Can Hamsters Generate Usable Electricity?

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The discussion centers around the innovative concept of harnessing hamster power for electricity generation, spearheaded by engineer DanF, who has developed a low-RPM alternator that allows hamsters to generate usable electricity. The primary challenge of insufficient wheel speed has been addressed, enabling a hamster named Skippy to light multiple LEDs. Participants express a mix of humor and skepticism about the practicality and ethical implications of using hamsters for power generation. Speculations about a future dominated by hamster power include potential societal changes, such as shifts in labor dynamics and the emergence of hamster rights movements. The conversation also touches on the absurdity of comparing hamster power to electric eel power, with humorous critiques of both concepts. The tone remains light-hearted, with playful banter about the fate of hamsters in this new energy paradigm, including concerns about their well-being and potential revolts against their human overseers. Overall, the thread blends engineering innovation with whimsical commentary on the implications of such a power source.
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Since the domestication of the hamster and similar creatures who demonstrate a proclivity for running in wheels that go nowhere and do nothing, mankind has dreamed of the day technology would evolve to the degree that this wasted energy could be tapped and turned into a useful source of power.

Hamster power is now a reality:

Address:http://www.otherpower.com/hamster.html

Engineer DanF, staffmember of the Otherpower.com organization, has succeeded in isolating and overcoming all the final hurdles that have been standing in the way of utilization of this important power source, and created a means for his stalwart hamster, Skippy, to generate electricity.

The primary problem has always been that hamsters don't turn their wheels at fast enough revolutions per minute to operate conventional alternators or generators. DanF's breakthrough was in the design of a special low-RPM alternator which overcomes the inherent slowness of the hamster by greatly increasing the number of North and South poles that pass the stationary coils per revolution. In this way Skippy has been enabled to generate current at a pressure of two volts!

Skippy now effortlessly lights two red LEDs without breaking a sweat. Advanced tests have shown that he is able to light as many as six LEDs with no apparent trouble.
----------------

Unless these claims by DanF have been grossly overstated and get flushed down the same toilet as claims of cold fusion once were, I think that the transition to hamster power is a forgone conclusion.
 
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Post your reactions to the hamster power breakthrough, and your speculations about the brave, new hamster-powered world that upon whose brink, we now stand.
 
I see a vision where acre after acre of photovoltaic panels produce electricity during daylight hours while simultaneously providing shade for sleeping hamsters. During the dark hours the hamsters pick up the slack, picking up where the panels left off. Those performing community services can be used to clean the cages and feed the little animals. Warfare will undoubtedly cease to exist, returning man to a state of innocence and peaceful coexistence in Eden… :approve: :biggrin:
 
Until the great revolt to free the indentured hamsters erupts, flamed, fueled and fanned by the bleeding heart liberal hamster activists. The world would divide into free hamster / slave hamster camps. Power outages will sweep the nations and the freed hamsters will revert to their savage nature and run wild in the streets, attacking the ankles of their former taskmasters. Anarchy.
 
From eden to anarchy, lol :biggrin:
 
Artman said:
Power outages will sweep the nations and the freed hamsters will revert to their savage nature and run wild in the streets, attacking the ankles of their former taskmasters.
Not since Thomas Edison's concerted attack on Alternating Current, when he falsly claimed that with AC everyone would be getting electrocuted, have I seen such dastardly propaganda.

The facts:
Hamsters are cute and furry and friendly. There is just no downside to hamster power.
 
There is just no downside to hamster power.

I see they've gotten to you too... :rolleyes:

Fortunately, we have people who can deprogram you back at the underground KFH headquarters...
 
Ivan Seeking said:
Hamster retrofit kit for Patent # 4,669,216

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=21807&page=1&pp=15&highlight=Patent

Coming soon:
Patent #4,699,216.7
Electric Hamster Prod for increased power output from your Hamster Generator System. Second Law arguments may apply in some states.

No one will use the hamster prod once they realize it takes more energy to operate once than you can get out of a hamster in a week. You are trying to inflame the liberal hamster activists.

You and Artman are clearly agents provocateurs from the Association For The Advancement Of Electric Eel Power.

Sure, there's a lot of power available from the average electric eel, but they're not cute, and you can't pet them.
They require expensive, massive water-filled containment facilities. Electric eel power will just lead to more big, price-controling, centralized utility companies since people won't want to keep them in their homes.

With electric eel power, every side is a down side.
 
