As we’ve noted previously, there is some irony in the way people use gyms. In many parts of the country people sit in traffic in their cars to drive to a gym to work out. And then at the gyms, these places aren’t exactly the greenest operated businesses. There are the treadmills, the music system, the air-conditioning and of course those walls of TVs. The irony is that people are burning a lot of calories, but we’ve already seen some gyms work up ways to recapture some of that effort and put it back into power.
We heard about Portland’s Green Microgym, which has the equipment capture and send some of the energy back into the electrical grid. Because the equipment needs power to operate, as well as those TVs, the lights and air conditioning it is currently impossible or any gym to actually generate more power than it needs to run, but some equipment could do more than it’s part.
According to reports some of the equipment can actually generate more power than it draws, notably a spin bike during an intensive class. This is of course because most spin bikes need practically no electricity, other than possible a speedometer or cycle computer. Thus with every pedal stroke the riders produce energy. Pedal power can make gyms greener.
[Via Voice of America: Exercisers Burn Energy While Creating it]
