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Portable Fuel Cell Technology
Quite a number of people have been writing about the announcement from Motorola concerning their new fuel cell. The new approach is an innovative one. They are using methanol, wood fuel alcohol, in a patented approach. Power claims are "twenty hours for laptops" and a month for cell phones - and it's small enough and light enough that it could simply replace a battery. I'd love to have something that could do that - better than the maybe-an-hour-and-a-half with my Vaio.
What I have hear from a friend of mine who is actually a chemist, is that a quite cheap way (at least in sweden where there is little or no charge at hospitals) of getting roaring drunk is to go to your local hospital and tell them youv'e drunk methanol. They will let you drink ethanol, they will fill your blood with ethanol and you will be generally pissed for quite some time. Not my idea of a nice party, though.
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
Unforunately your .sig is just too true. So where'd you get your brain?
Well, you just dump a 16 oz can of beer that contains alchol into the laptop battery. The only problem is AMerican beer is weak (contain 3%) alchol. You probably can go longer with an imported BEER! Costs more though. Then while hacking your kernel and you get thirsty, just siphon off a few ounces or drops to your coffee mug whils't the code keeps hummin. BTW, the latest in fuel cells is proton diffusion membrane technology where the waste product is water. A site to check out is http://www.ballard.com
Yeah, as I suggested, the start up cost is probably extreme. Fast chargers are still not a decent option, due to infrastructure cost (juice, as you put it), and speed. 20 minutes is better than hours, but who wants to sit around at a "gas" station for 20 minutes at a time? Can you imagine the line? You'd need far bigger stations to handle more cars at one time to keep the filling lines at their current level. (I'm assuming contemporary electric vehicles run out of "juice" at the same rate as contemporary Otto-type engines).
The carbon tax is the specter of the zero-risk society, the same fools who want to sue cigarette, gun, and hamburger manufacturers for the silly choices of end users. Face it, if you want technology, you must accept some level of pollution. Even if you want a sort of Al Gorian utopia with primitive huts and no internal combustion, at present population levels, there's gonna be a lot of pollution.
Pollution has been declining since before the enactment of the clean air and water acts, as a result of people voting with their money and media pressure. The proposed carbon tax is little more than a way to employ ever more useless burrowcrats on the backs of ever fewer productive citizens. It is a political solution to an (alleged) scientific problem. As with all solutions along these lines, the unintended consequences will be more damaging than the original problem.
What you are missing ecampbel is that 8-12 hours is much less than your quoted "few days" and thus the 99.9% are still encompassed by what Crusoe is offering from it's capabilities in this debate, and yet it still caters for that mystical .1% of weirdos.... can we say 100% satisfaction???
It's not really breathing any more then your car is, it's just emitting exhaust.
Your understanding of explosives and risk assessment is clearly several standard deviations below the mean.
Methanol is highly flammable, in the presence of heat and oxygen. Heat is a major byproduct of all fuel cell designs I've encountered, as are carbon dioxide and water. However, methanol is hardly explosive.
If you could magically transfer the methanol in one of these hypothetical fuel cells into aerosol form and ignite them, the resulting reaction would hardly damage your head. As a homework assignment, I want you to pour a shot glass full of vodka on your shoe and ignite it. These short chain alcohols burn quite cool. You shoe will not be burned or charred, and you will be able to put out the flame using your hand.
The small amounts of fuel in the proposed cell would quickly be consumed in a fire, causing, at worst, minor burns.
As to your deficiency in risk assessment, I merely refer you to the clothes you wear. Likely, they are made of highly flammable synthetic fibers, which produce highly toxic fumes (among others, burning the ubiquitous plastic PVC produces nerve gases). You sit in rooms filled with these materials (rugs, upholstery) every day, and yet you don't cringe in fear over burning to death or, more likely, dying from asphyxiation.
Add to that the probability that you will be injured or killed on the way to work, or die in your bathroom at home, and the marginal risk of using a cell phone powered by a methanol fuel cell is vanishingly small. For your second homework assignment, please look up the statistics on the leading causes of death. You will, no doubt, be surprised.
Finally, not even Tim McVeigh could assemble one, ten, or a thousand of these things (a thousand? it's far cheaper to use other, more available components to wreak havoc on a large scale) into an effective WMD. The burn temperature is too cool to do significant damage to structures, and the volumes involved would be easily doused or the fires contained.
Your pillow and pillowcase are far more dangerous than fuel cells.
20 hours on a charge? Why that's almost 80 hours with a transmeta!
Does this new fuel cell use platinum as a catalyst? If so, is there enough platinum on the planet to power all the Game Boys?
CH3? That's a radical thing to blow out your ass. On the other hand, I suppose it could be positive..
Wrong, you're all wrong. The biggest power drains in a Laptop are the HDD and the inverter that powers the screen backlighting. Just because the processor draws 5x less power or whatever, doesn't mean that a completete laptop will be 5x more efficient. Here's a tip If you don't understand the technology, don't post.
ha! that was the funniest thing i heard all day. especially the radical part! i think im the only one that got it though. dont you mean i suppose it could be NEGATIVE? CH3 would be missing an H+ making it -1 charged right?
Did you even think before making your post? having a portable high performance computer run for 12 hours without needing a recharge is better than what we have, so yes, these new batteries are going to be useful... but wouldn't it be cool to have double that battery life because you use a power efficient processor? This might be troll-ish, but I dream of the day when wireless broadband net connections are coupled with a crusoe and these new batteries. I will just run off into the mountains with my mobile linux computer ;-P So what if I just play quake on it?
So I can say that my computer is actually breathing. It carries on a process of respiration? Will angry sysadmins get jail time for suffocating their server? Next thing you know, you are going to have to take your computer outside so that it can take a shit and piss. Hmmm, maybe computer daipers?
I don't know about methanol, but ethanol is produced by putting yeasts on vegetable mass, usually corn. But it's very inefficient (produced ethanol / amount of ethanol you could produce with all the carbohydrates in the corn), because the yeasts can just break down sugar. Sure, corn has a good deal of sugars in it, but the bulk of it is cellulose, which the yeasts cannot break down. However, there are bacteria which can produce ethanol from cellulose, but they also have their own problems, though this is actively being researched (I got to help!) I guess the bottom line is that current gasoline is less expensive than methanol/ethanol (though I doubt you'd want a gas-powered laptop), but they're getting better.
I'm running my "Man friday" on jungle juice.
Don't forget Spontanious Combustion.
Anyone hear about MHTX? A little company called Manhattan Science has been working on this a lot longer then the Cell-Co.-Monster. Did someone say patent infringement? Most importantly, what happens to my stock?
With those super-duper low power Transmeta chips, and now this... I may never need to stop computing while on the road....
F1 cars use petrol (gasoline), not methanol. A couple of years ago, there was a similar fire to the one described above in an F1 pit, and it created a huge fireball. IIRC, everyone was OK, apart from a couple of mechanics who got a bit burned.However, US Indycar use Methanol for their fuel, which burns without a visible flame.
Petrol (C8H18) has a high carbon-hydrogen ratio, so produces a lot of carbon partiulates when it burns with an insufficient supply of oxygen; these glow yellow, producing the flame. However, Methanol (CH3OH) has a much lower carbon ratio (and even has an atom of oxygen to help out), so burns invisibly, as it requires relatively little oxygen to burn into invisible products.
I remember seeing one of these 'world's greatest disasters'-type program where they showed a methanol tanker that had crashed and caught on fire. The fire brigade thought that there wasn't really any problem, and were about to move forward to start clearing things up until they saw that bits of the tanker were melting. A thermal image camera from a helicopter showed that the tanker was engulfed in an enourmous fireball, and that the whole thing was in danger of exploding. It's certainly a bit worrying that it is difficult to detect when this potential fuel is on fire.
Q. If your micro fuel cell uses methanol as a fuel, wouldn't it be considered a combustion hazard?
A. The fuel used in a micro fuel cell is a combination of methanol and water. It is no more combustible than a vodka martini.
Methanol is nowadays pretty much synthesized from natural gas. You do NOT want to drink this stuff.
"Yet another case of a pre-emptive technology announcements. The fine print in the press release noted that these cells are at least 3-5 years from production. A lot can happen in that time. "
A lot might *not* happen in that time, too. What has happened between 1997 and now? Nothing!
We've got faster components, but no fundamental change. So there are more web sites. 90% of the market is still x86. Windows still dominates. Desktops are still friggin huge.
Between now and 2003, we will probably see:
1) Crusoe - lower power, but it's still a silicon CPU that provides no significant speed advantage.
2) Even more Web - Great, so now we have 10,000 shopping sites instead of 5,000.
3) Faster hard drives - Great, but it's still 1000 times slower than memory
4) Faster memory - Great, but it's still 1000 times slower than the CPU can handle
5) More Windows/Linux/BeOS - Great, but my mom still doesn't get it
What I would like to see:
1) A small footprint PC that has *no* electrical outlet, but instead has a funnel to pour my Jim Beam into.
2) 20" organic electroluminescent displays @ 300 dpi. (We were promised this 15 years ago)
3) Zero wires - everything done with Bluetooth and global wireless high speed Internet.
ouch, take that airlines!
Hmm... Long battery life means you're not punished when you get a laptop from the pool, and it's the last one, of course, the one that had some dork lost the "brick", and the computer guys won't let you take one of theirs. Long battery life means that at 20-50 hrs. of battery life, you throw/refuel the cell once a month or so, and also probably means you don't need the brick in the first place, so the complete package is even lighter than before. Most people appreciate lightness, even if it's not their primary concern.
PRobably not EtOH, because its energy density is even lower than Methanol's... And what do you do if you're in a state that doesn't sell Everclear (or its 194-proof equivalents), like Washington? All the others, like vodka, rum, etc., have trace sugars, etc., that would probably mess up the fuel cell eventually...
Your carbon tax rant completely misses the point and is yet another example of the misguided use of pseudo-libertarian notions in the service of fundamentally un-free types of organization. You support the status quo system of passing costs from those who create them to the rest of us at large, when real liberty would pass costs to those who create them. The latter would encourage a market driven balance of activities and approaches. Where pollution has declined over the years, it has been the result of mandated regulatory methods, which typically are less efficient and much less fair than more modern market-based environmental regulation, like carbon taxes and pollution rights auctions.
