I was thinking of wind-up toy trains vs battery powered toy trains.

Which got me thinking about energy generated by human or animal movement.
Compared to mechanical energy from electrical sources.

(I am not referring to electrical power generated by human movement, that’s an entirely different set of energy losses).
(I am also not referring to power, as in horse-power, only referring to energy)

Human or animal movement would include winding, hand cranking (eg. on a yacht), pedalling, pit ponies, marathon running.
Batteries would go from button cell to AA to cordless drill battery to non-mobile batteries.

How to they compare, in Joules?

mollwollfumble said:

I was thinking of wind-up toy trains vs battery powered toy trains.

Which got me thinking about energy generated by human or animal movement.
Compared to mechanical energy from electrical sources.

(I am not referring to electrical power generated by human movement, that’s an entirely different set of energy losses).
(I am also not referring to power, as in horse-power, only referring to energy)

Human or animal movement would include winding, hand cranking (eg. on a yacht), pedalling, pit ponies, marathon running.
Batteries would go from button cell to AA to cordless drill battery to non-mobile batteries.

How to they compare, in Joules?

biological processes are always very inefficient.

party_pants said:

mollwollfumble said:

I was thinking of wind-up toy trains vs battery powered toy trains.

Which got me thinking about energy generated by human or animal movement.
Compared to mechanical energy from electrical sources.

(I am not referring to electrical power generated by human movement, that’s an entirely different set of energy losses).
(I am also not referring to power, as in horse-power, only referring to energy)

Human or animal movement would include winding, hand cranking (eg. on a yacht), pedalling, pit ponies, marathon running.
Batteries would go from button cell to AA to cordless drill battery to non-mobile batteries.

How to they compare, in Joules?

biological processes are always very inefficient.

Bring back the treadmill!

Good Luck getting people to ever put on a mask again
…however…

Harvesting power from breathing

…after all…
‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good’.

How to Turn Your Body Into a Renewable Power Plant

> Bring back the treadmill!

That’s what I’m sort of thinking. Pedal powered motorbikes.

> Good Luck getting people to ever put on a mask again

Good luck getting a mask that actually seals around the face.

I’ve been copying down battery power figures for a range of different batteries.
For people, it’s easy to find “efficiency loss” tabulated, but the power quoted doesn’t say whether it was measured before the efficiency loss or after, Grrrr.