Burning Human Fat...Is This The Ultimate Clean 'Green' Energy Source?
Dr. Paul Lanthois
October 30, 2008
Without claiming to be the worlds leading authority on all issues, I see the three greatest challenges facing the world as being:
1) The Global Financial Crisis
2) Global Warming / Environmental Crisis
3) The Obesity Epidemic
A recent letter in the Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews by Dr. Filippo Boriano and Dr. Mariano Bocchiotti from the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Turin, Italy showed that there might be a novel way that you can combat all three issues in one.
Let´s first look at obesity…
Why is obesity reaching pandemic proportions?
The answer is simple…eating too much and not moving enough.
We know the solution is to get off our backsides and start exercising. The challenge is that most people who are obese are increasingly likely to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. To anyone who is struggling for money, expensive exercise equipment or gym memberships is regarded as a luxury that they could do without. The problem is that when people don´t exercise regularly the whole community ends up paying a price in the form of increased taxes, health insurance premiums and working days lost due to illness. And let´s not forget the emotional impact on families.
So what can be done to motivate the financially strapped to exercise? And what has the environment got to do with it?
How about using the excess in unhealthy human fat deposits as a source of ´green´ energy?
We already know that a man´s moderate pedaling can develop 100kW of power. In Japan, there are already electronic devices on the market that can recharge batteries of MP3 players or mobile phones through human pedaling.
Treadmills, exercise bikes and rowing machines fitted with devices to help convert the physical energy into electricity would then become income-producing assets. Companies then have a social, financial incentive to complement their savings from a healthier workplace to supply such equipment for their employees at work or at home.
Gyms could become ´human fat farms´ where people could exercise for free as long as they create a certain amount of clean green electricity that the gyms could, in turn sell for profit.
An even more original idea is using the energy produced by dancers jumping up and down on the dance floor being converted into energy. A nightclub in Rotterdam, Holland has implemented such a system to cover a lot of their electrical expenses. (To all you engineers out there, they do this by transducing the pressure variations in electrical energy by means of piezoelectric transducers.) It is possible for shops and business to save money by using some similar system in their carpet and flooring.
If we can further develop such equipment so that it is commercially viable for industry it would help to make exercise affordable for the overweight. Rather than becoming a chore, exercise could then be seen as a way of making a difference to the world. It could help financially and socially motivate the obese and overweight to participate in useful, socializing and healthy physical activity and end up making a difference to the emotional issues that often come with concerns about their body image.
1) The Global Financial Crisis
2) Global Warming / Environmental Crisis
3) The Obesity Epidemic
A recent letter in the Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews by Dr. Filippo Boriano and Dr. Mariano Bocchiotti from the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Turin, Italy showed that there might be a novel way that you can combat all three issues in one.
Let´s first look at obesity…
Why is obesity reaching pandemic proportions?
The answer is simple…eating too much and not moving enough.
We know the solution is to get off our backsides and start exercising. The challenge is that most people who are obese are increasingly likely to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. To anyone who is struggling for money, expensive exercise equipment or gym memberships is regarded as a luxury that they could do without. The problem is that when people don´t exercise regularly the whole community ends up paying a price in the form of increased taxes, health insurance premiums and working days lost due to illness. And let´s not forget the emotional impact on families.
So what can be done to motivate the financially strapped to exercise? And what has the environment got to do with it?
How about using the excess in unhealthy human fat deposits as a source of ´green´ energy?
We already know that a man´s moderate pedaling can develop 100kW of power. In Japan, there are already electronic devices on the market that can recharge batteries of MP3 players or mobile phones through human pedaling.
Treadmills, exercise bikes and rowing machines fitted with devices to help convert the physical energy into electricity would then become income-producing assets. Companies then have a social, financial incentive to complement their savings from a healthier workplace to supply such equipment for their employees at work or at home.
Gyms could become ´human fat farms´ where people could exercise for free as long as they create a certain amount of clean green electricity that the gyms could, in turn sell for profit.
An even more original idea is using the energy produced by dancers jumping up and down on the dance floor being converted into energy. A nightclub in Rotterdam, Holland has implemented such a system to cover a lot of their electrical expenses. (To all you engineers out there, they do this by transducing the pressure variations in electrical energy by means of piezoelectric transducers.) It is possible for shops and business to save money by using some similar system in their carpet and flooring.
If we can further develop such equipment so that it is commercially viable for industry it would help to make exercise affordable for the overweight. Rather than becoming a chore, exercise could then be seen as a way of making a difference to the world. It could help financially and socially motivate the obese and overweight to participate in useful, socializing and healthy physical activity and end up making a difference to the emotional issues that often come with concerns about their body image.