Methanol isn't quite as friendly as ethanol... go to Office Depot and get some mimeograph fluid...
Yes, I would nto want methanol squirted in my eye, but I also would not want hairspray squirted in my eye, and they sell that stuff all the time to idiots.
If methanol is wood alcohol, isn't it the same thing as RUBBING alcohol? Heaven forbit anybody ever getting that stuff on their skin
Wait, isn't that why it is called rubbing alcohol?
Don't forget to use a spell checker!
(It's too bad that Slashdot doesn't have an "anonymous bonehead" posting option.)
Shoot, just harness all that energy that those klein bottles create, and power every laptop on the planet for years to come.
'Use Canabis! Smoke it too!'
Yeah, too bad it's four times as carcinogenic as tobacco smoke...
I have to wonder about this anouncement and how soon after the crusoe was anounced they go and say low power consumption is no longer a concern.
Apparently, you're the one failing to grasp the concept of humor. In case you didn't know, humor is supposed to be funny. Hope that clears it up.
Solution 1 : Quit smoking!
Solution 2 : Firstly, READ THE ARTICLE.
It says :
These new miniature cells, each measuring about one inch square and less than one-tenth of an inch in thickness, use a reservoir of inexpensive methanol that, when combined with the oxygen in the air, produces electricity.
cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine would be much prefered by any psychos.
*WARNING! CRAPPY SIG BELOW*
Go on. Light the fuse on my tampon. You really want to die, don't you?
I saw on TV that in Brazil they have a huge program to produce alcohol from sugar cane for automotive use. In order to meet the demand they are clearing large amounts of land (primarily rain forest, of course) to grow the stuff.
Mike
ps. curse the slow network connection that let someone else post my 'out of juice' joke first! Aaaargh!
Just don't use this in a enclosed area, as you will suffocate, since now your laptop needs to breathe too.
I have a sneaky suspicion that the CO2 emitted from all the people on the plane would be greater then the fuel cells.
:-)
:-)
I think you're probably correct
Or am I blowing CO2 out my back end?
Nope, that would be a mixture of mostly H2 and CH3
"Seriously, Turing machines are more advanced right now than Leibnitz machines or Babbage machines. I've got the book on them (theres only one) and they seem really promising..."
--ac
if batteries get good enough we might have disposable laptop's! no?
mr. a.s.
transmeta ships mid 2000. motorola ships 2005.
Let us not forget that this technology is 4-5 years off. With these run-times for current technology devices, the future could be pretty incredible as processor speed goes up while power consumption comes down.
4 years is a looooooong time in this industry.
I have a sneaky suspicion that the CO2 emitted from all the people on the plane would be greater then the fuel cells.
:-)
Or am I blowing CO2 out my back end?
Fly first class. The food is generally excellent.
I have a monster Dell Inspiron 7500. It's good for about 3 hours, which is in fact much longer than I have ever needed to use it on batteries. To me the big gain will not be getting longer time, it will be getting a lighter notebook. This beast is 9 pounds, thanks in part to the battery needed to run the pentium III for 3+ hours. (and the 15" display, which is now the SMALL display option...)
WTF? Could you possibly explain what the hell you're talking about?
They already have them. Ballard, in liason with Dailmer-Benz, has already completed Fuel Cell stacks for Cars, generators, and were even planning on some cells for US Submarines.
During prohibition, when people were willing to do anything to get something alcoholic down their throat, some drank wood alcohol.
Sometimes it worked out OK, sometimes not. But if their vision started to go as they drank it they immediately stopped drinking and tried to induce vomitting, as it was the only way to prevent the alcohol from killing or at least completely blinding them.
This sounds errily familiar to another cold fusion "fuel cell". They had a revolutionary new power source too. Hmmm, as another slashdotter said "Marketing v. reality? Nah, wouldn't be a fair fight."
okay... that was offtopic, yeah.. but man.. did you see Mr T throwin those fool's helluva far man?
heh.
If the damn government would legalize this stuff, I wouldn't have gotten into the habit of smoking it every weekend. It has so many other uses -- the fuel you mentioned and it's better than cutting millions of trees down. Legalize it.
Although they probably still support it in some way, MOT has really turned around in the last year and is doing quite well in the wireless market.
I can not wait for the day we can run the transmeta and this battery in a 3 pound laptop that should give us about 3 months with out a recharge, now if we could just get nation wide wireless IP technologies down to the degree that the new chip and battery offer us we can be wireless people.
Yes, methanol from Canabis! Canabis produces more oxygen than trees, cleans the air, grows faster (note: Is a WEED.) Don't kill trees. Use Canabis! Smoke it too! p.s. can someone fill me in on this Toywar.
A decent Network is finally here.
This fuel cell means that there is no advantage to the low power consumption of the Crusoe...
Weight! These batteries not only weigh less given teh smae volume, you need less volume for the same battery life. Most people only need 10 hours of battery life a day, but imagine how much smaller and lighter these new notebooks and PDA's will be (especially if the used a Transmeta processor)
Eventually, Methanol won't be used at all. As soon as an infrastructure for Hydrogen fill ups is in place, Methanol Fuel Cells will be brought out of production. And Hydrogen is an even MORE effective fuel for these batteries.
And one more fun fact about methanol is... it burns with an invisible flame, unlike those nifty little ethanol burners you may remember from chemistry class. Set a puddle of methanol on fire, and all you'll see is a little heat haze.
IIRC, methanol is used to fuel Formula 1 racing cars. The Learning Channel had some interesting footage of drivers leaping out of crashed cars, slapping their clothing, rolling around, and eventually being extinguished by the emergency crew -- all with no visible fire or smoke.
I thought Manhattan Scientifics owned the patent on the Los Alamos mini fuel cell? The yahoo article implies (to me) that Motorola is using the same technology, but makes no mention of MHTX. What's up??
(made a good chunk of change on MHTX! 1.4->6.4, yippee!).
nick
Hi UL: who are the Inheritors of Iridium?
(eheh, sounds like a corny sci-fi book)
but seriously...
thanks!
IIRC The US Champ Car series (Formerly Indy Car) uses methanol, but Formula 1, which uses pressurized pumps during pitstops, still uses racing gasoline. Champ Car switched decades ago due to the high probability of fuel cell rupture in accidents on US superspeedway tracks. You are correct about the fire safety benefits, methanol can be diluted with water, gasoline just floats on top.
I browse with my threshold at 2 so I can't read my own comments :-)
Hmm, is Motorola cooperating with Manhattan
Scientifics in this area? The article on Yahoo
wasn't very clear.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
That'll be real fun, when we can pop a alcohol cart into the Crusoe powered webpad and not have to worry about changing any batteries in it for a couple months.
We may not have all the cool stuff people thought we would have in the year 2000, but we're certainly hell-bent on making it happen.
_______
computers://use.urls. People use Networds.
Sounds more like a USENET spelling flame war to me. It was understood what the guy meant. It still drives me up the wall when I see people use incorrect forms of words, but I've deemed it best to not bother to say anything.
Well, you _also_ can't use a cell phone in an airplane because:
1)It just couldn't hook up to the cellular network - you're too far away and moving too fast (probably over large areas with no coverage)
2)If it did, you wouldn't use the phones built into the plane, would you?
While there is probably a good technical reason to prohibit people from using cel phones on planes, I suspect the prohibition stems from business reasons.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
>little vials of combustable poisionous liquid
You mean duty-free whiskey? In any case I'd pop for a fuel cell that ran on that.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
they won't even let you take Everclear on board a plane for fear of explosion... Do I really want to be smoking in the airplane lav and have my laptop explode and force me to give up my ability to have kids? No thanks :) NiCAD's and LI's sound safest to me :)
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Apparently the concept of humor continues to elude you.
Have a look here:e ase12.htm
http://www.manhattsci.com/media_center/pressrel
It looks like these guys came up with basically the same thing, a year ago.
Lets say that a fuel cell can run a portable for 20 hours when it would normally run for 3. Call it 6 times the normal life, just to be conservative. Now, digging around AMD gives me the info that their K6-III portable CPU consumes (I hate trying to read these things) 2 Watts of power, compared to Trasmeta's 1W. That would mean that a similar portable would run for 40 hours...
.. would be not 1 month on a regular cell phone, but just a few days for a satellite phone. They are too big and power hungry and expensive now - and I need one (why? - mountaneering...)...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
They were mostly talking about mobile applications - not cars. There it is not against $1.25/gallon, but agains $1+ per AA battery, or $70 per battery with a need for hourly recharging...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
This is awful! Now what am I going to use to heat my lap?
:-)
Still no competition for your good stuff or the 'shiners -- that's grain alcohol, aka, ethanol.
The story says methanol, wood alcohol -- if you drink that you'll be lucky if you just go blind.
I seriously doubt that this will be that dangerous, no more so than drinking a glass of brandy at least or using a butane lighter. I imagine it will be much safer than driving a car.
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
I can see it now, having to surrender you battery at the gate before boarding the plane.
Being a smoker, and careless by nature, I'm sure that someday I would start a fire in my laptop.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
No sarcasm. If a normal notebook runs on 5W, and Transmeta's runs on 1W, then you have 5x the battery life. If you then have fule cells running laptops for 10x as long then one would suppose that Transmeta's CPU with this fulecell could actually run for 50x as long or about 100 hours!
Cool,
So we all get to have our computers running for months on end, our calculators running for years on end, and LEDs running infinately. Just think. We would make some super bright LEDs, use them for lights all over, and just hook up one of these power cells. Think of the power it would save!
Look into mhtxe, they are most likely the company that is doing the actual research. The fuel cells would run on a mixture of water and methonal, not pure methanol, and the mixture would mostly be water, so the explosive nature would not be a problem.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
One company that is actively developing this type of fuel cell, Manhattan Scientifics, is achieving power densities much lower than you are imagining. A cell of the size suggested in the article would produce less than one watt of power, not the oodles of power that are blowing your mind. It is possible that they could stack them and come close to replacing a convetional battery in a laptop computer, but that is not their target market.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Come on, most hemp is not of the kind that makes men happy. It is our attachment to the status quo that prevents us from utilizing this hardy plant as a natural resource.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
How does this "suck" compared to what we have now?
