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

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: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.