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That's a Lot of Watts! (What?)
16 years ago
General
I've been going to the gym on a regular basis now and in the cardio room, they have exercise cycles that will not only read out how many watts you're generating, but some can be set to force you to produce a certain amount of wattage. Which is weird, because the slower you pedal, the harder it gets...
I think we have no idea how much energy a watt is! I can pedal a steady 100-110 watts, but it's work. And it only takes 150-160 watts to put me at my target heart rate (150 BPM). And believe you me, I am sweating it out at that point. 200 watts would be completely unsustainable for me. And I'm not the strongest bicyclist that ever lived, but I'm no slouch either. My legs have always been strong.
So when we go talking about 500/600/800-watt computer power supplies, or 400-watt video cards... I think we have no idea how much energy that really is. Find one of those exercise cycles (for those of you who have access to them) and see what it takes to pedal out 100, 150 or even 200 watts. The idea of hooking your TV to a pedal-generator to force you to exercise while watching might just fly out the window.
Now for the petrolheads in the audience, let's tie this all together: 1 horsepower is about 550 watts. I DARE you to go into the gym and cycle out 550 watts. I know I sure can't. But that is a single horsepower, and here we are driving around in cars that put out hundreds of them without a whimper. Mine does 240 horse. So 240x550 is 132,000 watts! And that's a 'modest' performance car. Do you even want to get into the 500+ horsepower sports cars?
By that calculation, the Bugatti Veyron's glorious quad-turbo W16 lays down 550,550 watts.
That is a LOT of Watts!
I think we have no idea how much energy a watt is! I can pedal a steady 100-110 watts, but it's work. And it only takes 150-160 watts to put me at my target heart rate (150 BPM). And believe you me, I am sweating it out at that point. 200 watts would be completely unsustainable for me. And I'm not the strongest bicyclist that ever lived, but I'm no slouch either. My legs have always been strong.
So when we go talking about 500/600/800-watt computer power supplies, or 400-watt video cards... I think we have no idea how much energy that really is. Find one of those exercise cycles (for those of you who have access to them) and see what it takes to pedal out 100, 150 or even 200 watts. The idea of hooking your TV to a pedal-generator to force you to exercise while watching might just fly out the window.
Now for the petrolheads in the audience, let's tie this all together: 1 horsepower is about 550 watts. I DARE you to go into the gym and cycle out 550 watts. I know I sure can't. But that is a single horsepower, and here we are driving around in cars that put out hundreds of them without a whimper. Mine does 240 horse. So 240x550 is 132,000 watts! And that's a 'modest' performance car. Do you even want to get into the 500+ horsepower sports cars?
By that calculation, the Bugatti Veyron's glorious quad-turbo W16 lays down 550,550 watts.
That is a LOT of Watts!
My car has less wattage than yours :[
Also...THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS! (Kung Pow reference)
Because I think you'd get a kick out of this little tidbit...
1500 Kcal = the stored energy in one pound of fat cells.
Just think of all of the electrical power we could have if you could plug in the fatfurs and drain 'em down! *evil grins*