Let's use laptops as an example:
Right now, you use a laptop for two hours then you're out of juice and must wait until you can get to an electrical outlet for an extended period of time.
On the plane? Sorry.
At the poolside finishing up the cerebral implant drivers so Linux can run Quake 7? Sorry.
On a road trip? Sorry, unless you have an inverter and a spare cigarette lighter.
Let's not even get into having to replace the batteries....
With the ethanol fuel cell, after 20 hours of use, you reach in your backpack and pull out a 20-cent methanol cartridge (that's a guess, but how much could it cost?) and pop it in the cell(certainly without having to remove it and possibly without having to power down (small internal reservoir, etc)) and you keep on going. You would never be tied to the electrical grid if you didn't want to be and the fuel (methanol) would be comparably cheap to the electricity you use now. The cell would probably last longer because there aren't all those fancy chemicals to degrade over time.
Now how could this possibly be annoying or inconvenient compared to what we have now?
Solar might be OK if you are outside or your laptop runs the Crusoe Mark V that only draws 0.05 watts (not to mention the display and storage, etc), or you don't mind your solar panel being the size of a Buick.
Kinetic works well for watches (mechanically anyway), but I'd really hate to have to stop working and shake my laptop to recharge it... imagine the Etch-a-Sketch jokes.
But seriously, this seems like a phenomenal improvement in cost, longevity and convenience over batteries. Of course, the standard "3 - 5 years down the road" clause is in effect, so I guess we'll know in about 2004.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
It seems to me that carrying ethanol around in sealed plastic containers (similar to fountain pen cartridges according to the article) could hardly be dangerous.
1. They're sealed. It's not like people will be opening a cap on their laptops and pouring the stuff in... it would be more like replacing an ink jet cartridge.
2. They're small. I don't know how much methanol it takes to run your laptop for 20 hours, but if the fuel cells are comparable in size to batteries and lighter, I hardly think someone will be walking around with a pint of ethanol... unless perhaps he or she is going off to hike the Appalachian trail for a month and bought a gross of methanol cartidges at Wal-Mart to run a laptop.
How does butane compare to methanol? Probably not as flammable and has a much higher flash point, but still people don't worry about folks carrying around butane lighters whereever they go.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I got me one of them new fangled wood-burnin' com-pu-tars!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
I'm an F1 fan and I'm sorry but that's not correct.
:)
F1 runs on standard pump unleaded. They used to run on all sorts of exotic things - toluene, mostly, IIRC - but they changed the rules a few years back. Now it's basically the same as what your car runs on.
Champ Cars - the US domestic series - run on Methanol. The cars look reasonably similar to a non-fan
Also, F1's only had refuelling since '94 or so. They DID have a spectacular pit fire in '94 at Hockenheim (Germany), though - Benetton had removed a filter to try and speed refuelling slightly but gravel got caught in the valve and it jammed open, spraying fuel everywhere. And, being petrol, the fire was visible.
There's been two other fires, since - Pedro Diniz for Ligier had a leaky valve and the car went up on the track, while Jordaon (IIRC) had a fire in the pits at Spa Francorchamps (Belgium) though I can't remember the cause or driver, sorry.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
If there's such a fine line between humor and idiocy, I would think one would be carefull not to cross it. How was I supposed to know you were joking? how was anyone? Were we exspected to simply say "well, I know sig11's smart, so this must be a joke." You don't think that's a bit egotistical?
"Subtle Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
How about using this technology in a UPS?
FuleCells cannot be recharged. You'd have to stick more fule in. So, I don't think they would be to usefull in an UPS
"Subtle Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
This sounds errily familiar to another cold fusion "fuel cell". They had a revolutionary new power source too.
Uh, sig, this has nothing to do with cold fusion whatsoever. A fule cell is a device that turns chemical energy into electrical energy, without the use of an engine and generator. It's fully understood (unlike cold fusion), And is in fact the basis of all life (We don't really 'burn' the food we eat, and then use internal combustion engines to move, now do we?)
"Subtle Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I don't think methonal is that flamable. Most real exsplosions are caused by Nitrogen forming into N2. Anyway, lithium Ion battaries are exsplosive to.
"Subtle Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
What I'm curious about is what the airlines/FAA are going to say about people bringing electric devices which carry little vials of combustable poisionous liquid with them onto airplanes?
You mean like battary acid?
"Subtle Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Excuse the reply to myself, but I need to thank Masem for the info and clarify my position.
First, I figured that the Methane -> Methanol trick would be quite difficult without something like a bacterial or enzyme helper in an aqueous solution of some sort. But like I said before, I'm not a chemist so I'm just guessing.
For clarification though, I've lived with and been around enough pot legalization (make clothes out of hemp) people, and pot smokers to know that there is nearly a 100% cross-over between the two groups. I think that their "lucidations" are amusing from my standpoint of a casual observer, but I can't help to think how much code is un-intentionally obfuscated by over-nestings of conditionals and loops by stoned programmers.
I think that pot does have a definite future in pharmacology in treatments for glaucoma, cancer, and other horrific debilitating diseases. I just think that it would be a waste to use it for non-medical purposes, especially celulose production. There are much faster growing "weeds" like bamboo that contain much more celulose than marijuana.
I'm not to up on using pot for methanol production, but I know from living around too many dairy farms to know that the cheapest place to find methane is in manure. Because I'm not a chemist, I dont know how hard it is to knock off one of those pesky Hydrogen atoms and replace it with an O-H. But it can't be that hard, right?
More seriously, I think that the pulp and paper industry could supply more cellulose for "wood alcohol" production than most pot farmers would be willing to waste, er, give up.
"The fuel cells, which are still about three to five years away from the store shelves, could power a wireless phone for more than a month and keep a laptop running for 20 hours, Bill Ooms, director of Motorola's material, device, and energy research, said in a telephone interview."
;-). (sarcasm off)
(sarcasm on) By then, Crusoe (with 99% market share no doubt) should be running at >50GHz with ~1 Mw power consumption. Making the fuel cell product effectively obsolete before it even gets to market. Oh well
Seriously though, by 5 years from now I hope optical &/or nanotech computing breakthroughs start to appear - but we'll still probably be saddled with x86 compatibility! |-P
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
So who cares to calculate what a Transmeta processor running on vodka will have for battery
life? Seems like a weeks battery life should be feasable to me. (providing I dont get thirsty....)
ION
Actually, better than flourescent would be LED lanterns! White LEDs (and LEDs in general) are getting better and brighter. Check out hollysolar.com, among others -- I've got some AA-battery powered flashlights that are not quite as bright as a fresh mini-maglite, but after 15 hours of continuous use, they're considerably brighter than the maglite. (grin) Waterproof, too -- fun to swim with.
And no, I don't work for any LED-related company. But as geek toys, they're high on my list.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
This would really suck! I don't want to change batteries ever. I want to plug the thing in or even better, have it recharge through solar and kinetic sources. Who wants batteries that need to be replaced all the time (expensive)!
Reminds me of the rechargeable battery pack I had for my Gameboy.. but that's a bit off-topic. My real question here is: why do rechargeable batteries have a limit as to how many times they can be recharged? Do the chemicals degrade? Dissipate? Get used up?
Sorry if these are dumb questions.. I just guess I'm
Insert mind here.
Few people stop to consider the serious pollution problems caused by current (bad pun I know) battery/electric cars. They only shift the source of the pollution, but the total amount of pollution generated over the life of the car is far higher than current internal combustion engines. There are huge problems with recycling and disposing of spent batteries, range, weight etc. etc.
Fuel cells do offer a practical alternative. Petrol can be used almost as well as Methanol in these, and there would be no need to start from scratch with the distribution network. Mercedes (Daimler-Chrysler) have a few A class cars running with fuel cells at the moment, and I believe hope to have them in production fairly soon. GM is also making big progress
Now my laptop will be in direct compitition with me for the "good stuff".
The bright side is that there will be an employment explosion in the Newport, TN moonshine business, because everybody knows those guys make the best clear they are!
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
So we all get to have our computers running for months on end, our calculators running for years on end, and LEDs running infinately. Just think. We would make some super bright LEDs, use them for lights all over, and just hook up one of these power cells. Think of the power it would save!
Keep in mind that these fuel cells inhale (they need oxygen) and exhale (they give off steam). So putting your fuel-cell powered cell phone in your airtight breifcase may kill it.
I love these new cells, but we're going to have to change a few habits when using them.
Face it, if you want technology, you must accept some level of pollution.
You drive SUV or a pickup, don't you ?
Pollution has been declining since before the enactment of the clean air and water acts, as a result of people voting with their money and media pressure.
Actually the average Americans generates 4 times more pollution than the everage Europeans, with about the same level of comfort. The global temperature is at a 400 000 years highest peak... some countries are bound to disappear soon (ask Bengladesh). Of course this is probably all a conspiracy of the US governement to steal your hard-earned cash...
The contraction of "you are" is "you're". The posessive form of the personal pronoun "you" is "your." There is no letter "e" in "Transistor." If you're going to gripe about someone using the wrong case for an abbreviation of a unit, you would do well to proofread your gripe. -jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The explosive growth of cellular telecoms has obsolesced iridium in all but the most remote of locations; if you are an iridium customer, you are because you have no other choice, not because it's convenvient or cheap. I think it's fair to assume that the days of the mobile iridium handset are numbered in the low tens. However, I'd imagine that as a semi-permanent or transportable base unit iridium would be a great solution. However, these user can supply their own gas generators.
Mind you, if iridium added a data service, it'd become even more attractive as a semi-permanent base station. Think of all the places in the world where it's infeasible to lay cable to (the jungle, the desert, sparsely populated russian steppes) but you want to do research or drill for oil.
Laying cable is expensive as hell, and iridium could keep their prices really high before losing these customers.
Of course, I'm just second guesing them here, I have no hard figures about relative costs.
and tires. You couldn't get the large quantities of black choking smoke w/o the tires.
Oh how morbid. See you in hell.
