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?
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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.
Located on the roof of the Human Powered Student building are ten Skystream windturbines. Together, these can supply 20 kW of power with a strong breeze (11 m/s).
Whenever it’s windy, human energy production is taken over by the wind turbines. During windy periods, students thus enjoy free and effortless energy use. Daily working duties are reduced or eliminated.
The lower floors of the human powered student building are reserved for communal energy production. How long the students need to exercise on these floors depends on their demand for power. Because the energy users are also the energy producers, there’s a strong incentive to reduce energy demand.
The human powered student building is self-sufficient in terms of energy use and produces no CO2. However, humans need extra food when they produce power, and producing this food also requires energy.
Assuming a typical Dutch diet, one kilowatt-hour of human generated electricity produces up to 30 times more greenhouse gases than one kilowatt-hour of grid electricity. How do we keep the human powered community carbon neutral?
The Human Power Plant is a working prototype of a muscular power generator, manned by a group of people. We cooperate with makers and sports coaches to build exercise machines that are suited for different types of human power sources, are fun and social to use, and produce a maximum amount of power.
The Human Power Plant is an all-round off-the-grid solution. It can supply energy anywhere and anytime, provided that humans can be motivated to operate it. The power plant supplies energy in the form of electricity, water under pressure, and compressed air. It is built from simple and durable parts.
The food waste from the kitchen and the excrements of 750 students are used to produce biogas that supplies the thermal energy for cooking.