I once saw a TV program where they tried something like this. They had a few dozen people on exercise bikes try to power a normal family home. They barely managed even going flat out with a lot of people. Humans aren’t very good for generating electricity. I think it’s basically impossible to get more out of them than you have to feed them. Our future robotic overlords won’t have much use for us.
Demonstrations like that really emphasize just how much energy a modern lifestyle requires. Switching from human power to fossil fuel power let us scale energy use so high without a second thought, just keeping food cold inside a warm room, nevermind traveling at 400 mph.
I once saw a TV program where they tried something like this. They had a few dozen people on exercise bikes try to power a normal family home. They barely managed even going flat out with a lot of people. Humans aren’t very good for generating electricity. I think it’s basically impossible to get more out of them than you have to feed them. Our future robotic overlords won’t have much use for us.
Demonstrations like that really emphasize just how much energy a modern lifestyle requires. Switching from human power to fossil fuel power let us scale energy use so high without a second thought, just keeping food cold inside a warm room, nevermind traveling at 400 mph.