Is it feasible to generate useful amounts of electricity by having people manually generate it, e.g. by riding an exercise bike?

Question

I’m not familiar with the mechanics of electricity generation and such, so I’m curious if there are good reasons why this isn’t possible or useful.

Edit: thanks for the great responses! I gather that the main problems revolve around the fact that it will take more energy to outfit the machinery and feed the people than you’ll get in return.

In: 5

Answer 1

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed (this is known as the 1st Law of Thermodynamics). Transforming energy always has some inefficiency, where some of the energy is lost (typically as heat). Instead of having humans transform food into electricity, it will always be more efficient to just burn the food to release the energy. Instead of converting sunlight into food then burning it, it’s more efficient to just use solar panels.