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Solar Powered Jacket Charges Your Gadgets
blorg writes "Wired News has a story about a new jacket from SCOTTeVEST that uses flexible solar panels on the shoulders to recharge gadgets in the pockets. The idea is that you can now keep all of your gadgets charged, even if you are spending an extended period of time away from a power source. The solar charging is an addition to an existing jacket with features including 42 hidden pockets that can be wired together through the jacket lining."
The jacket is a cool idea, but unless all of the devices worn on it are bulletproof (which would be pretty slick) I'll pass.
As it is, I had an Ipaq as well as several other PDAs before. They where just to fragile for me to consider carrying them that close to me all the time.
About the only thing I feel comfortable carrying on my person would be my cellphone and pager - everything else would have me trying to constantly remember things like "Ok, PDA in pocket X, make sure I don't sit/do jumping jacks/box/etc etc".
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You have two options for charge that jacket:
1) Use it with you inside, but you can damage your skin appearence or get cancer that way
2) Leave the jacket staring on the sun, but the sun will damage your jacket (specially colors) and soon you will not be able to use it on yourself (you still can just carry it with you though)
I would prefer carry just that flexible solar panels on my pocket/car/wallet
What about a baseball cap with a solar brim? Plug it into your jacket for added solar surface area (more watts). Whats better, in places like Texas where I live you don't wear a jacket but a few months out of the year, but a cap can be worn year round. Use it as a stand alone device. In the Western part of the state a cap brim would pull in more juice than a jacket cap combo in lot of places. Just sounds like the natural next step to me.
No. Even though I'm a Texan I don't thing a solar Stetson would sell. Well, maybe a few....
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This is a good idea, but I beleve it is implimented in the wrong way. People are not going to buy jackets that have this. Why not put this technology/idea into a backpack? You could place the solar panels on the sholders on the backpack, or even a sort of side bag that has become so popular. Woul this not be a more appealing idea? Personally I would buy a backpack that had this feature. My laptop always needs those good ol' rays of cancer.*gigle*
They are assuming we go out into the sunshine, hell i spend my entire work day in a windowless closet of a server room with the light out to keep the heat down.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
This is for the large-scale solar cells used in solar power plants. Surely those have been designed to provide the best cost/energy ratio. Your statistics are completely inapplicable to this situation, and I wouldn't be surprised if these wearable solar cells did use much more energy to make than they will ever produce. But who cares? The jacket took energy to make and it's not producing any. I think the issue is that for a similar cost/weight, you could simply add some rechargeable batteries into the jacket itself, and plug it in at night. Perhaps this would be good for backpacking for two weeks - who knows.
1. You're exactly right. This national laboratory study is generally considered definitive.
2. Idiot Check:
Bulk unsubsidized price of a 100 watt solar panel:
$350
Lifetime energy production:
100W * 8 hours a day * 300 days per year * 25 years
6,000,000 Wh (6000 kWh)
Retail price of that electricity: $.10 / kWh
$600
Not a lot of profit margin for the manufacturer there is there?
I'll confess that I am beginning to lose my patience with debunking this over and over again; it was true back in the 1950s-60s when solar power was an elaborately hand-assembled product, and before you techie people caused the silicon market to blow up so hugely. (Though these are probably CIGS instead of crystalline silicon.)