Renewable electric power from the equine treadmill: an evaluation of the potential

Abstract

Horse power – the prime mover that has been there with humans for ages; chiefly used for transportation in the early days, and later, also used as an energy source leading to the conception of the term – horse power (hp). The current paper presents an interdisciplinary effort that brings forward an approach for evaluation of the potential of renewable power extractable from this prime mover once again. Specifically, the focus is towards extracting power from the equine treadmills (dry-type) whereby the incline of the machine is replaced by an equivalent (or pseudo-equivalent) energy generation mechanism leading to the coupling of renewable power with an equine workout. This approach comprises aerobic power (evaluated from oxygen uptake data) as well as anaerobic power (evaluated from plasma lactate data) – each of which is estimated from the difference values between equine running on a flat treadmill and when the mill is inclined. Furthermore, a literature review mentioning different inventions as well as some research efforts directed towards tapping somatic energy of animals is included in the manuscript. Also, a section dedicated towards assumptions/weak points helps judge the applicability of the presented work.