Before the Disaster: Phone Charging Demos
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 08.27.05
As captured in the photo from Reuters Alert Network, visitors at a disaster management conference in Tokyo this week got lessons in how to charge their cell phone from their wind-up radio. In addition, the exhibition included demonstrations of the fuel cell being jointly developed by AU KDDI and Hitachi for cell phones. The Tokyo metropolitan government sponsored the disaster management conference. They may be asking the question what to do when the power fails after an earthquake or terrorist attack. At Treehugger, we stop at: what to do when the power fails? These may not be sustainable solutions to life after peak oil, but technologies developed for disaster management today may hold the promise for an off-grid lifestyle tomorrow.
OK.. How do you power the cell tower?
This is why I think people should study Amateur Radio. In an emergency black out cell towers will probably die as well and you have 0% communication
I've been using a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio beside my bed since before 2000. It works fine. I get about 100 hours of radio before having to recharge the internal, hardwired battery. I put the radio in the window, solar strip to the sun for two days and have another 100 hours. A minute of cranking the dynamo gives me about a half hour of radio.
One problem is that the solar and the dynamo connect only to the internal, hardwired battery, a tendency in most solar products on the market. These guys should think about battery switching so that you can recharge popular sizes of batteries, like AA or nine volts, as well as the internal battery.
I've had a couple solar/dynamos modified so that I can charge AA rechargeables in the battery bay and now have a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio that can produce low voltage DC power day or night, as long as the sun shines, I can turn the crank, and there's a battery to hold the charge.
It's the flashlight, a radio, and extra set of batteries you're advised to have on hand in an emergency all in one piece right beside my pillow.
I have an outline a number of small scale solar products at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2004/12/three-solar-projects.html