Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
I have long advocated that prisoners be sentenced not in time, but by amount of electricity generated. They can pump away at bicycle-generators until they meet their sentence. US thugs would win the Tour de France every year also....
while this sounds cute and all, the actual math here doesn't work.most people could not hold 300 watts of output for an hour if monsters were chasing them.but let's assume they could.let's then assume that you have 24 guys who can that run perfect shifts all day.300w X 24hr = 7.2kwh/day.market value? about 50 cents.of course, you will not produce that much. that's input. the bike will be lossy as a generator. you'd be lucky to get half of that out.then there's line loss etc.if you got 25c of electricity a day, it would be astounding.
Won't this just create ex-cons who can more easily flee foot cops once they return to their criminal pursuits?If one of the goals of incaceration is to rehabilitate, these guys should be learning a marketable trade of some sort.
Yeah, but how about them bicycle cops?
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I have long advocated that prisoners be sentenced not in time, but by amount of electricity generated. They can pump away at bicycle-generators until they meet their sentence.
ReplyDeleteUS thugs would win the Tour de France every year also....
while this sounds cute and all, the actual math here doesn't work.
ReplyDeletemost people could not hold 300 watts of output for an hour if monsters were chasing them.
but let's assume they could.
let's then assume that you have 24 guys who can that run perfect shifts all day.
300w X 24hr = 7.2kwh/day.
market value? about 50 cents.
of course, you will not produce that much. that's input. the bike will be lossy as a generator. you'd be lucky to get half of that out.
then there's line loss etc.
if you got 25c of electricity a day, it would be astounding.
Won't this just create ex-cons who can more easily flee foot cops once they return to their criminal pursuits?
ReplyDeleteIf one of the goals of incaceration is to rehabilitate, these guys should be learning a marketable trade of some sort.
Yeah, but how about them bicycle cops?
ReplyDelete