solar powered bike lights

solar powered bike lights

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Teaching people how to go green was never even a brief thought in the minds of the creators of 1960's TV show Gilligan's Island. Nor was the show intended to be a showcase for future scientific developments. Nevertheless, there are some lessons on how to go green and some harbingers of green technology that have come from that sitcom, even if this came about entirely inadvertently.

You may recall that the Professor created a few devices that required a human to pedal or make other movements, capturing the human energy expended and converting it into electricity or other useful energy. I can still picture episodes in which Gilligan or another character sat on a bicycle-like contraption, pedaling away to generate electricity to charge batteries or power a device for the islanders.

Now this concept of human-generated electricity is becoming a commercial reality. Green guru Ed Begley, Jr. has an exercise bike that he rides in the morning to generate the electricity to make his toast. The Green Gym in Detroit has set up 10 stationary exercise bikes that convert the energy from pedaling into electricity for the gym. The Green Microgym in Portland, Oregon has exercise bikes that use the electricity generated form pedaling to power the televisions and music system. IN addition, the gym has installed a four-person machine called Team Dynamo, which harnesses the collective power of all the exercisers as they pedal and turn hand cranks. Better than just exercise bikes alone, the hand cranks add a rigorous upper-body workout to the spinning and capture additional human energy as electricity.

Yet another example is the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark. The hotel has set up exercise bikes that allow guests to provide power to the building and monitor the amount of electricity that they generate while pedaling. And the innovative hotel management has then gone even further. Guests can earn a free, locally-produced (and therefore, greener) meal by generating at least 10 watt hours of electricity. What does this mean in practical terms? If you can pedal for 6 minutes at an average speed of 20 miles per hour, you can earn a free meal. That is not too demanding. The hotel openly admits that it wanted to set the minimum for earning a meal to be something achievable for more than just the fittest few of its guests. In this way, the hotel is encouraging people to get fit and help power the hotel at the same time (but mostly, just to get fit).

A UK-based company called Pavegen Systems is on the verge of taking the Gilligan's Island example a "step" further as well. The company has created a patented sidewalk slab that, when stepped on by someone while walking, converts the energy of the step into electricity. Paving stones have already been installed in the eastern part of London for testing. Pedestrians can see the power their steps generate by the illumination of a small light on the paving stone.

Who knew that Gilligan's Island was so far ahead of its time?

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Solar Power Energy Bike Bicycle Tail Light from Dinodirect.com