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Your Body, the Battery: Powering Gadgets From Human "Biofuel"
An anonymous reader writes: This article takes a look at the future of electronic devices powered by the human body. From the electric voltage in mammal ears called the endocochlear potential, to body heat, and muscle motion, there are a number of exciting new areas of energy research being explored. Ars reports: "Staying alive guzzles energy. In order to keep us ticking, our bodies need to burn between 2,000 and 2,500 calories per day, which is conveniently enough to power a modestly used smart phone. So if just a fraction of that energy could be siphoned, our bodies could in theory be used to run any number of electronic devices, from medical implants to electronic contact lenses—all without a battery in sight. Recently, researchers have taken important strides toward unlocking this electric potential."
GP said calories (implying kilocalories) and did the conversion right. It's 96.9 watts according to Wolfram Alpha.
The article talks, among other things, about biofuel cells which target glucose - so, actually, yes, using those devices would lead to weight reduction. Because that's one of the more important ways to distribute energy throughout the body: delivering glucose where it's needed which the cells then convert again in the citrate cycle to more readily usable stuff.
Thus, using machines based on this kind of fuel would lead to weight reduction the same way it would when you exercise.
wolframalpha has some more interesting numbers for "2k Cal per day in watts":
~~ (1 to 5) × typical laptop power consumption ( 20 to 60 W )
~~ (1 to 1.1) × human daily average power ( 85 to 100 W )
~~ 0.81 × power output from a 1 square meter solar panel in full sunlight at 12% efficiency at sea level (~~ 120 W )
~~ 0.75 × peak power consumption of a Pentium 4 CPU (central processing unit) (~~ 130 W )
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