Inverter (electrical)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An inverter is an electrical device that converts direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC); the resulting AC can be at any required voltage and frequency with the use of appropriate transformers, switching, and control circuits.
Highest thanks to my friends at Imagine Weblog who’ve waited patiently for a new article. I have moved my music and fiction and my body (mostly intact) out to a very new place. More on this later. Enjoy…
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I worked out this week on a seven day trial pass at the 24 Hour Fitness on Sunset in Hollywood. “It’s intimidating,” a newly found friend had told me one night while we drank wine and ate chocolate, played music while I watched the fiery, hazy pink and red sunset through her balcony windows. “All the beautiful people go there.” She’s a twenty something beauty herself, an LA sophisticate who lives in a penthouse condominium in West Hollywood, so if she found this place intimidating, I had to try it.
It was kind of stupid, actually. I stayed for two hours my first day. I had missed my time in the fitness room at Kripalu, missed the workout, the satisfaction and sore muscles and I was making up for lost time. Kripalu is a world famous yoga retreat center in the heart of the forested Berkshires, a quiet, womb-like atmosphere where it would be as appropriate to sit and meditate for two hours as it would be to blast your quads on the Nautilus machine. This sure wasn’t Kripalu. On the other hand, I felt a burst of energy from all the people, the collective. I loved that I could see the Hollywood Hills from one part of the gym, and I found my way into a yoga class at the end with a great teacher and some very nice people inside, but that’s about the extent of my praise for the place. It looked to me like they oversell their membership: at times you have people actually sitting idle, waiting for a machine. I used the elliptical machine for forty minutes, a little light weight training with free weights, then stretched and did yoga for the rest of my time there. I did this for three out of the seven days, day on, day off. I enjoyed it, although not the five story parking lot and not the hustle from a manager who wanted me to pay first, last and a middle month and sold like a Buick salesman with a drive to conquer the world. I find it very strange they would insist on such a policy in our current economic climate. You’re looking at a gym membership for God’s sakes, not buying a condominium. I needed the exercise though, and I was grateful for the opportunity. Also, I found there was a strange kind of energy surge associated with the environment.
I looked up at the mute TV monitors on the ceiling my first night there.
LA Fitness Killer the closed captioning read. Kills 5. Shoots 15.
I looked around.
Is there a more absurd example of modern life than to see people lined up on exercise machines, pedaling or stepping their way to nowhere? I just can’t help but remember we’re burning fossil fuels to make electricity to send to 24 Hour Fitness so people can run in place on a treadmill. This does not make sense. In LA, those same people sat in traffic a good part of their day, more fossil fuels burning, more shit spewing up into the air. The traffic they can’t help, but with the treadmills there has to be a better way. I like the elliptical machine. I feel it’s a better workout anyway: low impact and works much of your body in the process, and it’s off the grid. I just don’t feel right about someone burning coal so I can run in place on a rotating rubber band.
Maybe there’s more we can do toward a solution here. You’re spending energy when you work out; why not install inverters to feed a battery, store this and use it to run the lights? Why not use every pull on the Nautilus machine, every revolution on the bike? This seems so ripe for the plucking to me. Entrepreneurs, this is gold! Let’s look at a few pluses:
-Your business will get good press for being environmentally conscious, “green points” as they say. What a marketing hook.
-You can use some of the capital you save on energy costs to offer amenities to your members, like complimentary spring water and bathrooms that don’t reek of piss (things our vaunted West Hollywood fitness center appeared to be lacking).
-People will go to your gym not only to stay in shape and healthy, for the quality of the machines and facilities, but because they love to go to get involved with a business that appears to have a reasonably sane approach, one in which they are actually doing something helpful and sustainable while they’re at it. What’s more, they will look down at the tiny meter attached to their nautilus machine or their stationary bike and know they are in some small way helping to mitigate our march toward catastrophe rather than mindlessly contributing to it. All of this while doing something they were going to do that afternoon anyway.
-The ambiance will be conscious and uplifting, something we could all use more of, and something that will bring people in to your new business and keep them coming back.
What an incentive to work out. Every pull on that machine, every turn on the bicycle and you are making a small contribution to save the planet. Also, if the business starts doing well, how about putting in a juice bar and internet café? This place will be so hot! These fast food style chains are just ripe to be knocked off by someone with an actual plan, by a business model with a soul.
The air crackles with this idea, it appears, as this morning I found two examples of people doing exactly what I suggested above.
I found this guy, who’s been refining his design for a pedal power generator for decades:
And, voila. Ask and you shall receive. The owner of The Green Microgym in Portland, Oregon had my idea long before I did (thank you Adam), and even offers the incentive programs I had in mind, or better. It’s like a dream:
GREEN GYM CREATES ELECTRICITY WITH HUMAN POWER
Exercise machines “Plug Out” into a 120 volt wall outlet and feed the grid.
Portland’s Green Microgym has been getting a lot of national and international attention this fall, and has taken another step toward its goal of creating as much electricity as it uses.
The facility currently uses a combination of solar and human powered electricity. The environmentally-friendly concept is inspired by founder Adam Boesel’s interest in helping solve two of America’s greatest problems: obesity and global warming.

Some of the exercise equipment has been configured so that human effort generates electricity that can power some of the facility’s needs. Recently, Boesel found a 250 Watt Grid Tie Inverter from Europe and got approval from the power company and the city to use it with his machines on a test basis. The inverter, intended for use with solar panels and small wind turbines is unique in that it plugs into a normal household wall outlet to feed electricity back to the grid. This is much more affordable and simple than the traditional method of hardwiring an inverter into a building’s circuit box.
Additionally, the Green Microgym provides incentives for members through the “Burn and Earn” program, where members earn $1 per hour of electricity they generate that can be used at partnering businesses like The Black Cat Café, Fuel Café, and Vinideus Wine Bar.
Green Microfitness can you come to LA? I will be first in line, my friends.
I love the part about the European inverter box that plugs into a simple wall outlet, and feeds energy back into the grid. Brilliant! Thank you to these thoughtful people. I could have slept better had I found them last night when I started this article, but that’s okay. Now, I see no alternative in my current situation but to try out Bally Total Fitness for the next seven days…
Tristan L. Sullivan
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