There’s nothing very green about cell phones — many of them are made from conflict minerals sourced overseas and they are designed to be discarded within a year or two. But now there’s at least an environmentally friendly way to charge them. Nokia has developed a bike charger that uses a bottle dynamo (a small electrical generator) to convert pedal power into electricity.
The Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit, which consists of the charger, generator, and a holder to attach the phone to the bike, will be first released in Kenya for about $18. The kit will be available for sale to the rest of the world by the end of the year. And apparently it doesn’t take much effort to charge a phone via bike — pedaling 6 mph for only 10 minutes will give you almost 30 minutes of talk time or 37 hours of standby time.
According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), by the end of 2010, five billion people worldwide will have cell phone subscriptions. This surge comes in large part from developing countries where unreliable access to electricity and/or phone lines makes cell phones the communication device of choice. The Nokia bike charging kit is a great money and energy saving solution for those who are going to use bicycles for their transportation needs anyway. And for the gas guzzling U.S., it’s just one more reason we should hop on our bikes and go for a ride.
