Laptop Fuel Cells Approved For Air Carriage

gilgsn writes "According to reports in BusinessWeek, the US Department of Transportation has ruled that a new fuel cell developed by US company Polyfuel can be taken on airplanes. The announcement clears the way for the commercialisation of fuel cells as an alternative to batteries in notebook computers. The use of direct methanol fuel cells on aeroplanes has been questioned as they contain methanol, which is flammable. According to Jim Balcom, Polyfuel's CEO, the US DOT said that a fuel cell designed by his company could be taken into aircraft cabins when it goes on sale because it contains a relatively low concentration of methanol. Fuel cells are viewed as a promising power source in notebook comptuers as they are instantly refuellable (using fuel cartridges) and will power laptops two to three times longer than standard batteries. Full Story." This will be more exciting news when the fuel cells are actually available.

Comments

safety

[Ashish Kulkarni]

so how safe are these new fuels? I'd hate it if they were to cause problems in mid-air....

Re:safety

[CrazyDuke]

Unlike ethanol "grain alcohol" (the stuff in beer, wine, liquer, etc.), methanol is extremely toxic to the human body. Amounts of less than 1 cup, ingested or inhaled, cause blindness. A little more causes death.

"Relatively" Low?

[The Great Wakka]

Yes. Of course. "Yes sir, please take a 'relatively' low concentration of one of the world's most flammable substances on board!" Sounds like a GREAT idea. It's all too easy to start a fire with these, though. Unless the concentration is REALLY low, these are not safe. And if the concentration is too low, I would imagine the effectiveness declines. Also: can you take fuel cartriges aboard? That would be helpful the traveller, but also even more dangerous.

Vodka is flammable, too

[g4dget]

Why shouldn't they allow it? Don't they serve 100 proof alcohol on airplanes anymore? That's flammable, too.

In fact, if these fuel cells work with ethanol, maybe you could just order vodka or rum to power them :-)

this will be more problem as life goes on

[lingqi]

i was thinking a little while back: "man wouldn't it nice if we had atomic power, like minature tokamacks or whatnot for cars, cd players, laptops, etc etc.

and then it hit me -- no way man, it would suck ass. when you can store enough energy to run a car for 50 years in the size of a gas tank, what happens if something goes wrong (as it obviously will) with the storage? if somebody *intentially* sets it off, etc?

there are all these scientists out there who are striving for higher and higher power density in energy storage -- but i think there is an end; not necessarily the "diminishing returns" end, but a "maybe it's not a good idea for a AA battery to have enough juice to power a cadillac" -- because when you get enough power density in everyone's hands, everyone will have the power to blow a whole lotta stuff up.

this will probabbly become the next great hurdle in energy storage -- and ironically it's not even a technical challenge, but rather a socialogical one.