A good experiment! If you didn't see it they got cyclists in to power a family home for day. 70 people to roast a chicken, I was amazed.

I watched it. Did that family actually speak to each other during the course of the day? They looked like quite a miserable bunch.

70 to roast a chicken??!!??

Puts some premier footballers to shame.

I've got a gas oven so thats OK.

Now, if the cyclists had to produce the gas for any gas appliances…..

lol BJ

I found the factor of leaving stuff on standbye meant 2 cyclists hit home, switched everything off last night.

I could produce enough gas in a day to roast a chicken all by myself.

Yeah I watched it cos a friend of mine was one of the cyclists – I think she got about 2 seconds of airtime in the background!
What got me was how wasteful normal bulbs are – I kind of knew that anyway but seeing the heat produced from 2 60W filament lightbulbs being used to cook a chicken in a special oven was pretty impressive.

Yep only about 5% of the energy is turned into light.
So they're basically heaters with the bonus of putting out a bit of light 🙂

What got me was how wasteful normal bulbs are – I kind of knew that anyway but seeing the heat produced from 2 60W filament lightbulbs being used to cook a chicken in a special oven was pretty impressive.

That made me want to go and buy some normal bulbs 🙂

So what percentage of energy used from modern 'low energy' bulbs is actually emitted as light?

Bout 20% I think. Still basically a heater then (just look at Trouties light!)

So they're basically heaters with the bonus of putting out a bit of light

Good news as our lounge is freezing. More lights is the answer.

Well i just coughed up £4200 on new windows/doors and a new combi boiler.

House is now toasty warm & draught free – but with no job i can't afford to turn the heating on!

*actually not too bad, just found out i'm £180 in credit with the energy Co so not worried 'bout the winter now. 😀

does this mean it is more efficient to use 120W of light bulbs to cook a chicken than it is to use a normal electric oven? Surely an oven uses more than 120W?

So then – what can the oven be used for?

If we use the bulbs for cooking, the oven as a heat pump for the freezer and the freezer as a well insulated bath….

The prog is now on iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p8469/Bang_Goes_the_Theory_The_Human_Power_Station/

Looks interesting!

I was one of them cyclists ❗

'Twas bloomin hard work ❗

Interesting thing was that the BBC had completely underestimated how much food/drinks we would require to keep energy levels topped up. Initially there were no plans for food or drinks during the day, but after the "dress rehersal" on Saturday it was very quickly realised that they needed to supply energy to keep us going 🙄

Also, after seeing the programe, i now think the "black out" was staged for effect 😐 After all we had done during the day there is no way we couldn't produce what was required at that stage……

yep agree the blackout was staged, the power drop off was so quick yet nothng extra was being used over the full load you coverd when the shower was on. but it was for affect so that the message got accross that we could be seeing powercuts if we do not cut back demand or build new power stations

Couple of questions:

1) are the presenters as annoying in real life as they appear on TV?

2) how much oil/gas/coal would be needed to produce the same power? – i think that would have been a nice comparison

Good programme to illustrate the amount of energy it takes to generate electricity.

Not sure about the basis of science used however. Someone pedalling a bike to generate electricity must be immensely inefficient means of converting energy consumed to electricity??

one of my college lecturers was on that!

I was also one of the cyclists.

It was a cracking day and a bit of an eye opener, especially when you are the one generating the power.

CaptJon – The comparison was in the show, 1.5 litres of oil, Not sure the weight but about a bucket of coal.
The presenters were ok, to be fair to that Gem chap he did actually put in a bit of effort to try and help out.

By my computer we cycled for 10.5 hours. We did a 5 hour stint then the family according to the show went for a walk (they were taken out for lunch by the crew) we had a 2 hour break then 5.5 hours in the afternoon. In all the cyclists generated about £1 of electricity. There weren't enough cyclists to swap over that much in the afternoon because a few people found it too hard and disappeared at lunch time. 4 of use were there from Treads Cycle Club and apart from the lunch the only break was a 2 minute loo break.

At no point do I remember a black out, the needle did edge towards the black line but that was it.

I think some of the people who took part had a bit of a shock as well. They weren't all cyclists, some just replied from an advert in a gym, and struggled to put power through the pedals. In the afternoon the organizers were walking round with a power meter checking peoples output. A chap in front was mortified when he was told he was only producing 25 watts I was producing 185 watts (he'd been in the small ring all day) he tried putting it in the big ring but that only lasted about 2 minutes.

I went with Mcobie (further up this post) and I wish they had spent some more time talking about our energy. As Mcobie said the organizers were not going to allow any food or drink to be consumed while riding. I had a heart Rate monitor on and had to show the organizers just how long a 'nutri grain' bar (thats all they had for food) lasts in terms of minutes. Needless to say one of the crew strolled in about an hour later ladened with tesco bags.

There is an article about it on the daily mail site 'click here' The comments below are so funny, One daily mail reader even thinks we got paid loads of money for it… Daily mail readers what and amusing bunch of people.

All in all a good day and 10.5 hours on a turbo wasn't as boring as I thought it was going to be. It was filmed in September and I still haven't eaten a Nutri Grain bar since

The comparison was in the show, 1.5 litres of oil, Not sure the weight but about a bucket of coal.

I must have missed that bit. That seems amazing, and is a far more interesting fact than the number of cyclists it takes to power a house.

Was interesting indeed.

No mention of the heating decrease if we all switch to energy saving bulbs though. Surely if they put out that much heat, we'll have to all turn up the heating?

I missed the beginning, what was the dial supposed to be showing? It said Volts but the numbers were only double digits? Surely current or something would have been a better measure?