  • #10
Hurkyl said:
I see they've gotten to you too... :rolleyes:

Fortunately, we have people who can deprogram you back at the underground KFH headquarters...
KFH? Kentucky Fried Hamster? :surprise:
 
  • #11
  • #12
Although there used to be giant Guinea pigs, there were never giant hamsters. Guinea pigs are still quite a bit larger than hamsters today. That is why we won't be messing with guinea pigs.
 
  • #13
Reminds me of "Hamster Love".

Njorl
 
  • #14
You see. That battle lines are being drawn in the sand right now.

The facts:
Hamsters are cute and furry and friendly. There is just no downside to hamster power.

Sure, pre-power generating hamsters are cute and fuzzy, but after long hours without adequate breaks, for days on end, of grueling power production (they have no effective union, so their breaks are at the discretion of their taskmasters), their haunches will develop into massive sinewy tissue and soon their temperment will deteriorate into growling, hissing, fits of anguished frustration (afterall, the wheel never actually takes them anywhere).

In short, you "cuddle them, and you won't play the guitar again." (Faulty Towers - Basil the Rat)

Now eels on the other hand, are a ready source of power, already involved in the production and distribution of electricity and long for a chance to tie into the grid. One day you will see the light, and the power will be supplied by eels.
 
  • #16
Artman said:
Sure, pre-power generating hamsters are cute and fuzzy, but after long hours without adequate breaks, for days on end, of grueling power production (they have no effective union, so their breaks are at the discretion of their taskmasters), their haunches will develop into massive sinewy tissue and soon their temperment will deteriorate into growling, hissing, fits of anguished frustration (afterall, the wheel never actually takes them anywhere).
I have never heard such a distortion of the facts. Hamsters have been running in wheels of their own volition since the first kind person who thought to give them something to excercize with put one at its disposal. One does not have to prod a hamster to run! They love doing it, and spend hours at it every night in sheer ecstasy! The cruelty would be in trying to stop them from running.
Now eels on the other hand, are a ready source of power, already involved in the production and distribution of electricity and long for a chance to tie into the grid. One day you will see the light, and the power will be supplied by eels.
Eels cannot be picked up and cuddled. They are cold blooded. They are fish. They are very strange fish on top of it. They have ugly faces, even by fish standards.

All that is moot anyway, since none of the engineering problems in tapping the eels electric power have been solved.

The facts:

Eel power is only a dream.

Hamster power is a reality!
 
  • #17
Evo said:
KFH? Kentucky Fried Hamster? :surprise:

Evo, I'm shocked. :eek:

(Eel Power Rules!)
 
  • #18
This whole hamster power idea isn't that new anyway. Many methods of generating power from hamsters already exist.

http://www.btinternet.com/~snapps/42hamst.html
 
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  • #19
SKIPPY HAS BEEN MURDERED!

Pioneer of Hamster Power a martyr to the cause!

RIP Skippy
Address:http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2004/1/21/13619/6305
 
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  • #20
zoobyshoe said:
SKIPPY HAS BEEN MURDERED!

Pioneer of Hamster Power a martyr to the cause!

RIP Skippy
Address:http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2004/1/21/13619/6305

We at E.E.L., Eel Electric and Lighting, would like to express our condolances and have prepared a statement:

"While we do not see eye to eye with those of the hamster camp, we at Eel Electric and Lighting (E.E.L.), are heartily saddened by the apparent demise of this our gallant competitor. The electric power generating industry will certainly mourn Skippy's loss."

We further would like to state that the fact that this statement was prepared several days ago, should in no way implicate us of any wrong doing in the apparent demise (we just like to plan for any eventuallity).

E.E.L. "The future of power."
 
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  • #21
Oh, I don't know, hamsters are nefarious little creatures, and masters of the art of escape, so little Skippy may have framed the cats and gone into hiding, returning to the underground life from whence he came. Actually, they should check around the power cords for tooth marks.

This points to a major flaw in the whole hamster power generation scheme. The only thing hamsters love more than running on wheels is chewing on power cords. All it takes is one clever escapee to shut down the entire operation by chewing through all the power cords (they are amazingly quick about this too). There are rumors that the huge blackout along the Northeast was started by an escaped hamster (okay, there aren't, but I'll start one).
 
  • #22
"The hamstertariat has nothing to lose but its wheels in this revolution. It has a world to win. Hamsters of the world unite!" Friedrich "Crinklenose" Engels


Njorl
 
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