Just wanted to thank you for the first Value adding post. What it emitted was omitted, so to speak, from the article
You mean like...butane lighters???? Freeze!!! Drop the Zippo! Just drop it!
not only that, but with an insulated evaporator you could overclock the cpu with the water emissions from the burning process!
(assuming you're burning enough alcohol to make water and not just vapor...)
signatures are for fools with hands
here is a more detailed article describing the batteries and such from Motorola's press release page.
I have a Sony Vaio Z505RX I'm typing on right now, and I snagged what they call the 4.5 hour battery or something but it actually lasts about 6 hours. Any of you frustrated about your 1.5 hour battery on the Vaio should nab one, they're well worth it. Oh and PS they make the VAIO a tad bit heavier and the battery itself is a little larger. But like I said, it makes a world of a difference.
They are clean - as I mentioned elsewhere, they only produce Carbon Dioxide (plus water, which doesn't count), and much less than ICEs do. No sulphur compounds, particulates, carbon monoxide, etc.
Well, uh, no. Actually, fuel cells themselves run of hydrogen and oxygen (in this case from the air) and produce only water. For so-called methanol fuel cells, the original fuel is methanol, but the fuel cells still use only hydrogen. There is an additional catalytic cracker that liberates the needed hydrogen from the methanol, converting oxygen and methanol into (mostly) carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Like most any chemical reaction, though, it is not perfect and if there's sulphor in the methanol, there will be sulphor in the output. A bigger worry is that the conversion process produces trace amounts of carbon monoxide which can poison the fuel cell.
The only problem currently is the cost of the fuel cells (currently much more than an equally powered ICE), but with the research that is going into minimising this, several major car companies are planning to release models running on fuel cells around 2003.
See my previous post for another problem (methanol converters can poison the PEM in the actual fuel cell). For pure hydrogen fuel cells, the big problem is storage. Hydrogen has this annoying tendancy to leak out of most container while sticking a little too well to others. The economics are actually starting to look quite good for fuel cells, it is the technical problems that are currently show-stoppers (though they are expected to be solved in the next year or two).
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
But this would be almost perfect to power a Transmeta processor
Nascantur in Admiratione. (Let them be born in Wonder)
The timing of this is interesting.
Today Transmeta announces a processor that will be competing with Motorola in the portable domain (maybe not directly, but it's a market they both want a piece of). The biggest claim made by Transmeta is that the Crusoe will draw teeny amounts of power in comparison with other processors marketed toward this niche, thus extending battery life.
Motorola comes out and says "Less powerful processor? Bah! We'll just make a higher energy-density power-source".
Motorola may have the advantage, as their innovation will extend the life of all components from a single recharge, not just the processor.
Geeks riding into their local gas station with their laptops.
"Fill her up please"
Seriously, DNA computers are more advanced right now than quantum computers or molecular-level computers. I've got the book on them (theres only one) and they seem really promising...
Esperandi
Get ready to feed your PC.
You're nearly two decades off, man... the program is about that old. Around 1985 nearly 90% of cars sold in Brazil burned ethanol. Last year this was only 5%... the program may be considered a failure, despite heavy government aid.
In order to meet the demand they are clearing large amounts of land (primarily rain forest, of course) to grow the stuff.
Most of the "rain forest" is too far away from the industrialized part of Brazil to make it economical to do that, although it has undoubtedly happened in the past. As for "demand", read above... there's very little nowadays. One reason is that, despite the fact that ethanol burns much cleaner than gasoline, the byproducts of producing it are serious pollutants... especially the destillation residues.
Regarding the announcement, there's been serious research into small-scale fuel cells for decades - most have been failures because of high operating temperatures, something you definitely wouldn't want in a laptop. But there's been progress recently. Look at Ballard for instance, they've been building automotive fuel cells for Daimler-Benz and Honda, among others.
I think it would make more sense if you used the fuel cell first, possibly charging the Li-ion battery with just enough juice to shut down or refuel the fuel cell. If the fuel cell runs out, then it could switch to the battery and warn you.
I think this is because I would worry about a 'moving parts system' (fuel moving through electrodes) more than a solid state aparatus. Also, it would be easier to recharge the fuel cell on the fly than it is to do it with a li-ion battery (and if you are at a power source anyway, it doesn't matter)
Another idea would be to have a couple of fuel container attachements (40 hours anyone) and you would be able to take your time refueling one while it is running on the other.
>Battery exchange stations are quite feasible...
Sure, instead of replacing several gallons of liquid, they would be lugging hundreds of pounds of batteries to and from you car. Now that's service : ).
For this, you get your energy in a form which may or may not pollute as much as the fuel cell, but probably more.
Get over the fuel consumption thing. That will be around until we can get that zero-point energy concept figured out.
If governments are still worried about taxing the stuffing out of something like the emissions from a methanol fuel cell, and we let them.... you might as well start killing people who stand idle too long. (producing poisonous gas without contributing anything). kidding...
Crusoe + Fuel Cells = laptops that run a LONG time.
Uh.. and this is the same airline that sometimes has to cancel flights because the pilots are too drunk to fly(emphasis on the word "too"). Although this mostly happens inside russia but still..
Yes, the reasons are business related(if you count disruption of service as one) and not as greatly related to airline safety. Although digital phones do have potential to cause some havoc with airplane equipment(just put one next to your monitor when making a call - now try the same with analog).
Hear, Hear! Great post. Thanks!
Sig goes here
this combined with the crusoe would last forever
:P
(20hr/1.5hr) * ( 8hr / 1.5hr) = 71.1
(Fuel Cell/Hemos' Vaio) * (Crusoe/Hemos' Vaio) = approx 71 hours of continous use
--Ryan
It would be neat to have two or more ports for fuel cells on your laptop, so that you could merely swap a new one in when one of the cells runs out, and then swap the other one out later, without ever having to shut down your machine. And since they seem to be so small (one inch square by one-tenth of an inch thick?!), this seems like it might be feasible.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Next time you need a petrol bomb you can just go to a phone store...
I've seen no mention of catalysts, here or in Motorola's announcement.
As I understand it, existing fuel cells require expensive and toxic heavy-metal catalysts, which is one of the reasons they haven't made the big time before. Have Motorola overcome this problem?
-- Jim
-- Jim
If in doubt, use a bigger hammer!
A fuel cell phone (I suppose that's what you'd call a cell phone powered by a fuel cell ;-) would generate at least enough heat to make you uncomfortable if it were placed in your vest pocket, and at worst could set your jacket on fire.
Another problem is that alcohol is volatile and poisonous. On a hot day, or if the cartridge were removed before it were fully empty, you could get a shot of methanol in the eye.
I think there are some minor problems to be worked out here.
--Brett Glass
If the fuel cells are anything like what the automotive industry is developing, then they can use ANY hydrocarbon.
I'm not sure which is worse. Having a cell phone that stays charged for a month would be nice, but as it stands now, I only have to plug it into my cigarette lighter when I need more joos.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I would like to see fuel cells at a larger scale to power my house and car. Sure its nice to have your cell phone bat last a month but electric cars in my opinion are more importain
First post?
God, root, what is the difference?
While this is innovative and obviously a good thing, what about the fact that you are holding one the most flamable liquids known, 1 inch from your brain. I want to know that the cell holding this fuel isn't going to freakishly spring a leak right when I'm lighting my cigarette. Oh, and what if Timothy McVeigh puts in an order for 10 of these things and reaks havoc on the nearest Radio Shack?
No proof here, but the fact that they both burn similarly is unrelated to whether or not they will both work in a fuel cell, as they are not burned.
No proof here, but the fact that they both burn similarly is unrelated to whether or not they will both work in a fuel cell, as they are not burned to produce the energy.
Actually, fuel cells wouldn't necessarily be that great for digital cameras since power consumption is already relatively low and getting lower. Lithium batteries would be much more cost effective due to lower device current requirements.
Hah! Maybe if all you wanted to do was play dance songs at your great-aunt's wedding, but DJ-ing takes a lot more than just something to play the cd's on! However, you could start a modern digital radio station with that set up. Hmmm...
It gets tiresome maintaining cynical skepticism all the time. Every once in a while it does me good to get a little starry eyed. And what better than incredibly good power storage. And I'm more than willing to buy that with the 3-5 year priviso.
So, thanks for the bringdown. I guess. Back to the mundane world...
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
My God, these dam nthings are 1" x 1" x .1" End of thumb sized. And that runs a laptop for 20 hours? I'm having a holy living fsck (man walks on fscking moon) moment here. Compare that to the hand sized brick that gives me 4 hours. Now consider stacking the little bastards.
Okay, and yes, put Crusoe in there. Runs at a watt operating. Ocassionally it might remind me to recharge/replace the battery. Because I'm not good at remembering things less frequent than weekly...if I use the Crusoe as a web server.
Wearables start to look feasible. Even mainstream. Ubiquitous even.
Pardon my vulgarity but...
Holy Living Fuck.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
I don't think that our sources of power have changed all that much in the last 20 years. Why not make a press release? The company has something cool they are working on. Do you not want to know about it?
Well, I don't think the FAA would have too much of a problem as they didn't seem to care about Lithium-Ion batteries much. Lithium-Ions are like timebombs... They become unstable if they are overchared, or if they get to low. They have processors in the batteries that cut off the terminals if the voltage falls below a limit, but there is the issue of self-discharge, which while lower than other types, still exists. After a few months a drained Li-Ion battery will go below it's safe level. There's a reason they tell you to keep them charged when you store them... Not to mention all the technology required in the chargers to measure the current and temperature just to keep them stable.
I have an aluminum-air battery in the glove box of my car for emergency use if my startac's miniature battery is dead when I really really want it.
This new announcement is important largely because of the liquid fuel. If the batteries have to be handed back in to the manufacturer to be refilled (say, like toner or ink jet), then there is little advantage over the aluminum ones. If it refills by plastic vials, then it's interesting.
They shouldn't be any more upset than everyone carrying around cigarette lighters full of butane, and the fuel cells will probably be smaller.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
This tech isn't in the "we just discovered the concept and maybe someday normal people will benefit" stage like fusion, nanotech, quantum computing, etc.
It's more like IBM's announcement of copper-based semiconductors, which are already hitting the streets.
