Biking to blast music. Sounds like a spinning class. Or an OK Go video. In fact, it's a sustainability project.
Harrison Goldspiel, Carrie Watkins and Amira Mintz-Morgenthau submitted "Brandeis Pedal Power: Amping Up Campus Events" as a proposal to the Brandeis Sustainability Fund last month, and are waiting to hear back about whether their project was picked up or not. If funded, it would enable volunteers to generate energy simply by bicycle-riding. The energy could be used for a multitude of campus events, including as a "sustainable sound system," which is what the band Melodeego does, explained Harrison.
This is an awesome idea, promoting bike-riding, concert-attending and sustainability all at once. It's pretty crazy to think that we have such amazing technology these days, which enables us to generate our own energy in such a simple manner.
Read Harrison's description of the project, below, and take their survey too!
The project is "Brandeis Pedal Power: Amping Up Campus Events." I am working with Carrie Watkins '12 and Amira Mintz-Morgenthau '12. I became inspired to work on this project after seeing various concerts powered by bicycle energy. There was a water/hydrofracking festival this summer in NYC that featured a big concert completely powered by bicycle energy generators and "natural ass" power. I also knew of a Massachusetts band called Melodeego that has their own bicycle powered sustainable sound system for all their shows. After going to 350.org's Moving Planet: Boston event on 9/24 and riding the bikes myself, I decided we need this at Brandeis. So I rallied together Carrie and Amira and we applied for a BSF grant to construct three bicycle energy units. We are working very closely with Melodeego and their side project, Sustainable Sound to design and eventually construct the units. The second component to our project involves creating a student group called the Pedal Patrol which will manage the bicycle units. We are collaborating with Student Production Services and will incorporate the completely bicycle units and the Pedal Patrol into their organization.
The goals of our project are to: (1) create a new, carbon-free mechanism to power events on campus, thus reducing total energy use and carbon emissions, (2) get students, faculty, and the administration educated and excited about energy and climate change issues in a visually innovative fashion, and (3) set a precedent for university departments and student organizations, such as the Student Union, Student Events, Student Activities, WBRS, Chums, and the Punk Rock and Roll Club to constantly think about the environmental impact of their decisions.
I'm all in favor of bike riding, and substituting bicycles for automobiles. Good for the environment, and the exercise is probably even better for human health.
On the other hand, you cannot say that bicycle power is "carbon-free". To the extent that you have a person pedaling and expending more effort than they would have otherwise, they are pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.