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Fuel Cells To Appear In Laptops In 2004

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sooner-is-better dept.

prostoalex writes "The overhyped fuel cells will finally be delivered to the portable computing market. Toshiba and NEC will incorporate fuel cells into the laptops by 2004. Sony, Hitachi and Casio are expected to follow the suit. The tests show a fuel cell lasting 10 hours. With the form-factor of a Bic lighter, it allows the laptop user to carry a few extra cells in the laptop bag all the time. Battery prices are expected to run at about $200."

11 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. Will security allow them on planes? by adsl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sounds rather like a potential weapon to me. In which case what's the point?

  2. Universal Refil and Apple by ModernGeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I want to know if the fuel can be stored in a canister like butane is, and have it so you can refill the little cartidges with somthing like that, so you can buy the stuff from any place like a gas station or any other type of store, for a cheap price. I also want to know if Apple has plans to embrace the technology, and if they could cram the entire fuelcell into a battery pack, so it can be an option to use a recharage laptop battery or a fuel cell, and have it use the same slot, etc. Out of curiousity, do the 12/15/17"PBG4s and the iBook have the same type of battery, as it would help a new option of a fuel cell in a batterypack form come along, and it could be easially refilled. Any input on this?

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  3. Inflammable means Flammable? What a country! by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "The issue isn't 'Are flammable liquids safe on an aircraft?' They already are allowed with liquor and perfume,"

    If I had my druthers, perfume would be banned completely from all flights.

    But seriously, the main problem is that these fuel cells can be easily reconfigured to contain highly explosive materials for use as portable bombs. In this highly charged anti-terrorism atmosphere, it is important to make technology as transparent as possible. The more a technology relies on bomb-like batteries or razor-like Flash memory cards, the more likely it becomes that a real terrorist could sneak a truly dangerous device onboard.

  4. reusable? by bartyboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They mention that the cells can be refilled, but no mention where or how. Somehow I don't think people will want to buy 6 or 8 hours of extra battery time if they have to pay $200 bucks for it.

    They also mention that the infrastructure's not there yet to support these cells. I'm guessing that means there are no places that will refill them.

    So if you desperately need that much battery power, pay the price each time until refill stations come along. yay.

  5. What about current gen laptops? by mikael_j · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Will these fuel cells fit into current generation laptops or will they require the purchase of a new laptop? (I think I know the answer to that question but I'm trying not to be too cynical here..)

    /Mikael

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  6. Something I wonder about by rzbx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It claims they will run about $200. That is very cheap considering some of the best batteries we have now cost just about the same. Fuels cells have also looked to be rather expensive everywhere I've seen them. Check out http://wwww.fuelcellstore.com for example. Why are these fuel cells on places like fuelcellstore.com so expensive and the ones they plan on putting out as laptop power devices fairly cheap? I understand that economics has partly to do with it since the laptop fuel cells will be sold in much larger quantities. I still wonder and would love to hear someone who knows anything about this.

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    Question everything.
  7. Finally hitting the market? by photoblur · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've heard rumors of fuel cells coming to market for quite some time now. Most of the fuel cell research seemed to be related to cars, though.

    I think the tech sector is definately a more appropriate audience for fuel cells, the market is much more used to accepting new technologies and living with a short product life span.

    It is good that the problems and shortcomings of fuel cells can be uncovered by the tech market before the auto industry adopts them. It'd be a shame to have a car that you just paid $20,000 for break down after a couple years!

  8. A pic and a link by BlackHat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Picture of one for laptops
    from
    Fuelcell.org
    you may now mod this as redundant.

  9. Just use alkaline AA batteries? by barfomar · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I went to Radio Shack and made up a couple of battery packs of AA and D cells with the same plug in connector that matches the laptop.

    Just add some fresh cells when you get in a bind and it works without having to ante up $200 for an overpriced rechargeable from the manufacturer.

    I usually use it plugged into the wall, but like to have the option of using the batteries.

    You'd have to buy a lot of alkalines to offset the rechargeable's cost that never lasts as long as they boast.

  10. Fuel Cells appear in Cars this year by ThoreauHD · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://hondacorporate.com/fcx/index.html

    Laptops are nice, but I'm not choking to death on laptop fumes. Auto's first.

  11. Re:maybe it's just california by doktor-hladnjak · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's been a few weeks since I was in California, but it seemed like gasoline cost around $1.75/gallon for regular the last time I was there (which is really not bad in comparison to the approx. $4.50/gallon gas costs where I live in Germany). That translates to $0.45/liter. And we're talking about fluid that is around 25% methanol. So, for a liter of that water/gasoline combo (ignoring the cost of water), that's about $0.11/liter. People have mention 100ml as the amount to be used in these lighter sized devices, bringing the total cost of an equivalent amount of gasoline to a dirt cheap 1 cent US! Even if methanol is twice as expensive and adding in the cost of water (presumably distilled), the actual materials would almost certainly be less than 5 cents per fuel cell.