How many cyclists does it take to make a cup of tea? About 100, if you run your home on pedal power. This is the premise behind The Human Power Station, tonight's episode of the BBC1 series Bang Goes the Theory, in which an army of cyclists provides the energy used by a typical family. What's interesting is not so much the amount we use, as the implication that the only way to have an eco–friendly future is to bring back slavery.

This is the conclusion of Tim Siddall of Electric Pedals, the company hired to supply the bicycles and cyclists. For 11 hours, 100 volunteers rode furiously, getting no more than lunch and the chance to be on TV. "They were dead excited at first," says Siddall. "But after five hours they had had enough of the boredom and the pain."

One of the biggest problems was feeding the cyclists. "You would use more energy feeding them than the energy they produced," says Siddall.

Many of the cyclists were so exhausted that they were unable to walk for days. But Siddall is still confident that volunteer slavery will be the future economic model. "I have no doubt that slavery will return as the world's energy resources get increasingly scarce." This proved a little "off-message" for the BBC. "Its crew had a 20 megawatt generator to keep the lights and cameras going. So you will need around 1,000 slaves to make an hour of TV."

The BBC may want to revise its internship policy accordingly.