Belgrade Hosts First Public Solar-Powered Cell Charging Station

arisvega writes "Dead battery in Belgrade, Serbia? Head to the city's Obrenovac district, where a group of students has developed the world's first public charging station powered entirely by solar energy. Known as the Strawberry Tree, the structure's 16 ports support a variety of handhelds, allowing pedestrians to juice up their handhelds in just ten to 15 minutes, at no charge. Its built-in batteries can also store up to a month's worth of back-up energy, enabling the station to hum along at night, or even during Serbia's less sunny seasons. 'Energy from the sun is free, and it would be unethical to charge people to use the Strawberry Tree...We are trying to inspire young people to think about the source of the energy they use, and behave and act responsibly,' said the inventor Milos Milisavljevic (17 years old when he came up with the idea) and now, at the ripe old age of 22, is looking to plant new stations across other Serbian cities."

Comments

Youth is wasted on the young

[inviolet]

'Energy from the sun is free, and it would be unethical to charge people to use the Strawberry Tree...We are trying to inspire young people to think about the source of the energy they use, and behave and act responsibly,' said the inventor Milos Milisavljevic

If the entire Strawberry Tree installation was free to design, free to build, free to maintain, free to fix after being vandalized, and free of any rents or taxes on the land it stands on . . . then the question of fees would never enter the picture, because Strawberry Trees would already be available everywhere.

Until then, very few moral codes are irrational enough to condemn a fee for services rendered.

Re:Youth is wasted on the young

[Evtim]

Why everything has to be all about money, money, money?

Yhea, it is very insightful to point the obvious - that the installation cost money. "No free lunch" can always get you some mod points. Please, introduce a mod +1 (conforming and mindlessly parroting the existing paradigm)

But you know what - you are surrounded by people giving things for free. Read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

Some excerpts to sharpen your appetite:

----There are many examples of how a gift economy works in modern culture within a mixed economy, such as marriage, family, friendship, kinship, and social network structures.

-----Traditional scientific research can be thought of as an information gift economy. Scientists produce research papers and give them away through journals and conferences. Other scientists freely refer to such papers. All scientists can therefore benefit from the increased pool of knowledge. The original scientists receive no direct benefit from others building on their work, except an increase in their reputation. Failure to cite and give credit to original authors (thus depriving them of reputational effects) is considered improper behavior.[27]

-----In his essay "Homesteading the Noosphere", noted computer programmer Eric S. Raymond opined that open-source software developers have created "a 'gift culture' in which participants compete for prestige by giving time, energy, and creativity away".[29] Members of the Linux community often speak of their community as a gift economy.[30]

------Millions of articles are available on Wikipedia, a free on-line encyclopedia, and almost none of its innumerable authors and editors receive any direct material reward.[31][32]

Certainly not first, certainly not 15 minutes, etc

[olden]

Saw a similar, amateur setup in the tiny harbor of my hometown, NeuchÃtel, Switzerland, maybe, huh, 10 years ago?
Unfortunately the 8+ different cellphone charging cables provided weren't rugged enough for an outdoor/public setting, and I suspect that frequent damage is what eventually decided the owner to eventually, er, shall I say, pull the plug.

Also, re charging time: common Li-ion takes 2~3h for a full charge, 15 minutes may be a 80-to-90% top-off...

No kidding

[Sycraft-fu]

Now I should start by saying if they wish to provide this as a free service, I think that is wonderful. I've no objections to people who wish to provide something too people at no cost. If you are willing to eat the costs, time, money, and otherwise, then by all means. Altruism is great.

However his reasoning is extremely stupid. The sun does not charge for its energy, but then neither does any other source. Uranium charges nothing to release the energy it contains in a nuclear reaction. So why then does it cost money? Well because you have to mine that uranium (and by extension build equipment to mine it), refine it (and of course build a facility to refine it), and then have it operated in a proper reactor to turn it in to useful energy (which again you have to build). That the uranium charges nothing to release its energy has no bearing on there being costs to bring it to a useful state.

Same deal with solar. The sun bombards the Earth with electromagnetic radiation of many frequencies all the time, and does so at no cost. However, to do almost anything useful with that energy, you have to construct something. Even if it is as simple as capturing the IR to heat something you are going to need things like lenses, mirrors, insulation, etc.

In this case, of course, you need a bunch of solar panels, batteries, and associated hardware. That is not cheap to make. Solar panels, particularly efficient ones, take a good bit of work to produce and thus have a good bit of costs associated. Now if he wants to eat those costs and provide the service free, good on him. But let's not pretend those costs don't exist.

Solar power is NOT free. We don't want to go down the road where people think "Oh we don't need to put money towards solar/wind/etc because it is free." Hell no, we need to put money towards it. R&D and deployment isn't cheap. If we want it as one of our energy sources we need to be willing to spend money to make it happen.

Heck, money is the one and only reason I don't have solar on my condo. I live in a very sunny area, my association would let me do it, I like the idea, and so on. So why the hell don't I have panels? I can't afford it, that's why. The up front cost is too high. I am not a rich person I can't afford to bear it, even though it would pay for itself in a couple decades most likely.