This is an idea that has a lot of promise. It seems that Motorola is introducing a bicycle powered cell phone charger for “emerging markets” read third world countries where energy is hard to come by. Just because you don’t have electricity in your home doesn’t mean you can’t own a cell phone.

For people living in emerging markets, energy is a scarcity,” Motorola chief executive Ed Zander said Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show. “In Southeast Asia, rural China and Latin America, we can actually put this in, hook it up and charge this device while we are riding a bike.

Zander said with the bicycle-wheel power source and handlebar mounted cradle, the phones will be even more attractive in emerging markets. Many people overseas live in areas where regular power feeds are scarce. As a result, simply charging a cellular phone becomes a problem.

With the bicycle charging system, Zander hopes to tap into the more than 500 million Chinese people who ride a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation. By why stop there? So many people all over the world could use this sort of technology to save gas, save energy, and have a good time riding their bike, while at the same time charging up all their little electro-gizmos.

Cell phones offer low income economies the chance to leap frog traditional technology limits without investing a lot of resources in infrastructure. They can start to reap the rewards of having more technology, and as shown by this innovation, can do so without hurting the environment. Imagine how much different America would be if everything was wireless and the bicycle not the car was the main source of transport.