And remember, some areas have not had fundamental changes in decades. How long have we been using internal combustion engines? Alkaline batteries? An electrical grid? Fuel cells have the real potential to replace, or radically change, our use of all of these, and this Motorola announcement is just the latest example of how the tech is becoming quite real.
Check out copower.com and ballard.com to read about real companies making real products with fuel cells.
Now, to sound a note of sanity, to power cars, fuel cells need to be improved to deliver good power without using platinum. I don't know if that's a problem with low-power apps like batteries.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Methanol-powered shoe phone, please -- shaken, not stirred.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
I'll leave other posters' comments on the puny effect of AA-sized fuel cells stand, but I'd like to take on the "fuel cells yet another CO2 emitter" concern in general:
Fuel cells are also being considered for use in cars and as off-grid electrical generators in homes and offices. These cells could be powered by methanol, methane (natural gas), or hydrogen.
This is unqualified GREAT NEWS for anyone concerned about CO2-driven global warming, and here's why:
1) Methane and methanol produce far less CO2 (order of magnitude?) per unit of energy produced than coal, oil, or gasoline, all of which currently power cars and homes, and are thus used to charge batteries.
1a) Burning hydrogen in a fuel cell produces NO CO2! Just WATER.
2) During production of electricity, the fuel cells are much more efficient (factor of 2?) than oil, coal, gasoline, and burning natural gas. So less fuel used, less CO2 produced.
3) When used to transport or store electricity, fuel cells are more efficient than high-voltage transmission (30% loss) or charging batteries (30%? loss at charge, more loss (up to 100%) on the shelf or not in use), so less fuel needs to be consumed to serve the actual need.
4) Because of the low cost of conversion and no storage-based loss of energy, solar and wind generation of electricity by individual homes, farms, and businesses becomes practical, thus reducing the need for fossil-fuel based generation.
So, add up all the factors and you get:
1) Immediate emission gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of gasoline engines in portable and remote generators.
2) Near-term conservation gains in use of methanol fuel cells instead of batteries.
3) Mid-term emission gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of gasoline engines in cars.
4) Mid-term emission and conservation gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of grid power.
5) Long-term emission elimination by use of hydrogen fuel cells in cars, homes, businesses, batteries, generators, boats, you name it.
6) Long-term emission elimination by use of distributed power-generation infrastructure instead of fossil-fuel-based power plants,
7) Long-term conservation gains by improving the practicality of electric-based transportation: electric cars and maglev trains.
So, I urge the environmentally-conscious poster to do everything they can to spread the word about the ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS of fuel cells!
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
And I believe the remote generator application of fuel cells is also already a commercial reality (although not quite camping-lantern cheap yet). Try copower.com, among others.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Thanks for the informative post, but a couple of nits to pick:
on #3: Perhaps not a pure fuel cell car, but their use in hybrid-electric cars is not far off, and that will just accelerate the push away from gasoline.
on #4: Although methane gives off CO2 in fuel cells, the amount per unit energy is much better than for gasoline or coal. Also, as you point out, the better air-breather cells run on hydrogen, which makes no CO2. As I posted elsewhere, fuel cells are in general great news vis-a-vis global warming.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
They do not discharge in the least -- that's the "fuel" part of the name. If you don't burn it, it's still fuel.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
My point was that the commoditization of generation capacity would drive its costs down, and solve some problems (transmission losses, infrastructure costs) related to centralization. And that the balance of "when is it better to centralize" is driven to a more distributed model by fuel cell technology.
If you wanted to take the light bulbs, or, more likely, computer, in your house with you wherever you go, then having them independently powered is perfectly sensible, and often preferred. As long as there are convenient, cheap, commodity products to allow this, of course.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Even better than a hybrid, what if you could recharge the fuel cell electrically while you were plugged in? Or (probably more practical) buy a seperate charger that makes methanol from CO2 in the air and water from the tap (or maybe deionized so not to clog it or screw up the electrodes). Now that would be cool I think. I wouldn't be surprised if the makers of the fuel cells were strongly against this because then the power company would be making the money they would otherwise get from celling methanol cartriges.... Similar to how disposable battery makers don't like Li/Ion batteries.
Steve
Somewhat on this topic, I have been involved in both debate and discussion with others as to what exactly has caused the failed commercialization of fuel cells? With the recent story on motorolas new cells, as well as the recent announcements made by Transmeta highlighting the need for a low cost, effective and long lasting power source, I pose a few questions: Do any of you have any ideas or suggestions as to what needs to be done to further the acceptance and wide spread use of fuel cells? -and- What do you see as the current reasons that motorola has been looking for other viable fuel cell materials? I have seen suggested that the cost per kilowatt hour of fuel cells is incredibly high.... and as I have read in another post even the new motorola cells will be in danger because of their use of a material which is possibly dangerous (methanol)..... Hope this brings up an interesting and useful thread to those of us with a deep interest in the area of fuel cells.... Alex Cowan
Hell, why not? That's exactly what most liquid fueled rockets do, including the Space Shuttle.
...I got a rocket in my pocket.
TC
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"Oh, tentacles. Big difference."
TangoChaz
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Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools because the
Well... if you throw a crusoe chip at your fuel cell, you will be able to make the battery that much smaller. If the idea of having your portable run for 3 days doesn't apeal to you, try thinking of running a 14" ldc pad-like computer for a day of a AA-sized battery. Sounds very good to me. Very lightweight too.
-
This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
Ballard Power Systems is the player that has working fuel cells. Their technology is rated in kilowatts and requires pumps and plumbing, and is going into all those fuel-cell powered cars you hear about. There are also small stationary plants, running on natural gas. Ballard plants will probably replace many Diesel generator sets.
The conversion unit required to produce hydrogen from methanol is different to that required to produce them from ethanol. Although I can understand why you would think that CH3OH and C2H5OH would not be that different, ethanol is more stable than methanol and will not break down in the specific manner required as easily.
This may or may not be true for another type of fuel cell which is further back in the pipeline, called the direct methanol fuel cell, which does not have a seperate conversion unit but generates power directly from the methanol itself (potentially more efficient, but also more expensive to build). I only know about this because I did a school project it over a year ago, so I'm sorry if this explanation is incomplete but I'm no expert.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
>See my previous post for another problem
>(methanol converters can poison the PEM in the >actual fuel cell).
There aren't any other posts under your user info. Could you give me a source on this, as I was not aware that there was a risk of damaging the proton exchange membrane (PEM)?
I was equally unaware that there was a risk of sulphur contaminating the methanol - do you have a source on this too?
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
Actually, it won't.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
Actually, methanol fuel cell vehicles count as 'ultra-low' emission vehicles - they only produce Carbon Dioxide and not a great deal of that. As such they are subsidisable. How do you pay for the subsidy? The same way you pay for installation of methanol at filling stations - put a tax on gasoline. Why not? It works for a load of other countries I could mention.
Incidentally, methanol is already available at filling stations in parts of California.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
You're absolutely right, and there's more too.
In comparison to the internal combustion engine (ICE), fuel cells are more reliable and durable - less maintenance cost and lower chance of a breakdown.
They are much quieter - less noise pollution (to add to the other kinds).
They are clean - as I mentioned elsewhere, they only produce Carbon Dioxide (plus water, which doesn't count), and much less than ICEs do. No sulphur compounds, particulates, carbon monoxide, etc.
They can be more easily used as a power supply for other purposes when required (need a back-up generator? Use your car.)
The only problem currently is the cost of the fuel cells (currently much more than an equally powered ICE), but with the research that is going into minimising this, several major car companies are planning to release models running on fuel cells around 2003.
All in all, it sounds pretty good to me.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
You people have a lot of strange ideas about what fuel cells are.
1. Fuel cell catalysts are NOT toxic. They use platinum or platinum/ruthenium. These are expensive, but not toxic. If fact, nothing in a fuel cell is toxic except the fuel (if using methanol). Components include carbon (graphite), teflon, membrane (similar to teflon), and water.
2. No practical low-temperature (less than 100 C) fuel cell runs on anything other than hydrogen or methanol. In fact, a methanol fuel cell is really a hydrogen fuel cell with the conversion from methanol to hydrogen occurring at the anode catalyst. That is the reason its performance is so much lower than a hydrogen fuel cell. All other fuels must first be converted to hydrogen. This conversion introduces inefficiencies and often poisons the fuel cell.
Well Canadians can now legally grow hemp, but the drug czars in Washington have now made it illeagal to import hemp(I can't imagine why). So unless the rules are changed, everyone but the US will be running on hemp.
Now a days you have to buy a battery what every two years, or when ever you get a new computer. So you hyave to plug it in every once in a while. I would much rather have to plug it in a still be able to use it then have to worry about buying 365 batteries for each year, at the price that they are saying:
Consumers could easily check the methanol level to find out when to replace the fuel cell, which will likely cost as much as or less than traditional rechargeables, Ooms said.
That will be much more then I'm willing to spend per year just so that I can have 20 hours of battery life. Also that's assumeing that you only use your laptop 20 hours a day, not good enough for your run-of-the-mill hacker
Well that all I have to rant about
"A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions." Proverbs 18 : 2
Most people don't realize that if they started adding a small amount, around 5% of methanol to gasoline the harmful emissions are practically zero after that. Of course the oil companies won't tell you that.
This is done in Brazil, actually a mix of ethanol and methanol is added, mainly due to strategical reasons, once Brazil still imports crude oil, but it has some effect on emissions. They don't go anywhere as low as practically zero, though.
OTOH, you get aldehyde emission, something you don't have when burning only fossile fuel, which can be as harmfull as CO, NOx and solid particle emission. Of course, the methanol companies won't tell you that, either.
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"People ask FAQs all the time". - David Allen
I have always believed that a fuel cell needed hypergolic fuels to work, so I must be missing something very basic here. The closest thing to methanol that seems to work this way is methyl-hydrazine/hydrogen peroxide, but the article syas these cells would "breathe" air. I'm really stuck.
And how about starting up the cell? Would the cell store a bit of ClF2? Let's say Motorola plans to provide an initializing spark. Would that be provided by a capacitor? Let's say the thing misfires four or five times, how big such a capacitor would be? Or would we have a "trigger" in our cell phone to command a piezo cristal (weird)? And what would be the role of the platinum?
