Solar, it’s in the bag
Okay, how do you know solar has become trendy? When some dinky online company called Backup-Power.ca starts selling backpacks and camera/computer bags touted as “solar bags” — a design by a company called Eclipse Solar Gear. Basically, they’re bags with a little transparent pocket containing PV cells. You can apparently plug your cellphones and laptops into a connector in the bag, as long as you’ve got your own cigarette lighter adapter. What you get out of that effort is a solar trickle charge that, well, might give you a little juice over a long time.
Cool, I guess. Great novelty gift for the environmentalist at heart. But beyond that, I think products such as these — as borderline useless as they might be — are great for building awareness of these technologies. Personally, my fav is the purse that’s lined inside with LEDs and powered by a battery that, of course, is charged by the solar PV shell on the purse. It’s dark in those damn purses. Gotta get my wife one so she can find the keys at night.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca