How difficult would it be to create a bike to reverse your electrical meter?

The utility probably does not have to pay you the same rate for human or animal energy that it must pay for renewable energy. So you will be pedaling fairly hard to get paid even $0.01/hour, taking a very long time to pay off the equipment. My bikes cannot be operated and maintained that cheaply.

If pedaling power is enough to run your meter backwards for any length of time, then you already have a super low consumption house.

 

Two things accomplished by doing that. First is you will get a LOT of exercise getting that meter to run backword. Second is learning just how unbelivably energy wasteful modern living is.

 

I've often wondered why gym's dont do this, b/c they have lots of bikes going all the time.

and why stop with bikes, you could convert weight machines and other stuff too to generate electricity. I think this would be a great selling point for a gym.

 

An electric load could provide some resistance against pedalling on a stationary bike, but there's not really enough power to feed back into the grid. I hunch most people would struggle to keep a light bulb lit for more than ten minutes. If you're out to lose weight or gain muscle, throw some rocks in the panniers and go find some hills to climb.

 

Not for long, once they discover that a minimum wage job pays many hundreds of times better.

 

Shouldn't be too difficult to produce about 0.2 hp for a moderate workout. You won't power much like that for long, but if it does something useful with your exercise what is the harm?

I've long wondered why anyone would pay for a gym membership AND for someone to mow their lawn? A lawn service charges the equivalent of about $50/hr...an hour that one could spend exercising the big muscle groups with a push mower to do the same job. The only time I've paid for yardwork was when I was working half a world a way from my home.

 

It has been done
A gym powered by exercise! // Current

 

Figures like this are a good eye opener.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1. How Much Human Energy Is Contained in One
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Gallon of Gas?
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From Dr. David Pimentel:
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"That is, the 38,000 kcal in one gallon of gasoline can be transformed into 8.8 KWh, which is about 3 weeks of human work equivalent.(Human work output in agriculture = 0.1 HP, or 0.074 KW, times 120 hours.)"
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]He, of course, is accounting for the energy lost in the process of converting the gasoline into usable energy.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]My calculations excluding the energy lost in the conversion process are as follows:
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1 Gallon of Gas = 125,000 BTUs
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Source: US Department of Energy
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]3,400 BTUs = 1 KWH
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Source: US Department of Energy, Bonneville Power Mgt.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1 Gallon of Gas = 37 KWH[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](125,000 BTUs in a gallon of gas divided by 3,400 BTUs in 1 KWH)
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1 Gallon of Gas = 500 hours of human work output
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](37 KWH in 1 gallon of gas divided by human work output in agriculture of .074 KW = 500)
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Of course, there is some wiggle room with this number. Construction work, for instance, might yield a slightly different number. The size and physical condition of the person performing the work would also make a difference.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]---------------
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[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]2. How Much Human Energy Is Contained in One
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Barrel of Oil?
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1 Barrel of Oil = 5,800,000 BTUs
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Source: Louisiana Oil and Gas Association
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1 Gallon of Gas = 125,000 BTUs
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Source: US Department of Energy
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1 Barrel of Oil thus contains the energy contained in 46.4 gallons of gas
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](5,800,000 divided by 125,000 = 46.4 )
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1 Gallon of Gas = 500 hours of human work output
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Source: Calculations Done Above.
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1 Barrel of Oil = 23,200 Hours of Human Work Output
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](Energy equivalent of 46.4 gallons of gas per barrel of oil x 500 hours of human work ouput per gallon of gas = 23,2000 hours)
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A non- tri-athlete type bike rider generates about a quarter horsepower. My freebie conversion download software program shows a quarter horsepower to be a bit over 186 watts (per hour). So if you pedal for 30 minutes (a nice workout for most) ... well that'll give you a massive 93 watts ... enough to run your standard incandescent bulb while your peddling ... or maybe a fan to keep you from over heating so it's kind of a wash, except for the exercise. I'd rather pedal around town & enjoy the view imo

 

Small units correction...not "93 watts": 93 watt-hours = 0.093 kwh. Anyway, 186 watts is enough to run the meter very slowly backward when most stuff in the house is idle. The problem of course is that few would be able to do it for an hour and when one stops the meter would spin as normal, quickly reversing any gains. Plus there would be some efficiency loss, so 125 to 150 watts is probably more realistic. So while it would be possible to run the meter backward for a time, it is still going to be a small part of the day.

Interestingly this is more than enough power to run my 25 cu. ft. refrigerator's compressor...but only while someone is peddling and the fridge doors are closed (incandescent bulbs inside), and the defrost is not cycling (~390 watts IIRC.)

Next thing you know folks will be churning their own butter and hand cranking the ice cream maker... Yep, did both frequently when I was a boy. We had a wood burning cookstove (and yes, we cooked many meals on it during winter) and fireplace, and in another home a potbelly stove with a fan behind it for forced air, etc.

 

What if the game console ran off batteries, and they'd have to charge them up first? If the charge time was longer than the playing time, so much the better.

 

Or walking to work. How pedestrian.

 

It's really shocking how puny human output is... or how wasteful most applications are. I think Lance Armstrong has been measured to produce 500W of power. A horse power is 746W. Burritos... the money angle is absolutely futile. You'd make a lot more money taking your bike out and collecting aluminium along paths and roads and then selling it. You'd be saving a helluva lot more energy that way too.

 

Did that too when I was milking cows, gathering eggs, slopping the hogs, and feeding the goats. Did it again briefly in college when it was only about a 1 mile walk to the work study lab. But since then work has always been too far to walk.

I was going to start riding a bike to work at times, until my office mate was hit by a car doing just that (really nasty leg break with surgeries and slow recuperation.) Of course, I've been hit by a car while running too...but averted any injury by jumping into the air and pivoting over the hood using my arm, landed on my feet, flipped the startled idiot driver off and kept running (I was closing in on a personal best time for that route and the adrenaline rush put me over the top.) :rockon: