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Fuel Cells To Appear In Laptops In 2004
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."
Booooooooooooooooooooommmmmmm!!!!!!
Sounds rather like a potential weapon to me. In which case what's the point?
I say the venture is worth the risk. A new standard can always be used in different ways than previously planned. Alternative power sources aren't needed for just laptops and if the technology is there, use it!
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
Is how much do the refills cost? Surely, 100ml or whatever of methanol is going to last you for 10 hours, but what do you do then?
You can't regenerate it, so you go shopping for a refill?
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?
Sig: I stole this sig.
Is it just me, or can you already see the "FILL YOUR OWN FUEL CELL AND SAVE $$$" spam filling your mailbox? ;)
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
If one fuel cell lasts 10 hours and is the size of a bic lighter.. why not use 2 or 3 of them, or just make the one bigger to give more life between charges?
Call me a skeptic (and I hope I'm wrong), but I don't think 2004 will see this. At least not to the general laptop buying populus.
The business flyers, which probably comprise at least 70% of laptop users, will be hard-pressed to get "BIC lighter-sized" fuel cells onto planes, unless it's disguised as a lighter (which aren't supposed to be allowed anyway).
Imagine explaining to security what that little sucker is.
"Is how much do the refills cost? Surely, 100ml or whatever of methanol is going to last you for 10 hours, but what do you do then? You can't regenerate it, so you go shopping for a refill?"
There's included instructions on how to fart into the fuel cell. That provides enough fuel for another 10 hours.
"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.
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.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
That the manufacturers will pull an 'Ink Jet Cartridge' here and make it so that these things are not (easily) refillable? Plan on having to buy these only from the manufacturer, at a ridiculously inflated price. The whole Ink Jet cartridge BS is the main reason I stepped up and bought a laser printer for home use.
\/\/oobie
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.
Question everything.
Airlines have already approved fuel-cell powered laptops on their planes, it is very harmless and such, and airport security is susposed to just keep joe-sixpack from bringing in a gun in his suitcase, they aren't going to check for a small lighter-sized thing in your laptop.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Could you imagine a bunch of nerds standing around the "pumps" at a refil station talking like truckers?
- "Where ya crunchin today"
- "I'm headin ova to the east side to war drive for a few hours then I gotta catch me a plane to Utah to kick McBride in the crotch."
- "Get 'er dun"
But seriously. Hopefully the refils are cheap enough that it would make this feasible. Otherwise I personally only see the technology being viable for desknotes or desktop replacement computers that are rarely away from a wall socket and could benifit from a (very) small battery.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Well, fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case may be), the tobacco industry lobbyists won a battle with the homeland security people: lighters and matches are not banned from airplanes, because big tobacco called their pet politicians and fought the proposed regs. You can take a Bic lighter on a plane in the US.
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!
the main problem is that these fuel cells can be easily reconfigured to contain highly explosive materials for use as portable bombs
So can my shoes - in fact that's been tried. All that idiot and would-be-martyr lacked was an adequate detonation system.
We've all seen the monkeys that work security at the airports. They're too busy harrassing honest non-terrorists, taking their bic pens, fingernail clippers, and knitting needles. They won't catch someone who is ernestly trying to sneak something dangerous onboard.
The "portable bomb" issue is ridiculous, what about a water bottle filled with vodka, or propane, natural gas (can't smell it!)
I understand caution, but unless they restrict ALL liquids and bottles, they can't really prevent the "portable bomb" issue
Anyways, a savvy airline would PROHIBIT them as carry ons, and then sell them to users on board, like the movie theaters do with food.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
You know what else can be easily reconfigured to contain highly explosive materials for use as a portable bomb...? This shiney red rubber ball.
*pays homage to News Radio*
Banaaaana!
That's hilarious - somebody mod this funny, cuz some moron modded it insightful.
In this highly charged anti-terrorism atmosphere, it is important to make technology as transparent as possible.
iFuel-cell!
You can't take the sky from me...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - MOD THIS DOWN, MOD THIS DOWN!!! We can't allow this to be seen by an airline executive!!!!! Damn yooouuuu!!!!
How about a wind-up dynamo crank on the side of the laptop? Let's make it 1 minute winding = 30-60min power.
$cat
Something I found of interesting on the japan version of the Toshiba website: World's First Small Form Factor Direct Methanol Fuel Cell for Portable PCs... this was a press release from March 5, 2003
It says that the current prototype can operate for approximately five hours on 50cc of high concentration methanol with an average 12 watts of output with a max of 20 watts. They have the aim of product commercialization within 2004.
They mention that part of the problem is that the optimum methanol/water ratio is 3% to 6%, but they overcame this by using waste water to dilute the incoming methanol solution... cool.
So, yeah, it is vaporware, but is a cool concept... if you don't have the ability to do fuel cell with your current laptop, you could get a docking station version.
I'm curious though... what is the average usage of a laptop... something tells me 12 watts is not enough.
