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Laptop Methanol Fuel Cells Promised This Week

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the wait-till-they're-in-vending-machines dept.

securitas writes: "Wired tells us that Germany's Smart Fuel Cell is about to ship the first methanol based fuel cells for laptops and other electronic devices. The company says a 120 milliliter fuel cell can power a 15W notebook for 10 hours, and you can refill it without shutting down."

3 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Infrastructure by adamjone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The infrastructure for methanol will have to be vastly improved before a methanol fuel cell battery will ever be successful in laptops. I work as an integrator, and I take my laptop on-site for a lot of the jobs that I do. Most days on-site I work for 10 hours or longer on a system, carrying my laptop from place to place. The batteries drain, but my two batteries usually have the life to last through the day. When I get back to the hotel at night, I can plug into any outlet to fuel up the batteries.

    With the methanol fuel cell, I would need to carry extra charges with me. On a week long trip out of state, that can be a lot of charges. With the current security measures in place at most airports, I doubt that I would be able to take them on the aircraft. Now I need to rely on the local shops to carry the fuel cell cartridges, which may or may not happen, depending upon my location.

    Also, if I'm staying in a hotel, charging my batteries is free. If I use the fuel cell, I could get charged $3 per day or more for using my laptop. That's not much if I can write it off as a business expense, but if it is for my two week vacation to Alaska, it can get fairly expensive.

    I prefer the convenience of using chemical batteries. I can charge from anywhere, and in a lot of cases, for free.

  2. Hydrogen on a plane by JohnPM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "There is no way hydrogen is ever going to be allowed aboard an airplane," Stefener said.

    I think this is an overly dismissive statement. Methanol itself is really just a hydrogen storage method. You throw in some carbon to stabilise the hydrogen and as a result, you produce carbon dioxide when the fuel is used up.

    There's a lot of work going on to find non-chemical storage methods for hydrogen, such as sponges or matrices that would be explosion-proof. There's no reason to believe that this won't eventually succeed in a safer and more efficient fiel cell than methanol based ones. It will just take longer.

    --
    Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
    1. Re:Hydrogen on a plane by leuk_he · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only reason methanol(the stuff that makes you go blind) is (will be?) allowed on a airplaine is because the tax free shops sell a lot of alcohol(the stuff that makes you go silly). And lets just asume a bottle of >40% whiskey has the same chemical properties as 100% bottle of methanol.

      This will all end when a big plane crash and high % alcohol drink go in the same heading on a newspage.

      It is not allowed now to use any electronic device during start or landing. Why? Just in case probably. It is never allowed to use any device that uses an antenna? why? maybe because they can not tell if it is receiving (mostly harmless) or sending (interfering with cockpit/flight controls).

      As security will become more important less and less bagage will be allwod in the passenger area. hydogen or methanol will be less of an issue.

      Image a refill of either fuel onboard an airplane. or worse, a refill in an airplane where smoking is allowed. Or worse (in a few years), a refill of a taiwan produced laptop that has been dropped a few times.

      also see:
      http://slashdot.org/science/02/01/02/1534252.sht ml