HOW FAR THE ENERGY CONSERVATION VIA BICYCLE CAN BE IMPLEMENTED?
HOW FAR THE ENERGY CONSERVATION VIA BICYCLE CAN BE IMPLEMENTED?
Sounds hilarious! Not at all. It is the matter of a true fact that the bicycle can help in energy conservation. Most of us could not find enough time in exercising and bicycling is one of the best ways to keep you physically active. You can also go to school, colleges, universities or workplace with bicycle or else you can also prefer going neighbourhood on the bicycle which will benefit you in terms of health as well as you could spend less money on the energy source. Bicycling is the most convenient and proper way to incorporate exercise in your daily routine activity if you find no time.
Energy conservation is high in bicycle since there is minimal use of fossil fuels and it does not emit any kind of pollutants. A study says cycling 10 km can eventually end up in saving nearly 1500 Kg of greenhouse gases. (1) People are likely to die because of air pollution which can be cut down using the bicycle.
Each and every time when a highway is built or roads are widened there are many numbers of trees subjected to damage. Opting for bicycle could conserve space and protects the greens, ensuring the oxygen level maintenance. (2)
Bicycle Energy Harvesting
Bicycling is a rich source to harvest the enormous amount of kinetic energy. There are two ideal methods in which energy can be harvested. The first method is collecting the energy from the rotational motion of the wheels. The simple principle involved is the rotational force of peddling the bike causing the wheels to spin, this spins a rotor that spins a generator, ultimately producing electricity which can be stored in a battery. Already MIT researchers developed the Copenhagen Wheel, a device that uses the wheel’s rotation to charge a battery that automatically powers the back wheel, creating a self-sustaining electric bike.
While this is a legitimate usage of the stored energy, I envision the potential of this energy-harnessing capability on a more global humanitarian scale. Conservatively estimating that a device applied to both wheels could harvest 1/3 of the energy output, an average bike ride being 30 minutes long, gives 33.3 Watt-hours of energy. Though the outcome is a very less amount of energy, approaching this value from a global scale, assuming 400 million bike rides of 30 minutes long bike in a year (a conservative estimate, considering that in recent years bicycle production has climbed to over 100 million per year), that would yield over 13 million kW. Although this value is only a fraction of the World Energy Consumption, bikes are nonetheless a source of wasted potential energy. (3)
The second method uses the small-scale motions of bicycling. For example, weaving back-and-forth to maintain balance. Yang et al. researched microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to harvest energy from the natural balancing motion of riding a bike, they could harvest an average of 8mW/10sec or about 3W/hr. This is evidently a less efficient energy harvesting practice. (4)
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