Humor works best when it contains a grain of truth. Moore's attempts at humor fall flat because he fails to include even a single grain of truth in his diatribes.
Picture of one for laptops
from
Fuelcell.org
you may now mod this as redundant.
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.
Methanol itself is dirt cheap. It's a little more expensive than gasoline, and these fuel cells only use a 24% solution of methanol. 24% is less flammable than the vodka from the drink cart. Article says nothing about refilling, but the potential for profiteering is there by forcing people to buy prefilled fuel canisters just like with inkjets. Of course, the manufacturers will say that they just want to guarantee you the best quality fuel because who knows what impurities are in Brand X methanol mix that'll contaminate your fuel cell.
You can take a BIC lighter, but you cannot take a refillable lighter (not zippo, but the liquid fuel kind)...
I had one confiscated at the airport.... wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't a gift given to my girlfriend from someone in australia.....
Karnal
Isn't the laptop you carry now a potential weapon? Pretty dense and heavy, with sharp corners. Would make a nice dent in anyone's head.
And how about those hard, bony hands you have there? One good punch from those could knock someone out!
Or those teeth in your head! Sharp and hard and rigged up to a very strong and effective system of musculature -- you could maim with those things!
Better get rid of all of 'em.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Right now, how does it work? I use my battery, and it gets low. Then I plug my laptop in and after a short time, the battery is "magically" refilled, and it didn't cost my any money (my electric bill, but that's a few cents max). I can recharge my laptop ANYWHERE I can find an outlet, which is just about anywhere.
Now for the fuel cell battery. I use my battery and it's gone. Now I have to recharge it with a new little lighter sized cartridge thing. I don't want to pay $5 for 'em. I don't want to pay $1 for 'em. If I got a few refillable fuel "cartridges" when I bought my laptop and some kind of home refuling station that would use my natural gas line or something, I would consider it, maybe. I'll take my 3 or 4 hour battery life over your 10 since mine is free. And when do I need 10 hours of battery life anyway? Most people probably don't, as they could probably find places to plug in by then.
So how do you get me to do something like this? Make a fuel cell battery that works with something like pure hydrogen and oxygen. It mixes them to make electricity and stores the water in a little compartment. Then when I plug my laptop into the wall, it uses the electricity to reseperate the water into hydrogen and oxygen and stores them back in their own little compartments. Basically a sealed system that works just like a standard battery. I really don't care what's in it, or how it works, but unless it works a LOT like a battery, I'm not terribly interested. I'm not paying for what I get for "free".
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I'm curious though... what is the average usage of a laptop... something tells me 12 watts is not enough.
The power supply to my lame 486 laptop is rated at 20watts. I don't know it's actual consumption, but keep in mind that that it has to charge the onboard battery as well. The same laptop has roughly 15 AA sized cells. I believe each cell was rated for 600ma, so roughly 10.8 watt to 13.5 watt depending on whether they were 1.2v or 1.5v.
12 watts sounds reasonable to me.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I just hope that the various manufacturers can standardize their cartridges so they become interchangable from one model laptop to the other !!! THIS would be a feature I'd pay for.
Then the computer was all like beep beep boop
Booooooooooooooooooooommmmmmm!!!!!!
and then my testicles were, like, gone.
The computer blew up my testicles.
I liked my testicles
They were really good testicles.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
I used to travel continuously for my business purposes; if I'm on a plane, that's some of the very rare stable peace and quiet that I can find for my favorite diversions, namely reading or programming. Every time some marketing geek starts bandying around the idea that their new battery technology will allow us to watch a full movie on a single charge, I have to wonder at people's stupidity.
If that's the whole reason you brought a laptop on that plane, you would be much better served to pick up a cheap portable DVD player, and keep your laptop in its case, or rediscover what people used to do before laptops: read. When you pull out that DVD player, or your laptop, for that matter, pretty soon the people next to you start getting nosy. Then they start getting intrusive, because you have presented them with a topic of discussion. Pretty soon, you're having conversations, and that treasured, sacred peace and quiet is shattered with forced contact with other people on the plane.
Call me a snob, but my first response to someone on a plane talking to me is to start methodically weighing the legal consequences of chucking them out the nearest emergency exit.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
Historically, the wholesale cost for methanol in the United States over the past 20 years has been about 45 per gallon.
If this machine is using 24% methanol mixed with water, then 1 gallon of this Fuel Cell fuel should cost around 11 cents.
Basically a dime for a gallon, I'm assuming you that should last you a fairly long time. Probably cheaper than the electricity it takes to charge your laptop.
http://hondacorporate.com/fcx/index.html
Laptops are nice, but I'm not choking to death on laptop fumes. Auto's first.
But it won't be backwards compatible, so that way you'll have to buy a whole new laptop. Almost guaranteed. I thought the 802.11g equipment would be retrofittable because the antennas were the same. Nope! New form factor! Either put up with an ugly dongle that ruins the point of having a laptop, or pay us $3000 for a new one.
Sheesh.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Have you ever been clipping your nails and had a piece of nail fly off and hit you in the eye?
