It’s an interesting idea in theory. Basically, you’re recycling wasted indoor light (or light from the window sill) and using it to power your gadgets. It’s called the CubeTube, from Solar Road Technologies, and it’s designed to fit comfortably over the top of the outlines of your average cubicle and turn your average fluorescent overhead lighting into energy. Well, back into energy, I guess.
However, like the poster at TreeHugger, I don’t see just how much it could possibly gather, aside from eventually filling its small battery and maybe being a decent trickle charger for a cell phone or rechargeable battery device. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you could gather enough energy to power a USB device. I’d rather see one made to sit on top of a computer tower, or a computer monitor rim. That’d be a flatter surface, and one that could support a whole lot more photovoltaic panels than the rim of a cube wall.
Still, I’d give it a shot. Something is better than nothing, right?
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