How much "power" does a human possess?
If a garbage man can work 4 10 hr shifts and lifting 20-30 tonnes a shift in no heavier than a 60lbs bag.
and
A manufacturing labourer can do infinite repetitions of the same function for 8-12hrs for 5-7days a week,
And adding other manual labour jobs that could apply.
How many humans with healthy lifestyles would it take to power a city pushing, pulling and cycling single generators that all powered a generating power plant?
If the workers worked in shifts appropriate for the job description where they only work from until 25% less of their full power, all generators being used 24hrs a day.
If I have left out any necessary details, please feel free to fill in the blank to answer the question to the best of your ability.
Thanks!
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Let me first clarify that statement about the garbage man.
Tonnes are a unit of mass. Metric tonnes...equal to 1000kg by definition.
They are NOT a unit of how much WORK a person does. You need Joules to answer that, and to deal with the tonnes being lifted, YOU ALSO MUST CONSIDER the elevation change and Earth's gravity to get the work.
There is a LOT more to measurement of physical work than just the mass of the object.
I can get a more accurate figure with the following data though
In my experience of using exercise equipment, I've discovered that the most POWER (energy output per unit time) I can sustain continuously for long durations is about 150 Watts.
Maybe someone with more stamina can output 200 Watts, but accept 150 Watts for our purposes. If you want, go ahead and repeat with the 200 Watts.
To produce the unit of electrical energy of utility industry standard (i.e. the kilowatt-hour), it would require 400 minutes of my labor to do this...almost seven hours of labor.
A typical utility going rate for energy is about 15 cents/kilowatt-hour.
If you were to make a generator station run off of human labor alone...you would need those humans TO BE SLAVES, because I sure wouldn't want to work for 15 cents a day. Maybe if I work for a full eight hours, that would render me earning 18 cents/day. I still wouldn't do that.
At present year, the legal minimum wage is $7.25/hour. If you want to pay laborers the legal lower limit for energy, you will need to bill your customers MINIMUM of $49 per kilowatt hour. That is some wicked EXPENSIVE electricity.
I've seen this question numerous times, and I've always come to the same conclusion. If you want to generate enough income to pay a DECENT salary to the laborers AND cover all overhead costs and inefficiencies, you would need to raise the price of electrical energy BY A FACTOR OF A THOSAND.
In otherwords, the utility company is giving you an immense discount with the energy price rates that they presently bill you.
Use this to help you.
Power=work/time
work=force x distance
You've got to estimate the distance that a garbage man carries the 60lb bag each work shift.