Environmental Protection: Will Green Gyms Be Part of Our Energy Solution?

If you watch the news, then it seems like everyone has a contribution to make to the future of energy solution. Wind, solar, hydro-electric, OTEC, tidal energy, and some people are even trying to harness the power of sheer gravity. However, there is a source of power that has cropped up in the news from time to time that we haven’t fully tapped into yet. A power source that, if we were to embrace it fully, could solve the obesity epidemic while contributing to the ongoing need for energy.

People-powered gyms.

Wasn’t There A Black Mirror Episode About That?

While it does sound a touch dystopian, people have been generating electricity using fitness-style equipment for quite a long time. In 2015 gyms in England started using bikes, treadmills, and other types of equipment to help cut the facility’s power use, according to The Guardian. Most of these machines already use the energy you make to power their displays, but the excess electricity can be used to help keep the lights on and the TVs running, cutting sharply into the amount of power that a gym uses during the day.

It’s not just England, either. As EcoSalon points out, these gyms are growing in popularity across the U.S., and other parts of the world. And while they are only a tiny source of potential energy at the moment, they represent a huge potential in terms of energy reduction, and public health gains. Because if you could join a gym that produced enough electricity to genuinely impact the electric grid, and your membership fee got smaller the more power you produced with your workouts, wouldn’t that sound like a win-win situation to you?

And if everyone currently going to the gym could turn their burning calories toward this cause, how different would our energy consumption look?

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