The Human Power Plant is a multi-disciplinary research project into the possibility of sustainable energy production based on human power alone.
In a first case study, we designed plans for the conversion of a 22 floor tower building into an entirely human powered student community of 750 people, and built a working prototype of a human power plant.
In the coming months, we focus on two other concrete cases in the Netherlands, aiming to reveal what can be learned from a strictly human powered perspective.
In our second case study, we turn towards a backbone of the Dutch economy, the dredging industry. Sustainability is all about cars and smart appliances, but what about large infrastructure and maintenance works? The Dutch waterways were dredged by hand for centuries, could it be done again?
Human Powered Health Care
In our third case, we investigate the prospects of a human powered health care: hospitals, maternities, and nurseries. Medical treatments keep improving, but they are also based on ever more energy-intensive devices and procedures. So, in a human powered world, which medical treatments are possible, and which ones are not? How many newborns will survive? How old will we become?
As a benchmark of sustainability, human power forces us to make clear choices about what is sustainable and what is not. In the student community, these choices concern the duration of the showers or the composition of the diet. In the dredging operations, these choices refer to the depth of the canals and the draft of the boats. In a human powered hospital, these choices are about life and death.
Benchmark of Sustainability
Could we run a modern society on human power alone? It may sound like a silly question, but it is not. All these years, we have merely been discussing the benchmarks of sustainability. For example, electric cars, solar panels, or atomic power plants are considered sustainable according to some, but unsustainable according to others, leading to endless debates and a waste of time. To bring the discussion to a higher level, and to proceed to action, we need a precise benchmark of sustainability. Human power fits the bill.
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