Free Energy AND Public Health Bonuses

It's a well known and largely documented fact that I'm a genius.
"You sound like an arrogant jerk," you might be saying to yourself. And while that might or might not be just as true, it doesn't change anything.
The other day, as I was engaged in boring work, I had a revolutionary idea. Even I was impressed with myself, and as a pompous and arrogant jerk, that's saying something.

Coal is obviously not a great way to generate energy. Yes, it totally works, but from an environmental standpoint, it's not the bee's knees. Nuclear power, is, from what I can tell, pretty good, but there are, of course, some downsides, which I don't need to elaborate on. Wikipedia will tell you what you want to know.
Solar power would probably be the best by far and away if solar cells were up to snuff (and they're getting there). Wind is what we're doing now. It's good, but I hear a lot of complaining about it, but that's the case with everything. Oh, and hydro power is awesome. Let's keep doing that regardless.

Anyway, here's my idea.
The power company/gov't/whatever builds a gigantic gym or whatever you want to call it. Membership is free. When you join, you are given a card, which you swipe when you use a machine. When you get on a treadmill or bike or use a giant crank, they all spin turbines that generate power. "One guy on one bike isn't generating much energy," you say, because you're a nay saying complainer who finds fault with things. Fine. Let's get twenty bikes all working together to power one gigantic turbine.

This gym would be open twenty-four hours a day, every day. When you swipe your card on a machine, it logs how much you use it, and you - get this now - get paid for the energy you create. Sure, it'll only be a few cents probably, but look at it this way: You can join a gym and pay a high membership fee and all those types of costs. OR, you can go to this gym and get paid a little bit for going. It's more motivation to exercise, which, if most people are like me, they totally need. You'll be running on a treadmill and instead of thinking, "this sucks, I paid to do this when I could be at home having fun," you'll now think, "Just a few more miles and I can get that bigscreen I've been saving for."

People will probably also tell me that we couldn't generate all our power this way. Maybe, maybe not. But if not, are you telling me that, "If we can't do 100%, we shouldn't do it at all?" Because that's a stupid argument. Let's generate some power this way.

Besides, what electric company isn't going to want to do this? Sure, there's a large initial investment (which can probably be subsidized), but after that, all there is is maintenance. People come in voluntarily and generate power for you. You don't need to buy coal, or uranium.

As an incentive, let's say the gov't won't tax the money you get from doing this. So you can exercise, and get tax free money. (That's a pipe dream, I know.) They can still tax the power company, of course.

A google search just now tells me that this isn't a new idea, but apparently generating wide-scale power is.

So there it is. Free energy and public health. Let's get started on this right away, shall we?


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