This discussion really made me feel lame...
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"People ask FAQs all the time". - David Allen
Imagine a Vaio with a Crusoe AND this battery? Once a year recharge?
So you can get 20 measly hours out of a laptop - that's still pathetic. Sure, by today's standards that's a lot of time, but Transmetta and Motorola are obviously thinking pretty far beyond current technological limitations and needs. If 20 hours sounds good, how about 50 hours for a Crusoe/ethanol laptop? How about 100? How about using this technology in a UPS?
Now, if Crusoe were a competing way of building batteries, maybe Motorola would be offering competition, but it certainly wouldn't make it obsolete. As it is, these two techs are a marriage made in heaven. Not to mention the lower heat of the Crusoe...
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
A good trick re: igniting booze is to use a multi-stage ignition process, either heating lower proof stuff torching that and combining or torching higher proof stuff or a combination of the two (caveat, grain for example is pretty tricky to handle when on fire). Anyhoo, this is something of a concern as I imagine methanol too is more volatile in heat- lower heat dissipation in the device ala the Transmeta=good if you're planning on dropping this in a case and leaving it running in your trunk on a hot day (-; Tranq
Will these be available in a format like "AA, AAA" you know the standard battery sizes? I'd like one for my Rio.
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
Most people don't realize that if they started adding a small amount, around 5% of methanol to gasoline the harmful emissions are practically zero after that. Of course the oil companies won't tell you that.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Sorry for the rant.
Of course as the number of transisters go up, the leakage current through the devices will begin to overshadow the active, or switching, current. So you're 50 GHz processor may very well need ~1 MW (well maybe 0.0001 MW, that's still a lot).
Dan
Are these things meant to be throw away? From the sound of it, either you buy a whole new one or refill the methanol manually:
They would use small plastic canisters similar to those used for fountain pen ink. Consumers could easily check the methanol level to find out when to replace the fuel cell, which will likely cost as much as or less than traditional rechargeables, Ooms said.
This sounds like it's a confusion between fuel cell (the neat chemical trick for getting electicity) and fuel cell (the cell containing the fuel). The whole advantage of fuel cell technology is that you don't have to throw it away very often; it's roughly the equivalent of an electrical generator. For convenience and probably safety, though, it makes sense to package the fuel in a disposable container to minimize user handling of methanol. Most people are going to want to minimize the amount they have to handle something moderately toxic and flamable (and needing to be kept at high purity) like methanol.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Carbon dioxide is poisonous in sufficient quantities, and could cause the respiratory system to fail if the partial pressures get thrown out of whack. No big deal if you're running a whole bunch of these things in a very large closed system (say, the Earth). A big deal if enough of these are running in a small enclosed system (say, a safe). I suspect the risk of suffocation, even if everyone on a crowded jet were running two cells simultaneously (laptop and cd player?), would be just about zero, but it is a low-grade potential problem.
Actually, if you think about it, it's obviously no real problem. A typical laptop consumes less than 20 Watts of power, and even considering inefficiency in the fuel cell it still won't consume 40 Watts total. Meanwhile, a human burns something like 100+ Watts and produces the same water and carbon dioxide byproducts. Even with two laptops per person, you're only talking about increasing air flow by a factor of 2- a trivial problem.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
We could take that a step further. Let's put a mini air compressor, an extra hose, and another compartment in the battery casing. That will essentially be mini air conditioning... Hmmm.... an air conditioner that uses it's own fuel as coolant. I've got the business plan, anyone want to go for IPO? Joe
We could take that a step further. Let's put a mini air compressor, an extra hose, and another compartment in the battery casing. That will essentially be mini air conditioning...
Hmmm.... an air conditioner that uses it's own fuel as coolant.
I've got the business plan, anyone want to go for IPO?
Joe
>>Maybe next, some company will find a use for airplane food as a source of energy
It's been done, in my childhood town actually.
A company bought the local dump and closed it down! They now make more money than the dump did. How? They covered it, added vents, and put fans in the vents. Finally they hooked the fans up to generators, and now sell electricity to the local utility boards.
Joe
A lot, as we've come to learn (think MS), comes down to who gets there first. Still, I don't think that your evaluation is entirely accurate.
The "Heat Sink" is a large contributor to size and bulkiness. Think: slimmer laptop machines.
With well designed products (including heat sinks), maybe the cases can be made without vents. Think: are water-proof computers a possibility?
And, just because there are improvements in battery technology doesn't mean that there can't be advances in CPU's. They are not mutually exclusive. It just means instead of computing as we know it getting better, it's getting A LOT better!
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
OK, proof would be good. The difference between the two (methanol and ethanol) isn't all that great, and when burned will still produce the same gas.
I told her, but she just wouldn't listen. The kitchen devils had a great feast that night...
Actually, Methanol is already a very common high-proformance fuel. I'm not only technology literate :-> I'm also a race car driver, and I have a few 55gal. drums of methanol in my shop right now. We syphon by mouth, and it's not like Anthrax or anything. As far as combustability, it's flash point is higher than paper and plastic, so the container that's holding it and the stuff around it would probobly catch on fire before it did. It's used in IC engines, because when pressurized, it's flash point plummets and it has a greater explosive point than gasoline. Note that when it does burn it burns hot and almost invisibly.
"Where There's Smoke, There's Microsoft" -Wise words from BitWise Magizine
Well, I travel with a little vial containing liquified butane with an attached, ready to use, miniturized combination gas valve and sparking mechanism with me on airplanes all the time and they dont seem to mind. I think those issues probably have good technical solutions.
I dont think it will include carrying glass vials of methanol and little plastic funnels.
Lets hope that this can be done with ethanol in the future anyway. That would make fueling up as easy as popping open one of those airline beefeater gin bottles...or two.
The alternative to limited government is unlimited government.
Fuel cells could make this all irrelevant.
On to the Viking Laptop:
- Runs on alcohol.
- A Merced chip where the heat sink attaches to a cider heater. Hot cider for everyone.
Perfect for all your party needs!If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Sorry, I just can't resist. .
So, Microsoft has this "pure science" R&D department they've spent billions on, and they still haven't come up with anything as neat as this in all these years (oh, sorry, talking paperclip).
Yet, Moto comes along, thinking, hey, we could sell more cell phone chips if people thought they could use them without running their batteries dead after 2 hours. .
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
ValuJet shouldn't have too much of a problem with it. After all, it's still safer than, oh, large numbers of oxygen cylinders in the storage hold.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Anyone catch the expected date of arrival for this new technology? I'm officially labeling this as a "Vaporfuel" - for more reason than one. :P
Joe.
This reminds me of a time that an acquaintence was asking me, "Well, why didn't they just make these more powerful processors and game engines *earlier*, rather than make us waste all of our money having to keep on upgrading?" I tried explaining to her how it takes some time to actually research and develop things, and that these designs don't come to fruition instantaneously - it requires experience, and work built up atop work, and other factors which require that time pass before new things can be invented. Otherwise we'd already have widespread fusion generators powering 3GHz quantum computers and 12Gbit wireless Internet connections on our bodyheat-powered wearable GFlop supercomputers.
This portable methanol power cell is in its infancy, but any "greater technology" isn't exactly going to appear overnight before this comes to fruition.
Progress is a linear set of steps, a process of innovation and improvement and creation and invention, not a sudden end to a desire. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but father time is what got her pregnant.
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a .
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
The idea of a UPS is that when your power goes down (a rare event) your computer stays up. (Or goes down gracefully if that is not possible.)
The fuel cell technology would mean that you need to replace the fuel after x uses, but you could also have a much longer uptime. That trade-off could well be worth it.
Regards,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
That would be a tremendous improvement over the current situation. My Windows laptop acts like it's running off crack!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
This isn't quite true. Carbon dioxide is poisonous in sufficient quantities, and could cause the respiratory system to fail if the partial pressures get thrown out of whack. No big deal if you're running a whole bunch of these things in a very large closed system (say, the Earth). A big deal if enough of these are running in a small enclosed system (say, a safe). I suspect the risk of suffocation, even if everyone on a crowded jet were running two cells simultaneously (laptop and cd player?), would be just about zero, but it is a low-grade potential problem. Gods know it's enough of a problem to get pseudoscientists up in arms...you know, the same people who refuse to buy aluminum pans on the grounds that it might cause Altzheimer's Disease...
Finding God in a Dog
Actually, that begs a question. How easy is it for a household to make the stuff these fuel-cells require. I've read stories about cars powered from processed leftover french-fry oil - could people refine their own fuel for fuel cells?
"The alcohol keeps my fuel cells charged... BURRARP!" - Bender, from Futurama.
Fuel cells are not an entire solution to powering vehicles. A Hybrid system will be much more likely. Imagine a non-rechargable power source, like the fuel cell, combined with a rechargable system that gains power from things like regenerative brakes and solar cells. Add charging stations that are supplied by green power and you've got yourself an ultra efficient, ultra-low emission vehicle. A fuel cell by itself misses out on many opportunities to save power - I believe that every large power system needs a rechargable portion...
In fact, that could be done with existing hardware. Imagine a fuel-cell "droptank" that could be attached to the back of a, say, PalmVx. You'd still want to plug it in at every opportunity, but if you had to go a long time without recharging, you could.
The really nice thing about the fuel cells is that the power density will significantly aid in the functionality of wireless stuff like Bluetooth...
It'll be interesting if this technology gets people used to refilling their computers with liquid -- even if it currently happens to be alcohol instead of petroleum products. Why? Because it brings the British one step closer to being able to seriously enter the computer market. Sooner or later, someone's going to invent a computer that leaks oil!
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Wow. Groundbreaking technology. They say they might have a working model in 5 or 6 years....
I suspect you've never used one of those cartridge loaded fountain pens. I have, and so the way I interpretted the article is that the fuel cell (the expensive bit) is not replaced, but rather a small plastic tube full of methanol (the inexpensive bit) which powers the fuel cell is replaced.
Oops, that should be Jordan, not Jordaon :(
I did press preview, honest, but Netscape had locked and, in hammering on the button to make it do something I must have slipped. Oh well...
