Body Heat Could Charge Your Cellphone

An anonymous reader writes to mention Nature is reporting that scientists have discovered a much more efficient way to use silicon to convert heat into electricity. This offers the possibility of many different applications including possibly charging your portable electronics just by wearing them close to your skin. "The concept of converting waste heat into electricity isn't exactly new, but it never really materialized due to efficiency hurdles. Now, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley think they may have found a key [to] increase the conversion efficiency by a factor of 100."

So...

[Icarus1919]

Between the cell phones being charged by shaking them, by solar power, and by body heat - at what point will they be blowing up in our pockets?

Downsides

[Tablizer]

Slap Slap Slap - But m'aam, I just wanted to charge my cellphone and your breasts were handy.

     

Snap Crackle & Pop

[Tablizer]

Between the cell phones being charged by shaking them, by solar power, and by body heat - at what point will they be blowing up in our pockets?

I claim dibs on Rice Crispies-powered phones
   

I want to see the users manual

[Brett Buck]

I just hope the word "insert" doesn't appear in the instructions.

        Brett

Re:I for one

[badran]

So now we have sperm powered nano-bots, and body heat powered gadgets, next thing you know it we will be running Human powered factories, data-centers.... and some punk-ass Rasta group with some Jaaaa trying to stop this...... Do not forget freakish spoon bending kids...

Re:Basic physics: no.

[Anonymous Coward]

the most energy we could possibly get out of this generation system is 0.6 * 1.7% = 10 milliwatts

... but combined with a form of fusion, the devices will have all the energy they would ever need.

Oh wait!

So...Portable Monica.

[Anonymous Coward]

"at what point will they be blowing up in our pockets?"

I believe Bill Clinton has one of those.

Re:Downsides

[Joebert]

This will sound funny, but, that's perfectly natural.

I'm sure plenty of people here have at one point thought that way about your mom.

Bring 'em on !

[Joebert]

I'm always up for a heated discussion.

Next up: Lap-powered laptops

[Jeff Jungblut]

So how soon until I can recharge my MacBook Pro with crotch heat? I'm thinking, maybe, perpetual porn machine.

Re:Downsides

[taiwanjohn]

Hehe... "Hey baby, if I said you had a hot body, would you hold it against my phone?" ;-)

Copper Top

[Layth]

"[Scientists] may have found a key increase the conversion efficiency by a factor of 100." Let me guess, this is involves some form of fusion.. and the machines have found all the energy they will ever need. This happened in a dream once, that I was so sure was real..

Re:So...

[thegnu]

If we've got shaking and body heat down as energy sources, I think we've just discovered vibrators that run forever.

And with solar power, we have at least one argument to get girls to masturbate outside. :-)

Re:Basic physics: no.

[ColdWetDog]

This idea's dead in the water at the basic physics stage, before we even get to the engineering considerations.

However you are forgetting the first two, pre-physics stages: Marketing and Investment.

The hot air (and subsequent thermal gradient) from these stages should allow thermodynamics to power these devices for at least as long as it takes the stock to tank.