How many electric eels needed to power my ebike to work

[wojtek]

OK that is a bit cheeky thread.

Quiz to make us think a little. With an award for first person that got the answer right. Obviously you need to explain why you think your answer is correct.

THE PRIZE IS ONE METER OF high quality silicone WIRE [you can choose the colour and AWG between 10, 12, 14, 20 and 22awg] FREE SHIPPING.

How many electric eels would be needed to power my ebike to work? 10 kilometers...

 

[wojtek]

thanks for the answer. Good try but...
the reason i said "to work" is the reasonable time limit. For the sake of argument, lets say within 30 minutes.

 

[MattyCiii]

The answer is still one. It just depends on where you apply that electric eel to motivate the cyclist enough to sustain 20 KPH for 30 minutes...

 

[liveforphysics]

http://news.discovery.com/tech/electric-eel-powers-christmas-tree.html

 

[dogman dan]

800w per eel, but how many volts? I'll guess that 20 eels would equal 36v and get you there fast enough. No telling what the capcity of one eel is, but half an hour out of em sounds reasonable.

I went to Ag colledge, where everything is a guesstimate and no spelling is taught.

 

[heathyoung]

The answer is still one. It just depends on where you apply that electric eel to motivate the cyclist enough to sustain 20 KPH for 30 minutes...

Damn, you beat me to it. I think the threat would be enough...

 

[Kin]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-electric-eels-gene

Each electrogenic cell carries a negative charge of a little less than 100 millivolts on its
This practically simultaneous start-up creates a short-lived current flowing along the eel's body. If the eel lived in air, the current could be as high as one ampere
An eel .... its current flows for only 2 milliseconds

So we have the watt-hour of an eel to be approximately 0.1v*1amp*.002s = .0002 Wh.
Lets say that, to be happy, you need to be running 900 watts for half an hour to get to work. So you need 450whs, count in 20% inefficiency, 540wh

Now, I'm going to assume/guess an electric eel can't shock more than twice per minute. Needs some time to charge the cellular capacitors. But, overall, you'd get .0002*60 whs per eel over half an hour.

Soo.....you need, only, about 300,000 highly trained eels.

____

Fun facts I learned in the process. Electric eels are not eels, they're actually part of an electric fish family.
Also,

Electric eels are air-breathing fish that use vascular folds in the lining of the mouth for absorbing oxygen

.
(About 80% of their oxygen is procured that way^)

 

[SamTexas]

Each electrogenic cell carries a negative charge of a little less than 100 millivolts on its

That's for each cell. I would assume that an eel has more than one of those cells.

 

[Kin]

Right, that's where the "1amp" number comes from. So if they're in parallel it seems they'd be one amp current, but much less if they're in series. Thats what's confusing, actually, in the article. It says first something to the effect that if you add them up, you'd get an amp of current, but then it goes to say that the eel is like a "500v battery" {of....button cells?]. So in fact there are about 5,000 of those cells if you take 500v / .1v, but that was accounted for in my use of "1amp" as the current.

Basically, I think eels dont put out much electrical energy...because there's no need, and nature isn't that inefficient.

I did try and get it right.


[For some more fermi fun, if you can get me the ratio of mass of an Eel Brain mass to mass of a Human brain, we can calculate how many eel brains are needed to power the bike. I have a hunch that unless eels are really really stupid, it might be near the same number, or less, as harvesting the shock gets. Though maybe I've over estimating, since i'm thinking about primate brains and I dont know if other animals use several times less brain/total mass or if it's orders of a magnitude less]

 

[zombiess]

How much voltage sag will the eels have under load?

 

[999zip999]

I love my electric eels to much to put put them under a load like that. How would like it a reverse electric chair. Cruel.

 

[texaspyro]

I like my eels in teriyaki sauce on top of a blob of sushi rice... yumm...

 

[Kin]

Wait a second. There are no electric eels in Poland!

Edit: But from what I've heard, Luxembourg has everything.
Edit2: For a price.

 

[John in CR]

None. Your ebike doesn't run on electric eels, and no matter what kind of BS you try to tell the girls you don't have an electric eel anyway.

 

[999zip999]

Poland has a big underground blackmarket of electric eels by the kilo. And behind the building shhh

 

[parabellum]

wojtek, how much power do you need to get to your work in first place?
And do not tell me you live on a large hill and just roll down to your work.

Edit: Also don't tell me you do not have a "work"