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
I have a feeling it's considerably more flammable. Seeing as how they use it to fuel race cars, whereas I've seen people have a LOT of trouble trying to get whiskey and vodka to ignite and stay lit for an extended period of time (more than 5 seconds). When it is burning though, there's almost no visible flame. Baccardi 151 is pretty volatile though. But how many people carry that in large quantities?
Get a Crusoe-driven device, fit it with a quality sound card, power it off this fuel cell, and start putting DJs out of business. You can carry the same amount of music a lot easier in MP3 than on CDs, and get more "useful" space (weed out unwanted tracks).
There was just a report circulating (sorry, no URLs, this was a dead tree report I saw) from the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme discussing the banning of potentially explosive or flammable consumer electronics goods from all commercial flights. This report was just out in December, and all countries are required to show proposed laws by the next meeting sometime this year.
:-)
The report discussed the offer from a company (can't remember which) that makes the explosives detectors used in many airports. These are the machines which a security droid wipes the handle of your bag with a swab and sticks it inside a little detector. This company has developed a range of hand-held detectors to look for butane cigarette lighters and the exact same fuel-cells being developed by Motorola. They have petitioned the Safety Oversight Committee to create some regulations banning fuel cells and certain types of cigarette lighters. That way they can sell thousands of these detectors the moment the laws go into effect in a country.
Since there is money behind this, I would bet on their being some rules in place against fuel cells before the computer industry starts using them in any large quantity. A few years ago the portable computer manufacturers got together and forced the ICAO to drop a proposed international rule outlawing all portable computers from use in cabin. It was a close battle, since the portable computer industry didn't exist when the rules were first proposed, but the ICAO takes years to get all nations to adopt their new rules as law. It was literally at the last minute the manufacturers got together and fought.
There are still some countries (like switzerland) which require all passengers to check all electronics. Its a pain in the ass if you don't have a good solid computer bag, because your screen will tend to get broken. Now the main airlines flying out of Geneve have special handling for laptop computers, and will place all the laptops on a little cart behind the desk and store them in a special compartment in the hold.
I'd love to have a computer which would run for all 12+ hours of a long flight. I could work my way through most of a game of CivIII-CTP, or maybe even get some work done
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Besides powering laptop computers, this kind of technology would be great for certain types of survival (or wilderness) gear. Take aircraft, for instance. Most every airplane has an ELT, and emergency locater transmitter that goes off if the plane crashes. This ELT runs off batteries, batteries that have a limited run time, and need to be replaced every few years with fresh ones. Now our unfortunate pilot has one powered by a fuel cell that will last for days, if needed.
How about two-way radios for backpackers, radios that can be refilled as needed, say for a week or so? I have to imagine that fluorescent camp lites powered by fuel cells would be better per quart of fuel than the fire-based Coleman lanterns. I suppose if you wanted to be really funny, you could even bring along a miniature fridge based on peltier devices and fuel cells.
I guess we should be careful with technology, though, or pretty soon we would see boneheads and other twits taking their TV sets and boomboxes into the wilderness...
A dingo ate my sig...
who are the Inheritors of Iridium?
The rumor monger didn't sell me that info. B-) For all I know it's still the same folk.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Ethanol can only be separated from water by distilation to a certain point. (I think it's 197 proof, or half that in percentage.) At higher concentrations the water evaporates fast enough to drive the percentage down, rather than up, in each distilation step.
To go beyond that (mainly to produce something that sucks water out of other stuff), they need to extract the water from the ethanol by other means. This gets almost all the way to 100%, but leaves traces of more toxic stuff (such as benzene). That's why you don't want to drink the laboratory alcohol. (It also sucks the water out of your throat, which burns it and leaves you open to infection.)
Of course ethanol itself is slightly toxic (as are vitiamins A, D, B6, and even C). But it's a toxin we have evolved to live with, since our intestinal flora procuce some whenever we've been eating veggies.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If it runs on methanol, it will probably also run on ethanol, or a mix of them.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'm not a Chemist, so forgive my ignorance.
Is Methanol much more volatile or explosive then hard liquor? People fly with multi-liter jugs of Vodka, Whisky and other flammable liquids all the time. Why is methanol different?
-= stefan
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I had to do exactly this when I flew on AEROFLOT from Delhi/India to Moscow. They confiscated all my batteries from my electrical devices in a little plastic baggy, then returned them at my destination.
Apparently the reason they do this (the staff told me) is that indian passengers refuse to obey instructions about not using electrical devices at take off and landing so they confiscate all the batteries.
Stange but true.
OK, ok offtopic, slam me if you want....
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
(If irony was posted on Slashdot, would anybody notice? Oh, BTW, I fully expect self-righteous lousy spellers to moderate me down.)
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Fuel cells are just a more efficient way to convert chemical energy into work. They have the advantage for many uses in that they perform very well at part load (the killer of the gasoline engine is its horrible fuel consumption at idle). The disadvantages of fuel cells are that they still require fuel. Under future tax regimes which will probably include stiff carbon taxes, this is still going to hit you at the pump even if your car gets 80 miles per gallon.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Here's the link from the Viridian Mailing List Archive. Note the date on the article: December 30, 1998. Yup, over a year old. (Why's Slashdot so slow on some of these things?)
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Someday we will have booze-powered robots.
:-)
The press release was new, but Slashdot had something similar on New Year's Eve.
Ignore typing errors, I'm still drunk myself.:)
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
I just got done reading the technical whitepaper on how the new Transmeta Crusoe CPUs really work, and it sounds like mixing these fuel cells with the Crusoe processors would produce one of the best mobile computing platforms in the world. Super speed with amazing abilities to conserve power added to a more plentiful power source, hurrah!
BTW, to understand why Transmeta is saying their CPUs won't perform well on existing benchmarks and will produce much better results in real life, read their whitepaper. In short, its because the processor excel at re-executing stuff, and benchmarks do things like using every single feature of a word processor once. When was the last time you did that?
Esperandi
I remember seeing one memorable (F1?) racing methanol fire on TV. The fuel 'sprayed' out when refueling the car in the pit, perhaps they forgot to stop pumping or pulled the nozzle out prematurely... and they *charge* these lines with some pressure to force all the fuel in within what, 5, 10 seconds, so they spilled quite a bit, and it caught.
What was interesting was the wide angle distance shot, where 20 feet above the pit you saw the faint blue edges of the otherwise clear flames, and the massive optical disturbance created by that much super hot invisible flaming gas balling out then mushrooming up.
Thing was, lots of people were scattering away, and one had gotten more than his share of 'splatter', and he ran off far enough, and with an invisible fire.. and with the pandamoneum of the main fire.. well, it took a few extra seconds for people to glance over and figure out what was going on with him...
No worries. With the suits these pit crews wear, I think they all were ok. Lots of big 5 gallon buckets of water nearby, etc etc. But some excitement for sure.
Lets see, I was in a hotel room in Alberta at a cousin's wedding... so that must have been the summer of 1992.
"from the small-clean-almost-as-good-as-cold-fusion dept."
I've been waiting for a portable fuel cell for 10 years. Motorola says they're still 5 years off. Forgive me if I don't dump my laptop just yet...
---
Have you ever eaten the food they serve on an airplane? If they object to you bringing a poison on board the plane, give them the same treatment... "Get some REAL food." Maybe next, some company will find a use for airplane food as a source of energy, instead of as a source for stomache cramps and diarrhea.
---------
Thus Spake Dave
Meine Hühner lachen Nicht!
Yes, methanol is much more volatile than vodka. Vodka is 40% ethanol and about 60% water. Ethanol (C2H5OH) has a much higher boiling point then methanol (CH3OH) and has a much lower partial presure at room temperature. This means that if you put some ethanol in one jam jar and put the same amount of methanol in another jar, put lids on them and shake them about, the vapour over the liquid in the jar containing mathanol has much more of the (flamable) alcohol in it than the vapour over the ethanol.
:-)
The second issue is that methanol has a low flash point. The 'flash point' is basically the temperature at which a spark will cause the vapour to ignite (as opposed to the 'auto-ignite' temperature at which you don't need a spark). It's been too long for me to remember the exact numbers but as I recall a spark will set methanol off at about 11C (52F), well below room temperature. Ethanol has an only slightly higher flash point (12C I think) but because the vapour preasure is much lower it's much less likely to start a fire since there's less ethanol in the vapour to get things going. This means you're less likely to bring down the plane just because your plastic laptop rubbed against it's nylon bag.
The flash point of a 40% ethanol, 60% water mix will be higher still which makes vodka much safer to transport and a refreshing drink when mixed with tonic and a twist of lime
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
I worked in one of the labs at Los Alamos mentioned in the press release for about 18 months ending one year ago. If there is one thing I learned while working there it was this: be skeptical of fuel cell press releases (and probably any press release).
Methanol is potentially really nice, but has always had problems with power density. It also requires a lot more platinum than hydrogen fuel cells to run efficiently.
Some assorted comments:
1. ethanol is not likely to be used in fuel cells unless there is a breakthrough.
2. I helped with "Air breather" fuel cells a little in my work. However, these were hydrogen fuel cells and not methanol. It looks like a company is trying to commercialize it since I left (Air breather technology)
That link also has a super-simplified but accurate diagram of how a hydrogen fuel cell works.
3. You will not drive a fuel cell car for a very long time as long as gas is $1.25/gallon.
4. It wouldn't be economical to produce methanol from biomass. It will be made from natural gas. This would still leave us with a lot of CO2 emissions.
Wait to see a working prototype before you get excited about ANY fuel cell announcement. The "air breather" hydrogen fuel cell works, but is still very expensive for the power you get. This cost will of course come down, but maybe not as much as other power sources (like lithium rechargables). I can tell you, the little details of making fuel cells work can be excruciating.
Now a days you have to uy a battery what every two years, or when ever you get a new computer. So you hyave to plug it in every once in a while. I would much rather have to plug it in a still be able to use it then have to worry about buying 365 batteries for each year, at the price that they are saying:
Consumers could easily check the methanol level to find out when to replace the fuel cell, which will likely cost as much as or less than traditional rechargeables, Ooms said.
That will be much more then I'm willing to spend per year just so that I can have 20 hours of battery life. Also that's assumeing that you only use your laptop 20 hours a day, not good enough for your run-of-the-mill hacker
Well that all I have to rant about
"A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions." Proverbs 18 : 2
I'm not a Chemist, so forgive my ignorance.
