OK, there's too many ideas for using people to generate power to bother linking to them all. Ref all the half-baked ideas, plus the Matrix, etc ad nauseum.

I like this one because it involves invasive surgery. The sooner we become integrated cyborgs the better really. Many other ideas for turning excess body fat into energy, whilst being nice and invasive, fail in that producing the excess fat in the first place is not a healthy activity. The excess energy produced by too much food should be used as energy before it turns into fat.

I propose implants placed in the muscle groups of your choice. Do you want a six-pack? Bulging biceps? have one of these installed there. At times of rest the micro-controller applies TENS-like signals to the muscles causing them to twitch. Micro-generators attached to the muscles generate "twitch-power". A small battery (internal or on a belt, it depends how likely you think it is the battery will leak) stores the energy so that you will never have to charge that iPod/mobile/watch/personal organiser again. I'll be more realistic than to try and power a laptop this way.

The sugar gets converted straight into energy avoiding all that fat flying about, you get fit whilst eating a (otherwise balanced and healthy) high calorie diet, help the environment in a small but significant way, and never have to bother with drained batteries again.
-- TheLightsAreOnBut, Feb 09 2007

Halfbakery: Blood Plower Supply (2000) Blood_20Power_20Supply
Converts blood sugar to energy by twitching. Close enough to be redundant? [jutta, Feb 09 2007]

I'll pass on the "bulging biceps" and "six pack abs". Those tend to look odd on women (although I suppose it depends on your personal tastes...after all, SOMEONE had to start the whole "female body builder" psyche)

Although I'll give you a croissant if you allow me to have some sort of deadly deadly eye-lasers...you know, where I can actually kill with looks?
-- we_dont_eat_them, Feb 09 2007


oh, yeah, sorry.

[+]

croissant.
-- we_dont_eat_them, Feb 09 2007


Yes... On reflection, I suspect you'd only achieve toned rather than bulging in any case. It's not really like body building, and if it was it would be distinctly uncomfortable. I'd hate for any female to have bulging muscles against their will. It'll have to be programmable for required body types.

As for lasers - well, I said I'd be realistic, and if it won't power a laptop I can't see how it'll power a decent laser. A thought, however: Back when lasers were exciting and new and could blow up the world any day now, someone desperate to justify the gigantic amount of funding that had been thrown their way created results by recording a video of a laser blowing up a shed. It turned out that they had put the shed under huge compressive forces so that the tiny hole the laser made in the side created the structural instability required to make the whole thing collapse. The funding people must have actually started using their brains by this point, however, because someone noticed that the shed imploded rather than exploding, not that a laser could achieve either, even a high enough power one.

By extension, I could set up a system where you could rig up some explosives on your loved one or a colleague (after all, who else would you reserve deadly looks for?) with a detector for the feeble laser beam that you could power with my wonderful new product. The detector would set off the explosives (or automatic poison injection, just use your imagination), thus replicating the desired effect. Not exactly cyclops from x-men, but the best I can manage with todays technology.

I should point out that market forces have forced me to offer this add-on: I had hoped my wonderful new power source would be put to helping world peace, which also does not contravene the help file. I'd much rather you went for the built-in USB attachment.

Thanks for the bun!
-- TheLightsAreOnBut, Feb 09 2007


//I like this one because it involves invasive surgery.//

Instant bun
-- BunsenHoneydew, Feb 09 2007


I was a bit nonplussed over the idea. But the anno // system where you could rig up some explosives on your loved one or a colleague (after all, who else would you reserve deadly looks for?) with a detector for the feeble laser beam // is definitely 64-bit Rube Goldberg and demands bread.
-- lurch, Feb 09 2007


Dammit you're right, [Jutta], combine the original suggestion with [Steve DeGroof]'s anno and you have this. I didn't think to search for 'blood'.
-- TheLightsAreOnBut, Feb 13 2007


Although slightly mor efficient than vampire energy, this form of power generation still sucks!
-- quantum_flux, Feb 14 2007


How much electricity is required to make the muscle twitch compared to how much electricity the "Micro-generators" produce?
-- BJS, Mar 06 2007


I don't really know the answer, [BJS], but the logic would indicate that, as muscles have a direct power source (glucose and oxygen in the blood stream), and your neurons fire only a signal to activate the muscle rather than providing the energy to power it, that the energy sums would be positive.

The brain, apparently, uses 20% of the body's oxygen (and therefore probably approx 20% of the body's energy resources) - but that's a lump of billions of nerve cells. The equivalent energy requirement to replicate one nerve cell must be fairly small. Someone with more knowledge correct me if I'm wrong...
-- TheLightsAreOnBut, Mar 07 2007



random, halfbakery