Micro Fuel Cells surge with power to spare

OogamrM writes "CNN (http://www.cnn.com) has a story (http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/09/22/micro.fu el.cells.ap/index.html) about a new generation of fuel cells. They are so small that they are expected to be able to replace batteries in mobile phone and notebook PCs, and last 10 times as long as the best batteries available today. "In the long run, just about anywhere where high-end batteries are the right answer, these devices should be a better answer," say one fuel cell developer. Expect to be able to buy one sometime in 2004."

Comments

Fuell Cells in mobile devices?

[Locke!Erasmus]

Does this mean I will have to get my pager refitted with a nozzle to pour the water into?

But......

[Catmeat]

I bet battery companies going to love this. A laptop battey may not have much of a runtime but the actual cost of running it is minimal. A fraction of a penny is all it costs to recharge the thing.

In this scenario, a fuel cell powered laptop would need a reactant cartridge that the user must throw away and replace periodically. I'd be willing to bet they'll use some sort of propriatory interface so you're stuck with buying cartridges from the same company for the whole lifetime of the laptop. Aside from an improved runtime, it's really no different to running your equipment from throw-away batteries.

Rechargable batteries suck but I think I'd prefer to stick with them.

This is one step in the right direction

[Kiwi]

Technology like this is one step in the right direction.

Another step would be for consumers who buy laptops to consider battery life more important than raw megahertz. Right now, Intel (or AMD, or someone else) could create a Pentium or Pentium II clone using modern .013 micron technology which would consume very little power and generate very little heat.

For anything besides video game playing, the equivalent of a PIII 500 is more than adequate.

Another area where battery usage in a portable can be decreased is by using solid-state memory instead of a hard disk. It should be feasable to have a gigabyte of solid state memory in the near future; this should be more than enough for OS + Web browser + basic office suite (I remember complaining ten years ago that Microsoft Word was all of 15 megabytes big).

The display looks to be the biggest power-hog which current technology has no really good solution for. It may be possible the electronic paper displays will use less power than a current TFT display (which needs a strong backlight to go through 3 layers of LCD display).

With all of these technologies combined, one may be able to make a laptop which lasts over two or three days of continous usage; for example, over a trans-pacific flight or on a long bus trip. Another example: This would allow one to use their laptop for basic email checking over a two-week vacation without needing to charge the beast.

- Sam

Re:This is one step in the right direction

[photon317]

Several companies already make commercially-available large solid-state flash disks. They come in IDE and SCSI, sizes down to 2.5" IDE form factor that fits in notebooks, and sizes as large as 77G (in 3.5" ultra scsi). Some of the manufacturers have even solved the write-cycle problem by having a block remapper that evens out the writes, making it a non-issue. Other benefits over regular drives (besides the low power, low heat, and no moving parts to break), is that the latency can be in the low microseconds, and the sustained transfer rates can match the bus speed in most cases.

The only real caveat remaining is the cost. They're running in the range of $1-2/MB on the smaller ones (1-4G range), so even a little 4 gigger can cost obver $4k. Haven't seen prices on the larger capacities, hopefully it scales better up there, and the 77g drives don't cost more than a really nice car.

Re:This is one step in the right direction

[ConceptJunkie]

Another step would be for consumers who buy laptops to consider battery life more important than raw megahertz. Right now, Intel (or AMD, or someone else) could create a Pentium or Pentium II clone using modern .013 micron technology which would consume very little power and generate very little heat.

It would also generate very little money for Intel or whomever. Let's face it, the processor people are plowing everything in to "megahertz" because it's easy for consumers to understand, like horsepower. Plus we have people like Microsoft, who bloat down their code with useless resource-consuming crap to help feed the megahertz frenzy. Even AMD has bought into this with their misleading product names, implying higher clock speeds than really exist.

It reminds me of the days doing C programming on a 286 when the boss's secretary did word-processing on a 386. I bought a new laptop rather than fix the old one, because it didn't seem worth it, so I went out and looked for cheapest laptop I could find, short of going used or refurbed. It's a 1.2GHz Celeron and it blows away my dual 433Mhz desktop machine, but I don't feel a great need to have the latest and greatest =3Ghz machine. I also have my desktop machine loaded up with memory and harddrives, which makes up greatly for processor speed. How many applications are processor-bound rather than memory- or I/O-bound on a modern PC? Very few.
I play games, do raytracing and video editing, in addition to developing full-time but speed's not that big a deal for me, yet how many people pay a 50% premium for 10% more speed?

Intel, et al, make good products, but they are using a marketing strategy based solely on this numbers game and they are not going to stop now. Too bad for us sensible customers.

