Post by @sparkyshocks@lemmy.zip

2026-09-25 16:46 UTC

‘Wind is intermittent so it can’t be used’ therefore we need ‘household bike generators’… Human power cannot come anywhere close to our energy needs. We’d be lucky to get 1000 kcals per day of useful locomotion from a human powered generator. That’s basically the equivalent of a very fit person biking for 20 miles (32 km) per day, into a machine that captures that energy with perfect efficiency. That would translate into about 1.1 kWh per person, per day. Compare that to actual electricity consumption per capita. The world total is 3.9 MWh/year per capita, which translates into 10.6 kWh/day. Developed/Western countries use even more: North America uses 36.6 kWh/day/person, Europe uses 16.8 kWh/day/person. And that doesn’t include direct combustion of fuels (biofuels, fossil fuels) for heating or transportation, either, and only represents grid electricity usage.

Replies (2)

@skibidi@lemmy.world 2026-09-25 17:22

Human power cannot come anywhere close to our energy needs Tell that to the article author and their rather unhinged view of our energy future. To be clear, I completely agree with you. I was responding to the article itself which starts out as reasonable-sounding directives to re-wild ecosystems to build climate resilience and then devolves into this strange science-denying anarcho-ecologism. The bike generators are suggested seemingly seriously and are such a glaringly implausible idea that it sullies the entire piece.

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@UnequalExchange@lemmy.world 2026-09-28 06:54

do you have any source for that number about the amount of power genrrated from a human please? also a source about the efficiency with which different forms of generation translate to energy? Also I find it devastating that places like the global north and oceania use some of the largest amounts of energy but the people st the Equator will oay the highest price for this in the next 50-200 years…

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