Human Power Plant

Human Power Plant 1.0

+ Human Power Plant 1.1

+ Human Power Plant 1.2

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.

Zero Footprint Campus

Communal Shower & Laundry Floors

Two floors of the human powered student building are dedicated to washing clothes and showering -- the individual student rooms have no bathrooms or washing machines.

Showering and washing clothes both involve the use of hot water, which requires a lot of human power. To make it work, the student community applies low-tech and lifestyle changes.

Moving between Floors: The Stairs

The human powered student tower building has 22 floors and no passenger elevators.

Prototype Human Power Plant Under Construction

Our prototype human power plant now under construction in the Netherlands. Two more pictures below the fold.

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.

For Rent: 750 Human Powered Student Rooms

The human powered Van Unnik Student building can house 750 students in individual rooms, spread over 15 floors. The cheapest rooms are on the north side (no sun) and on the upper floors (there are no elevators in the building).

How to Power a 22 Floors Student Building without Fossil Fuels?

 

The Willem C. Van Unnik building is the tallest building on the campus of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The concrete, steel and glass monolith, which occupies a central position on the campus, was built in the late 1960s and has been mostly empty for the last 15 years. Maintaining it is an important cost for the university, who owns the building.

 

The Human Power Plant proposes to turn a problem into an opportunity by converting the building into student housing that runs entirely on human power. The University of Utrecht has the ambition to become CO2-neutral in 2030. The ecological footprint of the human powered Van Unnik Student Dorm will be close to zero, and the building is already there.

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?