| How Many Corndogs Does it Take to Power a TV Broadcast |
| Written by Hank Green | ||
| Thursday, 16 August 2007 | ||
 In an exciting experiment concerning energy content of fried food, a Minnesota television station, WCCO, is going to attempt to power several television broadcasts from the Minnesota State Fiar with fair go-ers on bicycles. Not only will they save on generator fuel, but I imagine it's getting them some good press as well.The fair starts in about a week, and the WCCO team will be setting up their normal news coverage except that they will have a "power core" consisting of several electricity-generating bicycles. They're going to try to use these bikes to power the entire set up while they broadcast fair news live. So why would we even try something this wacky? Because we wanted to see if it could be done. We wanted to see how much power we use for a newscast at the fair … or maybe it was just because we wanted to know how many corn dog calories it took to create a watt of energy. The fair is twelve days long, and WCCO will be attempting to power three broadcasts with the bikes. I have no idea how much power a news van uses, so I can't give odds on whether they'll be successful. But I will say that the maximum power output of a typical fair goer is likely to be around 300 watts. Enough to power a personal computer and monitor. Without batteries for storing the power, it's not gonna be easy. Way to go WCCO. See Also: -Muscle Power to Electric Power- -Sun Wind Strength Bike- -Power Output of Healthier Americans-
Comments
(6)
300 watts?????
written by rob , August 17, 2007
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written by jack , August 17, 2007
I saw (ok..heard) the same thing on The Naked Scientists Kitchen Science segment. I don't think they'll manage much.
Efficiency
written by Hank , August 17, 2007
You can definitely get 300 watts out of an efficient generator. Of course, that would be a fairly expensive machine. But I've seen home made designs where people can keep a PC up and running without going all-out.
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written by Joel , August 18, 2007
How many watts in a calorie? Wow.
I guess I've heard worse science mistakes in my time, but that's pretty bad. It's like asking how fast an inch is.
Calorie to watt
written by Mike , August 20, 2007
One calorie = 4.18 to 4.2 Joules depending on the type of calorie and 1 watt equals 1 Joule per second so I don't see why you can't convert.
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written by celia , November 23, 2007
Such articles make me hungry.
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So I hope they have a large and willing supply of keen cyclists.