Miniturization

[ktulus cry]

Judging by the size of the current micro fuel cell prototype and depending on how much smaller they can get, this power source may at least temporarily reverse the trend of ever shrinking phones that are becoming so small that I am rather afraid to use some of them. The major thing I would personally be worried about - one nice thing for all those environmentalists about rechargable batteries is that you rarely need a new one, hence rarely throwing them out. Even when these cells last 10 times as long, how disposable are they?

Re:Miniturization

[n9hmg]

Much more disposable than most current rechargeables. Nickel, lead, cadmium? Yummy! Lithium oxide neutralizes down to a salt in any acid, so LiION batts aren't too bad, but all these have is generally a platinum catalyst(in the reformer) and an organic membrane(the actual fuel cell), The fuel can fit in anything that isn't dissolved by methanol and makes a good seal.
Unfortunately, I expect these to be like inkjet cartridges, and since they're useful for so many more applications than that (all electronics use electricity, only inkjets use inkjet cartridges). The stakes are higher, and they'll probably bust ass trying to keep them from being refilled. Maybe special regulatory authority under "safety" concerns. My hope is, though, that public outcry about paying USD 40 for USD 0.002 worth of methanol will get regulatory action. It'll just be a matter of whether we're madder than the fuel cell makers are willing to bribe and politicians are greedy. Maybe it will balance out around USD10 or so.

The free market will not be denied

[Spamalamadingdong]

In this scenario, a fuel cell powered laptop would need a reactant cartridge that the user must throw away and replace periodically.

When refill kits for overpriced ink-jet cartridges have been the rage for years, how long do you think it would be before someone had a methanol refill kit for your fuel-cell cartridge?

Re:The free market will not be denied

[n9hmg]

methanol refill kit
Maybe on the black market. These'll be engineered with "safety" features to ensure that the cartridge is from the correct manufacturer, probably in the form of a key in flash, and if you defeat that, you'll be in violation of the DMCA. I wouldn't be surprised to see such a powerful resource "licensed", and attempts to reverse-engineer it, even strictly by and for yourself, would be a violation.

Extra CO2?Re:IANATOTH (troll or treehugger) but...

[samjam]

Extra CO2? What do you mean generating extra CO2?

How do you think the electricity that charges your current rechargable batteries is generated?

By burning fossil fuels producing CO2!

This time you just burn it locally. Plant trees locally to make up for it if you are that worried.

Sam

Re:funny thing... no one mentions the water

[geoswan]

... their one big problem ... water vapor is a green house gas.

Well, yes. But I am not quite sure I follow your argument.

Plus, if you are living in a dry climate ... and you start pumping out tons of water vapor from all of the new clean cars in your city, pretty soon it's going to be muggy, miserable, and it will effect the local environment.

Am I missing something? Won't internal combustion produce nearly as much water vapour? Burning petroleum fractions, ethanol, biomass, produces H2O doesn't it? Burning methane would produce CO2 and 4x H2O, wouldn't it?

So, if you want to reduce your addition of H2O, you have to reduce the number of your trips.

There's a simple solution, condense the water vapor out of your exhaust and store the water in a collection tank. It can be electrolyzed later to reclaim the hydrogen.

Do you see an advantage in shipping this condensed water back to a hydrogen production facility, rather than just using locally available water?

Give me FUD

[Myco]

I assume there is a reasonable amount of anti-fuel cell propaganda out there spread by petroleum interests and the like. I'm curious to see what the FUD has to say -- should be good for a laugh, anyway. Anyone seen any good FUD?

Re:Give me FUD

[pla]

Anyone seen any good FUD

What can its opponants say about it? As long as they use something like methanol rather than hydrogen gas, it has less risk of fire/explosion than either gasoline or a typical rechargeable battery (those things have some *NASTY* chemistry in them). *FAR* fewer pollutants. Greater efficiency.

Really, I cannot understand why we even still *have* internal combustion engines or "legacy" rechargeables, when fuel cells can give more power, cheaper, and cleaner.

The only problem I see with market penetration comes from the ubiquity of "gas" stations (batteries I see as less of a problem - it seems like almost every high-end product takes its own obscure battery type, and that hasn't stopped anyone from running out to by the new digital-camera-of-the-week). But really, I've seen lines wrapped around the block when a gas station has prices a mere nickle per gallon cheaper than the competition. Selling methanol for $0.40/gallon would crush the competition hands-down.

I don't tend to believe in conspiracies, but *someone* must have gone to a lot of trouble to keep fuel cells out of popular use, and it seems to me like a supply-side problem rather than a lack of demand or available technology.