Green Cell Phones, Whether Solar-Powered Or Recycled, Lead Agenda At Mobile World Congress

Times Online:

They are solar-powered, made from recycled plastic water bottles and capable of measuring your carbon footprint - and when the annual Mobile World Congress began in Barcelona yesterday, environmentally friendly mobile phones led the agenda.

With demand for the latest handsets set to slump by 10 per cent this year, mobile phone makers attending the conference were looking for new ways to drive their profits through the recession.

Read the whole story: Times Online

Comments

[KillTheMessenger]

01:37 PM on 02/17/2009

Another totally misleading article. For one thing the solar cells in a cell phone can never have an EROEI of greater than one. For that to happen they would have to be exposed to direct sunlight for several years and feed excess power back into the electricity grid. The average cell phone is not even in use long enough to ensure the time requirement of the EROEI criterion, even if it did reside all the time on the roof of a house. And usually cell phones are kept in dark pockets, not on rooftops.

In addition, the energy intensive part of a cell phone is not the phone itself but the cell phone tower. And that could be powered by solar cells which could more than break even. But they wouldn't be built into the phone, of course...

In short, this is not green but greenwash of the worst kind.

[FZliveson]

10:09 AM on 02/17/2009

Green Cell Phones?
When it is revealed/discovered what the effect is on our bodies of the intense and constant bombardment get from microwave transmission, we may turn green. Green Cell Phones, my ass!

[jumperpin]

11:23 PM on 02/16/2009

Better hurry. St. Pat's Day just 'round the corner.