Imagine you could generate electricity
from your hands.
You'd be able to power anything you want,
with a single touch.
Now what about generating
electricity with your feet?
Or even your blood?
Actually, our bodies constantly conduct electricity,
and it all has to do with our atoms.
When we send signals through our nervous system,
like our brain telling us to
click on this video,
that's electricity going from
Point A to Point B.
It's safe to say that
without our own, internal electricity,
we'd be unable to do anything.
But could we ever conduct electricity like this?
Unfortunately, you wouldn't have lightning bolts
coming out of your hands,
at least not yet.
That'll be a story for another What If.
But you could generate electricity in other ways,
and we might not have to do anything different
than we're doing today.
That's because using humans to generate electricity
is already happening.
There are modules that turn kinetic energy
from people walking or dancing
into electricity.
These modules can be placed in high traffic areas like
airports, malls, and
even city streets.
The idea is when you step on the module,
it compresses and springs back up,
powering a small generator,
which then creates power.
Each step on one of these tiles
can create up to 20 joules of power.
Or, if you'd like to generate electricity while
getting your sweat on,
you can hop on a special elliptical bike.
A fully sustainable gym in New York
has eco-bikes that generate their own power.
During a workout,
you can create 160-watt hours of electricity,
or even more.
Talking about joules and watts is fun,
but what does it mean exactly?
How many lightbulbs, TVs, and buildings can we power?
Well, unfortunately, even with an eco-bike
and the steps from one thousand pedestrians,
we'd be lucky to power up
a single light bulb for more than a couple of hours.
Kind of lame, I know,
but that's because a traditional light bulb
uses about 100 watts to be powered for a full hour.
So at this rate,
with us casually producing electricity like this,
we're never going to be able to get rid of traditional electricity.
But what if we could?
What would we need to do
to power the world with human conducted electricity?
Well for this to happen,
we'd need to cover every single road,
of every city on Earth,
with these energy-producing floors.
In a city like Tokyo,
with millions of people walking the streets every day,
we'd be able to produce
trillions of joules
that could be converted to power entire buildings.
But walking probably won't be enough.
We'd also need millions of people
solely dedicated to producing electricity full-time.
Picture hundreds of thousands of people dancing,
and having 24/7 raves,
attempting to produce as much electricity as possible.
And if that's not your style,
you could bike or run to power your buildings.
This would take millions of people
who would need to be paid,
and be in good enough shape
to dance and workout for hours on end.
And even if you had that type of energy,
doing so for 8 hours a day,
five days a week,
would take a severe toll on your body.
If all that isn't enough,
we could use our poo to produce electricity.
That's right.
Toilets are being developed right now
that can convert your bathroom breaks
into energy.
They do it by composting your waste
and oxidizing it.
This releases electrons
which get passed through a load-bearing circuit
and then generate energy.
But what is energy anyway?
You can find the answer to that in the show Order and Disorder,
available on Curiosity Stream.
They have this great episode about the story of energy,
where it comes from, how we use it today and what energy might look like in the future.
Seriously, if you like What If, you're going to love Curiosity Stream.
They've got original, award-winning documentaries talking about the same stuff we do here on What If,
black holes, extinct animals, exoplanets - you get the idea.
And since they're the sponsor of this What If episode,
they're giving you access to the site for free for 30 days.
After that, it's just $2.99 a month, or just $19.99 a year.
Using humans to create electricity
would seriously help the environment.
A lot of traditional electricity
burns fossil fuels,
which produce greenhouse gases that harm our Earth.
Producing electricity by running and dancing,
while adding more wind turbines and solar panels to help us out,
would make the world a greener place.
The human race
could completely generate its own power
if we were all dedicated enough.
For something that might be a little bit easier,
but still achieve the same results,
we could cover the Sahara desert in solar panels.
But that sounds like a story for another WHAT IF.