The Ubiquitous Charger

We see them here, we see them there, we see them everywhere - battery chargers!  Phones, tablets, notebooks, torches, drills, .... etc, etc, need charging.  But do we have just one type of charger?  Oh no, there are different connectors, voltages, power requirements, which means there is a plethora of types of battery charger.  For many people it becomes a logistic nightmare to ensure their gadgets are charged when they need them.  Even the more organised who make sure they have routines to try to ensure they are never without juice, can be caught out by a power cut or charger failure - they don't last forever!

Battery performance has increased six-fold in the past century, whereas performance of the electronics they power has increased 10,000% in the past 35 years.  This means that as computing technology, in one form or another, takes over our lives and demands more and more electrical power, battery technology struggles to keep up with it.  So despite having automated lifestyles, we still have to remember to charge the bloody batteries!  Also, for the environmentally-conscious amongst us, just feel your charger when one of your devices is being charged.  It gets warm, which means some of the electricity being consumed from the grid is being wasted to produce heat.  So we are burning more fossil fuel and creating more carbon dioxide emissions than we need to.

OK, I've had a good moan so what's the solution?  Well I've no doubt that battery technology will improve and there are also some attempts to standardise on phone and tablet chargers with the move towards the 5v USB standard.  But there is something that all of us can do immediately to reduce the consumption of electricity from fossil fuels - use the sun!

I don't want this blog post to be an advertisement for solar-powered battery chargers, but there are plenty on the market.

The manufacturer of the one illustrated here, claims it will charge many of the popular phones and tablets.

I am sure technology will come to our rescue eventually.  That said, I have no doubt the ubiquitous charger will be around for many years to come!