The sun is in your pocket

Solar panels - a source of energy in the jungle and airplanes

A year ago, Jonathan Smith edited Earth911.com, a recycling site. After a whole day of negotiations or public speaking, he often boarded a plane with a dead mobile phone. It was charging...

A year ago, Jonathan Smith edited Earth911.com, a recycling site. After a whole day of negotiations or public speaking, he often boarded a plane with a dead mobile phone. There was nowhere to charge it. “It pissed me off,” Smith says. “There was no guarantee that there would be a free working outlet at the next airport.”

Hoping to solve this problem, Smith purchased a portable solar generator that could be placed near an airplane window. "I hooked up a phone to it and when we landed it was ready to go again." Of course, the solar panel was in line with his "green" beliefs. And yet, he says, “I started using solar power for convenience.”

Smith is just one of a growing group of businessmen who are using renewable energy - for practical reasons or for the love of the environment - to charge electronic devices where access to the mains is limited or unavailable. These are mainly portable solar panels, but there are also dynamo generators driven by a twisting handle.

“This technology is the only way we can work,” says tropical ecologist John Poulsen. He studies the effects of deforestation on animal populations in the forests of Central Africa. In search of new data, Poulsen can move 40 kilometers away from the nearest road. “Research is required to be carried out in the forest for two or three weeks in a row. If we had to return to the village every two or three days for batteries, we would not succeed,” he says.

As a rule, portable renewable energy sources do not allow to supply electricity to large devices such as personal computers and printers. But they're powerful enough to power laptops, satellite phones, audio recorders, satellite navigation, and camp lighting, says Stuart Cody, owner of Automated Media Systems in Alston, Massachusetts. The company creates portable power plants and custom battery backup systems. Her clients are businessmen and adventurers.

Since their introduction in the mid-1990s, these devices have come a long way. That's when the Kangaroo Conservation Program at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo began using portable solar panels "in the field" at their game reserves in Papua New Guinea. “The batteries we got at first didn’t work very well,” says Lisa Dubek, the zoo’s director of animal welfare in the wild. “Now solar panels for charging laptops, navigation devices and satellite phones are much smaller and more portable.”

The organization switched to this technology not only out of love for the environment, but also for practical reasons. “Fuel generators,” Dubek says, “are very heavy. It is impossible to climb a mountain with such a monster on your back for two days. In addition, they are very noisy and scare away tree kangaroos.”

According to Stuart Cody, consumers need to be realistic about the amount of power that portable solar panels can produce. “Those who start using them do not understand that solar panels are not a constant source of energy,” he says. The sun appears and then disappears. Less electricity is generated in the shade.”

Cody suggests using solar generators to charge built-in or external batteries, rather than keeping appliances plugged in.

“Here's an analogy,” he says, comparing a battery to a water tank. — There is a small pump that maintains a constant but weak flow of water into the tank. Without this tank, you couldn't take a shower."

Periodic power outages are a disadvantage of solar generators. But for many of those who use them, they literally save lives. “We have lions and elephants here,” says doctor and international development consultant Martin Graber, based in Narok County, southwestern Kenya. He uses a solar-powered lamp when he goes to the outdoor toilet at night. "I want to make sure there are no animals there."

"I've never had any issues with these devices going through airport security," says Smith. He adds that airport employees often question him with interest about the devices.

“When you come across innovative and socially responsible appliances,” he says, “it's fantastic. Businessmen working in remote locations have specific needs that these renewable appliances address, and they allow us to protect the environment beyond lip service.”