Human Power Plant

Human Powered Neighbourhood: The Household of the Future

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We are in 2030 and the Dutch neighbourhood Bospolder-Tussendijken (BoTu) is 100% carbon neutral. To radically reduce energy use, all household tasks are organised communally. Cooking, eating, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, showering, brushing teeth, going to the toilet: it all happens outside the individual household. Consequently, energy use in individual households has become so small that they can be disconnected, not only from the gas network but also from the power grid.

This Dutch Neighbourhood Runs 100% on Human Power, Biomass, Sun and Wind

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We are in 2030. Bospolder-Tussendijken (BoTu), once one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, has become completely independent of fossil fuels. The neighbourhood has achieved this without the use of expensive technology and infrastructure. Energy production relies entirely on locally available resources: human power and biomass, supplemented by wind and solar power if the weather allows it. Energy use has decreased radically, while welfare has increased spectacularly.

Human Power Plant: Energy Poverty

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In a new scenario, the Human Power Plant will convert an entire area in Rotterdam into a fossil fuel free society. Bospolder-Tussendijken (BoTu) is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Netherlands, and has been selected as a testing ground for the energy transition. Because it is not clear who will pay for the government's high-tech plans, we propose an alternative that is affordable.

A first impression of the neighborhood in 2030.

Dredging Colony Friesland -- The Exhibition

Dredging Colony Friesland re-introduces human power as an energy source in the Netherlands. Dredging by hand is sustainable and provides work for thousands of people, who all become an active part of the landscape.

Dredging Colony Friesland -- The Movie

In late May we organised a manual dredging workshop in Drachten, the Netherlands. The aim was to calculate how many people would be needed to dredge out the province and the whole country by hand. Here are the results. 

How to Dredge Out the Netherlands without Fossil Fuels

The dredging industry has been the backbone of the Dutch economy for centuries. If canals, harbours and rivers weren't dredged out for a few years, the whole country would literally grind to a halt.

Today, dredging happens with oil powered ships. However, the Dutch waterways were dredged mostly by hand for centuries, using simple but ingenious tools. Could it be done again?

Two New Case Studies

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. 

The Power Generation Floors

Three floors of the human powered student building are taken up by the central human power plant, which is run by the entire community. How long the students need to exercise on these floors, depends only on their demand for energy.

The Power Potential of Various Exercise Machines

Exercise machines for strength training can produce a lot of power in a very short time, making them an interesting addition to stationary cycling machines for human power generation.

How to Motivate Human Power?

Painting: The slave market, Gustave Boulanger, 1882.

Unlike solar and wind energy, human power is always available. However, unlike a windmill, a solar panel or an oil barrel, human power needs to be motivated in order to produce energy. If we make a switch to human power production, would everybody generate their own power for the sake of sustainability? Would people pay others to do it for them? Or, would they force others to do it for them?