Push to Charge

Alexander Parker - United States

158 billion text messages were sent in 2006, in the United States alone. Approximately 300,000 text messages were sent per minute. The average text message can be up to 160 characters.

Assume that if for each character in a text message a button is pressed once, each text message uses the entire allotted 160 characters, everybody in the US owns at least one cell phone, and each American person texts, on average, 1.4375 texts per day. This would mean that 229.99 buttons are pressed, in texting alone, per day, on a cell phone.

Now imagine if each button on a cell phone had a device embedded into it that created as little as 0.0005kW (0.5 Watts) per button pressed. That would mean that, through texting, 0.115kW would be created each day. On average, a cell phone battery requires a charge of 0.006 kW times the number of hours until full charge, or about 0.012 kW a day. If the same cell phone utilized a technology such as Press to Charge which created energy with each button tap, that cell phone would no longer need to be charged from an outside source, such as wall outlets.

By removing wall outlets from the electrical consumption of cell phones you're saving nearly 0.144kW a day, or 52.560kW a year. This is because if a cell phone charger is left plugged in, it still uses the same amount of energy per each hour of the day, until unplugged.

Imagine if this same technology was embedded into laptops, keyboards, or other computing devices. Buttons on such devices are pressed anywhere from 300-800 times per minute, or nearly half a million taps per day. This would mean that over 150,000 Watts (150kW) could be created each day by Press to Charge, enough to power a laptop that uses 15 Watts (0.015kW) to 45 Watts (0.045kW) per hour.

My design, Push to Charge, would accomplish all of this and could be adapted to fit other technology devices as well. Push to Charge uses metals, so its entirely re-usable, recyclable, and a more efficient way of obtaining energy than from wall outlets. As you can see from the numbers above, even if Push to Charge is not as efficient as my math shows it to be, it could still greatly reduce the amount of wattage pulled from fossil fuels, wall outlets, and other non-green resources.