 sq ft. And that was supported by hundreds of slaves. Combine our household energy costs of domestic use, manufacturing, and food for the modern suburbanite, and we live like Egyptian kings. Where's my Nubians, damn it?

[Quinny]

What area would a system like this cover?

Well, lets see. I use perhaps 700 kwh in a month, so lets call it 23 kwh per day. I run off to a cute little tool like this one: --snip--
And my needs will change when I collect, say, a Volt and it needs charging, transferring solar power to a battery, to later use to charge another battery in the car, I'm not sure that works well without a larger system, and sounds redundant, but I'm now replacing at least double my electricity costs because I'll stop buying gasoline, so even if I scale the system to a full $100G's, I'm now saving 3 times more because I knock gasoline useage out of the loop as well.

[dorlomin]

And how much fossil fuel would be required to feed the cyclists!

[Quinny]

Don't know about ff,but they did actually say how many digestive biscuits.

Anyone know the area required for the system described by short?

[yesplease]

About 1700ft^2. Course, a 20kW system would produce about 2000kWh/month in Northern Maine, so it looks like short messed up the energy calculation unless he meant to say he uses ~2000kWh/month, not ~700kWh/month. Generally speaking, about (A little less technically) one square foot per kWh per month is needed. At the U.S. average for electricity consumption a household would need ~1000ft^2 of panels. Toss an EV or PHEV car in at ~15,000 miles/year and that adds another ~300kWh/month.