In the Gym: Clean Energy From Muscle Power

The Green Microgym in Portland, Ore., has all the usual stuff you'd expect — sweaty people, thump-thumping music, sleek exercise equipment — but it has some extras as well. Everywhere you look, there are power cords. And these aren't the typical kind that let you surf the Web while you slog away on a spin cycle or elliptical machine — although you can do that too. The gym uses specially configured exercise equipment that captures the energy you create while pedaling, converts it into electricity and channels it into the power outlets.

The idea of using exercise equipment to generate electricity is not new. A gym in Hong Kong has been doing this since 2007. Lots of music festivals have turned to bicycle generators to power their concerts. And some hipster bars are even making customers pedal for a few minutes to get their pitchers of perfectly blended margaritas.
(See how being green can help troubled businesses.)

But clean (and healthy) energy is just now starting to catch on in U.S. gyms. There are now converters on exercise equipment in more than 80 locations in North America, including My Sports Clubs in New York City and Washington. "We have seen a significant increase in interest in the past six months, which is a good sign that fitness centers are ready to invest in green technologies," says Mike Curnyn, co-founder of the Green Revolution, a Connecticut-based firm that wires bikes into a central battery that can store energy.



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Quick! Cue Republican outrage at this "wasteful and useless" technology.

ships?

or is it just unpaid labor?

in which case, it takes the already humorous idea of paying a gym to "exercise" to a new, more humorous level.

I mean, if it was a donut shop, maybe you could call what was done in there "exercise", but I'm pretty sure that the activities in most gyms, most of the time, fits some definition of actual-no-quotation-marks exercise.

I dunno. There is a segment of the population that tries very hard to stay in shape, and a segment of the population for which such lifestyles are totally alien.

For instance, one person on a properly wired stationary bike could probably generate roughly 200 watts. At that rate, a 20 minute workout would generate enough electricity to run a laptop for about 45 minutes, or a 48" fluorescent light for half an hour. If you have people going constantly on, say, 100 comparable machines for a total of 10 hours a day, you'd generate about $24 worth of electricity in total, per day. If you assumed 200 machines, and 12 hours a day, then it's $57.

Now, when you offset that cost against the many thousands of dollars it costs to provide all the electricity generating equipment, and to wire it back into the standard AC grid, it becomes kind of obvious that it's a trend thing, not an economic thing.

when capitalists scheme to knock a half cent off the price of something to increase their profit, four thousand a year off utility bills ain't hay.

Which is going to have far higher costs for lighting and hot water than any home or most other sorts of businesses. I suspect that would be closer to 10% of their utility bill.

Plus, as I noted, you have to factor in the cost of the equipment. A decent grid-tie inverter for instance, to convert the raw electricity into usable AC, runs at least $5,000, and for an operation like that probably closer to $10 or $15 thousand.

be the monthly payment for a gym.

And I know small businesses, I live in a town where that's almost all there is. I seriously doubt you're going to find a gym with hundreds of members and a $360 a month utility payment.

Thought as much.

several hundred dollars. Free weight plates are $1/pound and up, the bars for the plates are costly, fixed weight dumbbells are not cheap.

Miz O and I both use a gym. We stop by the gym on the way to/from other errands, so no special trip is involved. We have bicycles at home, we can walk/run on the road if we want to but we choose not to. We do yard work.

Going to the gym is an activity we enjoy. Some people spend an equivalent amount of money on tobacco products, which we find quite humorous. Imagine, paying good money to watch the product go up in smoke.