Well I am, and you're forgiven ;-)
Is Methanol much more volatile or explosive then hard liquor? People fly with multi-liter jugs of Vodka, Whisky and other flammable liquids all the time. Why is methanol different?
Methanol most certainly is more volatile than typical hard liquor, for two reasons. For one thing, methanol by itself is more volatile than ethanol, the alcohol in hard liquor. This is basically a matter of molecular weight; methanol's is lower than ethanol's and among related compounds the lower molecular weight typically has a lower boiling point. More importantly, methanol is a lot more volatile and flamable than hard liquor because it's pure. Hard liquor is typically only 40% alcohol by volume with the rest water. Compare the difference in flamability of vodka and everclear sometime- it's quite dramatic.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Does this mean that we can hook one of these up to a Transmeta CPU running Linux and it can stay going for a year without an outlet?
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
Someone else pointed out an EPA report on methanol, which is very toxic to humans and other animals as it is processed by the liver. With enough in your body you will die, non-lethal doasges will probably kill most if not all of your liver. I would be worried about replacable cartidges not being resilient enough to withstand dropping or some such (methanol has a low boiling point which means in alot of cases it would be gaseous). Batteries aren't safer for the most part but they are sealed pretty well, enough for use in your children's electronics. People talked about methanol replacement cartridges bought like replacable pen cartridges, I think I'd like a little heavier aluminum cases or something. Besides methanol's toxicity, there is the question of pollution. They will be producing water and carbon dioxide, humans produce much more than their share of carbon dioxide already, proliferation of this fashion of fuel cell would increase that. I'm all for the longer lasting battery but you have to weigh it's TOTAL cost against its apparent costs.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
This brings a whole new meaning the phrase: my battery is running out of "juice"! :)
Let's see, you can't use a cell phone on an aircraft taking off in case it screws up the electronics and everybody dies in a big fireball.
People are killed every day while talking on the damned things in their car.
There is still a controversy over whether holding a long-distance broadcasting antenna against your scalp for hours each day might cause some statistical increase in brain tumors.
Now we're not only going to have cell-phones that carry (and must be refilled with) little cannisters of flammable fluid, but poisonous fluid that smells, looks, and tastes like some really wicked vodka.
Would I be taking it a step too far if I added hypertension leading to heart disease from not being able to ever get out of earshot of the office?
I think natural selection will favor those who communicate through smoke signals and hollerin'.
Just to clarify for the people who don't seem to grok this: this cell runs on methanol, not ethanol. Methanol is something you ought not to drink (unless you're Kitty Dukakis, although that may have been isopropyl IIRC). It causes blindness and other effects worse than those caused by ethanol, although cirrhosis and driving fatalities might give it a run for its money.
On the plus side, the fuel won't have to be denatured and there won't be any taxes enforced by the BATF.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I hear that the inheritors of the Iridium satellites are prototyping a DSL-rate two-way IP service to go for about $300/month.
Just a rumor...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What I'm curious about is what the airlines/FAA are going to say about people bringing electric devices which carry little vials of combustable poisionous liquid with them onto airplanes? Anyway food (not drink) for thought.
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
I see a constant flow of stories like this; "We have a cool new technology that will revolutionise the way you do such'n'such. It'll be available in 5 years."
What's the point?
Technology changes very rapidly. It's entirely possible that other power sources will be tapped by then. We might all move to low power consuming devices. Motorola might decide to scrap the project.
In short, I'd rather companies didn't come out with these press releases until they have something solid to offer, at least a "production starts next week" or similar.
--
bje
007: Thats great Q. Will this mean that I wont have to recharge the phone between missions?
Q: yes, but more importantly, all you have to do is ignite the antenna and throw the phone like a grenade and it will make a explosion covering a 10" radius.
007:How about this laptop?
Q: Explodable
007: WEB tablet?
Q: Explodable.. all you have to do is type in http://www.microsoft.com, count to 5, and throw it.
LW
Silicon Valley, Slashdot News Mysterious startup Transmeta unveiled its Crusoe processor today. The new, low power processor is designed to address the chronic battery life problems facing laptop users.
"Look, I'm tellin' ya, Captain, we need more power or the laddies will get on the plane without their data. The processors canna take anymore, captain!" said David R. Ditzel, CEO of Transmeta.
"Well, I dunno, it sounds great," remarked Billy Carlyse, a 7-11 employee in Skokie, IL."but it'll probably be obsolete before anyone sees it. The industry trend is for rapid obsolescence-- and Transmeta has been working on this for five years!"
As if on cue, Motorola announced a new fuel cell battery, promising unlimited power for laptops. In response, Transmeta has announced a halt to Crusoe production. They will now be doing Linux distributions and portals like everyone else.
Aha! It's about time. Fuel cells really have significant potential.
Think about it, electric vehicles suffer from two problems: range, and recharge time. Range isn't a problem for a commuter, but since when is the only use of a car commuting? Because demand for these vehicles is so low, outside government policy, the companies must find a way to expand the reach of the battery packs.
The second problem, really a corollary or perhaps even a cause of the first, is the fact that it takes so long to recharge a battery. I can refill my gas tank in a few minutes, but I have to leave an electric car plugged in whenever I'm not driving to keep it charged. I thought that we would see "plug in batteries," like those in the hand tools.
Drive in to a "gas" station, unplug your battery pack, plug in a new one, and go. The station keeps a bank of them recharging at all times. This seemingly simple solution is probably not cost effective, at least with current demand on electric vehicles. So the charge time stays limited, limiting effective range, limiting demand, limiting the spread of electric cars.
Not so for fuel cells! Fill 'em up like a gas tank, and you've got electric power. Existing stations could be used, putting methanol in the tanks instead of gasoline. No need for overnight charges, no need for battery swap stations, no need for anything but someone to make the cars.
Let me know where I can get stock.
Has anyone noticed that this technology is coming from the same company that also invested heavily in Iridium, which was(is?) plagued by bulky and heavy handsets that have trouble sending a clear signal inside buildings?
Instead of just making the current devices run longer, this technology might also be slated to increase the viability of technology like Iridium gaining broader customer appeal.
After all, when you spend billions to launch a bunch of satellites, what is a few million more in fuel cell research to make the system viable?
This same technology might also make many technologies we don't currently think of as portable, portable. Try thinking of replacing the plug, not swapping to a different battery.
Zor
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." -Mark Twain
Are these things meant to be throw away? From the sound of it, either you buy a whole new one or refill the methanol manually:
They would use small plastic canisters similar to those used for fountain pen ink. Consumers could easily check the methanol level to find out when to replace the fuel cell, which will likely cost as much as or less than traditional rechargeables, Ooms said.
This would really suck! I don't want to change batteries ever. I want to plug the thing in or even better, have it recharge through solar and kinetic sources. Who wants batteries that need to be replaced all the time (expensive)!
Fuel cells have been around for many years and it is pleasing to see them making progress in the direction of mass use but to date there has been one problem yet to be overcome. Methanol is highly volatile, highly flamable and has a low flash point. As such I'm not sure what the airlines are going to think about half the passengers in business class carrying a pint of the stuff in their laptop bags, in containers that have to go the compression and decompression each landing and take-off.
While I look forward to being able to use this technology we are going to need to see clear evidence of the safety of the products before we will be able to travel with them.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
Now, if the government would just let us start converting cannibis into methanol again, we could run our laptops for days off of pot.
This might seem trite, but there's a serious side here. If Motorola &C can turn this technology into one capable of -- cheaply -- running, say, an automobile -- then demand for methanol is going to go up. WAY up. Right now we easily produce enough cellulose (in the form of corn cobs, wheat stalks, &c) to meet our present demand. Once we run cars off the stuff though, we may need to look for other supplies of cellulose...and cannibis farming will probably be the cheapest solution.
It's pure speculation, but interesting to think about, nonne?
Finding God in a Dog
Fortunately for those of us who like a drink, the human body is quite efficient at metabolizing ethanol. The first step involves partial oxidation of the ethanol into the equivalent aldehyde ethanal (CH3CHO). This is removed by further enzymic reactions eventually culminating in carbon dioxide and water as waste products.
As it is chemically similar to ethanol, methanol is initially acted upon by the same enzymes, partially oxidizing it to form the equivalent aldyhyde methanal (CH2O). That's the IUPAC name for it; you may be more familiar with the "trivial" name formaldehyde.
So if you drink wood alcohol you get formaldehyde as a metabolite byproduct. Now, anyone who has done biology at school will at some point have seen preserved specimens of animal tissue floating in a jar of liquid. That liquid is formaldehyde.
It's used for specimen preservation because it pickles animal tissue, toughening it in the process. As it's readily absorbed by (and quickly reacts with) soft tissues, it helps to preserve delicate structures that would break up in most other cheap preserving media.
Unfortunately two notable soft tissue structures in the human body are the retina and the brain.
So, to summarize: the reason why wood alcohol causes blindness and insanity is that the metabolic byproduct, formaldehyde, literally pickles the brain and retina. Cool, eh?
Since the congeners present in most alcoholic beverages include a small amount of methanol, if you're a heavy enough drinker you will obtain the same tissue deterioration to some extent. Though your liver will probably pack up first. And you'll be too pissed to notice anyway.
Cheers!
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Your laptop will produce visible steam when the humidity is high enough. Don't try to use it in a closed box, it will suffocate.
The methanol fuel is toxic, but the by-products aren't. see the EPA's chemical summary This isn't much different from batteries which are generally also toxic.
The methanol must be very pure, or the fuel cell will stop working.
Making methanol is a lot easier than making batteries, so it should be a lot cheaper eventually. Safe packaging and purity requirements will make it more expensive at first.
Ballard Power Systems (BLDP) is doing stationary fuel cells for homes, and for cars. Plug Power (PLUG) is doing cells for homes, and Manhattan Scientifics (MHTXE) is currently developing these micro-fuel cells which Motorola and others will probably be licensing.
If you're interested in fuel cells, check out those companies, and also check out my fuel cells mailing list. Info is available on how to subscribe at http://reality.sculptors.com/lists.html