The Next Big Thing … Solar Powered Cellphones
Posted by Wayne X. Young
A few of my friends asked what will be “the next big thing” to hit the public. Something that would generate a buzz or be a “must have” item. I mentioned solar-powered cellphones.
In Kenya, national telecommunications company Safaricom recently released a solar-powered mobile phone that costs no more than $40. This is especially beneficial in the country because electricity is so scarce. The country is under strict power rationing and their main source of energy is hydro-power. The demand is high for power and it is expensive for citizens to go to a third-party vendor to charge their cellphones. It is also difficult to find these vendors in rural areas of Kenya. “Initially, one had to use one’s phone and then the phone would go off and then you could not sell one’s vegetables and do your transactions,” said a Kenyan phone user. “But now with the new solar phone one can talk talk talk and deal with your business. It is much easier now.”
The phone does appear to be the first of its kind to be available commercially in Africa. Who knows when it’s coming to the US.
Some in the mobile phone industry have suggested accessory solar-powered phone chargers are the best avenue to address the phone charging issue in developing regions of the world. Such chargers have been available for a while but have been limited in their reach by a lack of uniformity. The solar-powered cellphone was created by ZTE Corporation from China. A similar phone was also released in June by Samsung in India.
Can you just imagine the impact a phone like that would have in the US? Studies have shown appliances on standby (such as TVs, computers, DVD players, cellphone chargers, game systems like XBOX and Wii) can account for 10% of a home’s total energy consumption. The International Energy Agency even estimated that standby power consumption accounts for 1% of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. Some may say that the power use is negligible, but over time and multiplied by the millions of cellphone users, it could have a major impact. A solar powered phone for the “green” energy-conscious community would go over BIG across the globe.
– Wayne X. Young
Obama Discovers A New Form Of Energy
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Barack Obama will be the first post-peak oil president of the most oil-hungry country on the planet. The Financial Times, London’s best daily, just previewed an International Energy Agency report that estimates global oil production is now falling 9 percent per year. To be clear, excess oil is the ‘capital’ in capitalism, and it no longer exists. We will see capitalist economies (are there any others?) shrink by at least the rate of oil decline, so we are in for a societal transformation much different than the turn of an economic cycle. Economic activity based on carbon (is there any other?) needs to shrink even faster than oil decline. A recent World Wildlife Fund report suggests our globe is warming five times faster than predicted, and the pace is accelerating. Change is necessary to address the twin crises of peak oil and climate change.
