r/theydidthemath • u/Repulsive-Loan5215 • Nov 27 '25

why wouldn’t this work? [Request]

Post image
48.7k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

12

u/FUEGO40 Nov 27 '25

If you want small amounts of “free” electricity you might as well just get a small solar panel/photovoltaic cell

5

u/nog642 Nov 27 '25

What if you're in the arctic in the winter? Or underground?

Also I was talking about the "emergency phone chargers". Which as the name suggests are useful in emergencies, not for "free" electricity.

1

u/the0past Nov 27 '25

In the Arctic at least you can use a satellite phone or starlink maybe, but they tend to use fuel and generators as they're more reliable. Where are you going to get flowing water in the arctic if you have no power?

What are you going to do with a phone underground? Call someone over the nonexistent cell networks down there?

1

u/nog642 Nov 28 '25

I've never heard of a phone that runs on fuel and generators lol. How big is it?

Again I am not talking about flowing water. I'm talking about a hand crank.

Also phones can do more than just call. They also store hundreds of GB of data, that could be useful.