Could zombies be used as sustainable energy?

The problem is all the zombies are deteriorating so you have a finite supply. You could freeze and thaw them as you need them but something has to power that freezer. Entropy is a bitch if you are a zombie.

Good point. I am not looking for infinite energy or perpetual motion or anything. Just testing an idea of one of the player characters in a zombie campaign I am running. Trying to figure out all the ways it will go wrong.

Wait, who says the zombies are deteriorating?

If so, the solution to zombie apocalypse is to merely wait them out.

Zombies are attracted to warm bodies, not brains. Unless the campaign is a comedy based on Return of the Living Dead, which is not Romero-universe or zombie canon.

Zombies move too slowly to generate anything.

You have to get them out of their cars and off the highways first.

Actually, tightly compressed to release methane, they could provide a limited energy source.

Okay, @Seek Warm bodies then.

@Here2_4 You obviously haven’t seen the movie Zombieland

What I want to know is with the gaping wounds and missing limbs, how come they always spurt blood when stabbed? I mean, wouldn’t they have bled out at some point?

Depends on facts and data not in evidence, i.e. zombie mechanics, etc.

For the real world as I know it, I don’t think there are enough zombies, unless you mean certain types of humans. So no to undead zombies, but yes to brainwashed but living fools, if you can keep them attached to an energy-creating device, and reduce their consumption of things to a sustainable level.

For the various fictional types of zombies I am sufficiently knowledgeable about, usually yes, unless something stops the generation of zombies and they expire. Except that many of the zombies I know about are from fantasy worlds which tend to be pre-industrial, and lack very efficient things to do with zombie power, except move stuff around, help build things, or perform tasks, or as low-quality troops.

Just how much electrical power can be expected from 1 zombie walking on 1 treadmill? How big is/are these treadmills? How many zombies will I need to power all of the electric stuff in my house? What is the death expectancy of a zombie walking on a treadmill to power my A/C in the heat of summer? Where do I keep my spare zombies, and where do the done ones end up? Do they do their generating on the roof or in the basement? (EGAD! NOT IN THE BASEMENT!!)

I’m running a Walking Dead type of game (actually more like Fear The Walking Dead). So there are plenty of zombies.

I keep wondering where all the hordes of fresh zombies keep coming from on that show. Seems like after a few months or so they would not be worth much. Sure there will be people infected later but not more than a handfull after the initial outbreak.

^ One of my big problems with that series.

You could construct a “zombie engine” that would consist of a horizontal pole mounted centrally on a gearbox. The entire assembly is surrounded by a fence. One side of the pole is filled with a horde, the other with a scarecrow mounted on a vertical pole with a voice playback of live people that would be suspended just outside of zombie reach. The pole would have steel grating attached to keep crawlers out. The gearbox with proper gear ratios is mounted to a flywheel and a DC generator. A bank of agm batteries is floating on generator power. As the zombies move the pole in a circle a gate can be set remotely to let zombies in on the zombie side and lock them out on the scarecrow side. A second gate will only be unlocked on the scarecrow side to perform periodic maintenance on the system.

^^Brilliant! Perfect, thanks! That makes far more sense than zombie treadmills, and seems more practical.