Deadly!
Now if only the manufacturers could get together to decide upon standard sizes for fuel cells instead of the current completely incompatible array of laptop battery formats in use. Even of there is large, medium, and small formats for fuel cells, it will be a HUGE help to the consumer as third party competition will keep the prices down... which is of course why industries resist standards in such things.
Yes you are wrong.
Fuel cells do handle heat well. The type of fuel cell that the laptops will use are PEM fuel cells that operate best between 80-120C.
Fuel cells operate based on chemical reactions which are fastest at high temperatures.
'course you can get a lil one to run 10+ hours if you're using a 200Mhz Transmeta with no optical drive and a itty bitty 10" screen. I think that's what they mean by "it will last 10 hours." In reality I don't expect this bic lighter to last any longer than my current battery.
If I had a 2Ghz P4 I wouldn't expect it to last more than 2 hours.
My bet is that those 10 hour estimates rely on future expected power saving advancements (read: Vapor!).
Booooooooooooooooooooommmmmmm!!!!!!
Lithium ion cells are very dangerous - maybe more so. Something to think about.
And please, nobody hit your battery packs with a hammer. Bad things will happen and you could be seriously injured. Seriously. I made a mistake on a circuit board once and had a coin cell go off like a large metal jacketed firecracker.
..don't panic
I predict that the first and best market for small fuel cells, and where the technology will incubate until it is ready to spread wider, is in hand tools for construction workers (e.g. house framers). They already use tools that chew through multiple battery packs in a workday. They also already have tools (nailers) that are both battery powered and have small fuel tanks that are used to generate small explosions. They are ready and willing to deal with fuel cells that might be noisy, hot, smelly, and perhaps even slightly dangerous. I'm sure they would welcome a tool that chewed through cheapy single-use methanol tanks, rather than having to carefully rotate through an assortment of battery packs every day, sometimes at a site without electrical service.
They're going to be $200 each, which tells me they WILL be refillable by the user, because nobody is going to pay $20/hr in fuel cost to use their own laptop. Even inkjet printers can't get away with THAT level of gouging. (On the other hand, it's in the same price ballpark as present laptop batteries, so we aren't talking about massive up-front gouging either.)
They run on methanol (which is cheap, available over the counter in quantity, and already has enough applications to be widely available at least by mail order) and water (which is not only cheap, it's usually the very LAST public utility to fail in an emergency). Procuring the fuel ingredients will not be hard. And if you're going to be on the road a while, you'll be able to bring fuel with you.
I concur that it'd be nice if they could recharge from a plug. But on balance I'll still call this a major win if it's delivered somewhere in the general neighborhood of on-time and working even kinda sorta like the article says.
The best weapon and one they will never ban from airplanes is a broken bottle.
Grip the neck of the bottle like you would a baseball bat and breake it. You get a razor-sharp, multi-blade bad-ass piece of glass that looks like a Warcraft artifact. Gypsies use it all the time.
Funny thing is they never say a word about the bottles, it's maybe the biggest deal in aiport duty-free shops.
But they do take your nail-cutter. Sheesh...
http://twitter.com/gr
Surely somebody could just market a refiller like you get refiller aerosol cans for reusable lighters? 500ml can with nozzle that pokes into the fuel cell, give it a shot, and you're refueled?
Ok so we know that the big fuel cells companies will try to sit on top of this like homer_ca says, insist their brand can't be mixed. but surely somebody is likely to come out with the Taiwanese / Chinese made generic refillable version, hack the technology?
Not an engineer, so can somebody let me know if this is feasible or if I am missing a technical limitation here?
Granted, there is probably some processing, but even analytical grade lab methanol isn't going to cost you that much more. The biggest part of the price will be the container--and I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing refill-your-own fuel cell kits, like those that now exist for inkjets. Bonus: spilled methanol should evaporate cleanly, unlike printer ink....
~Idarubicin
Expect laptop system prices to eventually drop because of this technology. Any business knows that consumables are the real way to make a profit. Just like your inkjet printer that cost barely more than the refill cartidge (just so you don't just go buy a new printer with a starter ink cartridge), your laptop will cost a couple hundred dollars while its "official" and proprietary fuel cell refill will cost about $45.
In the long run, you'll spend much more on refills than on the original hardware, but the initial purchase will seem cheap.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Is EVERYBODY here just responding to the last
crappy Terminator movie? Recap: cyborg Ahhnold
(Republican!) throws his "fuel cell" out the car
window and as he drives away, it causes a massive
nukular (Republican spelling) explosion in the
desert.
I remember seeing that and thinking of how
screwed up it was to see a republican cyborg
driving a gas-guzzler and trying to scare America
away from cleaner energy sources. That movie is
the only contact most Americans will have with
fuel cells, and they blew it (literally) for
decades to come, I imagine...
Judging from the response of the Slashdotters so
far, I'd say the collective brain damage was
pretty severe!!
-- The Funk, The Whole Funk, And Nothing But The Funk