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107 comments on On likely alternatives to conventional oil

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mcain6925 on November 28, 2005 - 8:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
An article summary here reports that Floyd Landis was measured over the entire course of the Tour de France. Average output, 232 watts. During the final time trial, where he finished sixth, 379 watts for 75 minutes. While training, maximum of 649 watts for five seconds. Figure that the average person at the gym comes in way below those figures... I know that the Tour racers average at least twice the velocity that I can manage, and energy goes up as the square of the velocity, so I figure I would be pressed to put out 60 watts for any kind of sustained time.
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Boof on November 29, 2005 - 1:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
We could have a new unit of power called the 'metabolic'. Normal air pressure of 14 psi or 101 kilopascals is called an 'atmosphere' which is a little more than 1 bar in metric units. To illustrate the term you might put 2.5 atmospheres of air pressure in your tyre. If say 1 metabolic = 200 watts then a middle class person may burn more than 10 'metabolics' or 2000w in continuous averaged use of food, fuels, electricity and embodied energy depreciation of houses and large items. Seen that way that makes us by far the most wasteful animal that ever lived.
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Engineer-Poet on November 29, 2005 - 6:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Per-capita use of energy in the USA is about 10 kW, so you'd be closer to 50 "metabolics".

OTOH, the choice of reference is problematic.  Do you pick an athlete or a couch potato?

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