How difficult is it, really, to assemble a man-powered (bicycle-style, for instance) generator and battery system to provide auxiliary power for a dwelling? Does anyone happen to know? It's one of the odd things that's on my 'hey, that'd be nifty' list, but I don't know how difficult or expensive it would actually be.
(We just had a short power outage in this area due to the heavy storms, and I started wondering how difficult it would really be to have a backup plan.)
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Comments: 37
At least in Jersey when the power goes off, it's not for long. Ours was off for a whole of 2 min. today/tonight around 6pm.
I would just get a gas powered generator from home depot if you were that worried about it.
Pedal Powered Generator
Making a cycle powered generator
Oh, and...it would really help to have the thighs like Lance Armstrong. The more power your trying to produce, the more difficult it will be to peddle.
If your wanting to just keep yourself out of the dark, for a little while, and maybe run a little fan etc, it would probably be able to set up a small solar panel, one car battery, and some 12 volt bulbs. I've got my out house set up, like this, and I've got heating, in winter, and light available 24/7/365. If you want more power, for longer, I still recommend going solar. Not so much work.
( I could not think of his name so I asked my hubby !!!)
Two ways to estimate the power available:
1. At the most, a very fit person might expend an extra 1000 kcalories in a day from exercise; just convert that to Joules/day and then to Watts.
2. Use knowledge of how fast a person can cycle up an n degree incline at a steady pace. Power = Force x speed; here, force is the graviational acceleration.
Anyway, probably not much power (else we would be heating our homes from just body heat); but could be fun to charge a battery on a UPS.
I have considered getting an emergency generator for longer outages, and was just reading about some in a catalog. www.heartlandamerica.com has some for pretty cheap and many will run for 7-8 hours on a small tank of gas and give quite a bit of wattage.
On the other hand, the cost of cycling outside in nature as opposed to in front of the TV is just a few Joules.
Perhaps a silly idea would be to market a bicycle charger for the bicycle commuter for mobile devices like cell phones, ipods and suchlike. That would work...how many people want it..I don't know.