Elliptical machines help keep the lights on
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.
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.
Harr, the founder and CEO of ReRev LLC, a renewable energy company, is working with several large institutions and franchises to put this technology to work in other settings.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-23-2008 @ 9:07AM
UH2L said...
Finally, somebody puts this into practice. I wrote about this exact idea a few months ago...
http://uh2l.blogs.com/things_ive_noticed/2008/05/working-out-isn.html
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6-23-2008 @ 9:20AM
FitnessExpress said...
That's a great idea!!
Double the incentive to work out :)
www.fitnessexpressclubs.com.au
Reply
6-29-2008 @ 9:12PM
landar_c said...
If I remember correctly, our local utility rate is $0.09 per KW--which means they have produced about $13.50 of electrcity.
Not really a whole lot of power--but it is something I guess.
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