Reply #56: Here is my "back of the napkin" calculation on that... [View All]

To keep this simple, lets assume the home uses 720KWh (kilowatt-hours) per month. (I seem to remember that was about average in Canada.. one of those silly facts that stuck in my head and I cant get rid of.. anyway).

Since Energy = Power x Time... and there are also 720 hours in a 30 day month.. we can assume for argument sake our "Household Hamster Wheel" would need to produce and store a days energy use - 24KWh or 1KW of energy every hour. (on average)

Of course since we dont want to spend all day on our wheel, it would be best if we could exercise for 1 hour and generate the days energy needs.

Then the question becomes, can a human generate 24KW in 1 hour ?



As you can see the best of cyclists generate about .8hp (horsepower) or about 600watts (1hp = apprx 746 watts)

Likewise, if this uber-cyclists could maintain a crank RPM of 150 for 1 hour, he/she would only generate approx .6KW
Even if they could maintain that pace for a full 24 hrs, they would only generate 14.4KW. 9.6KW shy of the daily 24KW target.

Anyway...these are all just averages and ball park figures.. .but I wanted to look it up after reading all the post on this thread and this is what I determined.

Hope that helps...

MZr7