Would you use a wind up charger for your mobile phone?

[NotsoaNonymous]

I imagine you've seen those emergency chargers that are available for phones that give you five minutes-worth of charge. Would you be willing to sit there winding like a fool to fill the battery completely if it meant saving tons of pollution every year? Or how about a charger attatched to your stepper or static bycicle? Excercise would be even more useful!
Or how about a generator connected to your office chair. If an automatic watch gets wound by the movement of a wrist, how much energy would be generated by the whole country when it turns to get up and get coffee?

Let me rephrase, would you be willing to commit a bit of elbow grease to save the planet a little bit more in exchange for having modern technology?

[ReEeMeEe]

You've got some good ideas there! You'll see in the paper next week - company produces so and so and makes millions!

[steveflatman]

The main issue with most of the ideas here is not lack of willing on the part of consumers, but the manufacturers assesment that most of them would be impractical due to the wiring requiremetns and voltage instability of electricity produced by an 'irregular' event. However things are starting to change, there are cars available which have electric 'booster' motors to aid ecceleration, which when not in use actually re-charge their own batteries, thus utilising some of the wasted kinetic energy expended when going down hill or coasting.

There are hundreds of ways to create clean energy, the best idea I've seen yet was a friends idea for an armband mounted MP3 player. It would contain a thermoelectric cell, which would convert body heat to electricity when exercising, this giving you completely free music when working it out, not sure if he ever got it off the ground though.

One thing to be mindful of is that utilising a process that was going to happen anyway will provide what can be termed as 'free' energy. However performing a function in order to generate additional power will always utilise more energy than it actually generates as all forms of electrical generation suffer from heat loss. Driving a hybrid car to the top of a hill would use more energy than it would generate on the downwards slope of the hill. Even winding a handle to charge a phone would actually use up more chemical energy than it generated in electrical energy, as there would have to be losses due to heat and sound.

[sallystrawbery]

no I dont care about the planet I will be dead by the time the sh it hits the fan

[BobG]

A battery charger attached to an exercise machine would be a great idea. You wouldn't have to worry about some of the problems associated with connecting unregulated power into your home circuit which would reduce the cost.

A hand-held wind-up charger would be a bad idea for most situations. It wouldn't be a convenient way to charge your phone on a routine basis. It's main attraction would be as an accessory to have in your car or with you on a hike for emergency situations.