Batteries Continue To Suck

pvt_medic writes "As technology continues to grow, and we see more and more of a shift to portable electronic devices in our daily life, we are still constricted by one simple thing: Batteries. Newsweek has an interesting article about the lack of development in battery technology. 'Ironically, in our headlong rush to create sophisticated untethered computing, the most problematic technology turns out also to be the oldest: those nondescript metal cylinders that never seemed to be included with our Christmas toys.' And for those of you who would like an extensive overview about batteries, ExtremeTech.com has a nice overview."

Comments

so then

[rootofevil]

lets make with the cold fusion already.

Re:so then

[SultanCemil]

What, you don't have Cold Fusion on your laptop. Damn Luddites.

Re:so then

[CorkieVII]

Fuel cells are the dream power source for portable computers. Engineers imagine you might run your notebook computer for 20 hours from a single fuel cell...The wonderful side of this dream is that some engineers expect it to be reality by the end of 2001. The same technology will free your cell phone from its charger for a week at a time. Really, that's interesting.

Re:so then

[Anonymous Coward]

so then,

whenever fellow geeks and I talk about the old batteries are shit problem we get to 2 places:

1) clockwork batteries - you know minaturising Baylis' clockwork radio concept into just a cell

- needs good microdynamo and capacitor

2) Gas powered - same again but micro turbine

Both these suffer from being 'always-on' and so lifespan is unrelated to current drawn.

Don't laugh but nuclear batteries are also feasible mass production artifacts, just no one would want them because they would fuck up the env, so bad idea.

Another angle worth looking at is capacitor technology and finding better electolytes and using nanofibre tech to make monster caps like 10F or more at 5v.

Re:so then

[Mr. Ophidian Jones]

He's on his honeymoon. (Taco said).

Re:so then

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, he went to the Netherlands to marry his long-term boy slave (we don't know his name, but the personal page of Michael contains some pictures).

Re:so then

[reboot246]

Cold Fusion? Nah, I'm waiting for some zero-point energy batteries. Maybe then I'll have something that will power my intergalactic Segway scooter.

Re:so then

[Anonymous Coward]

With any luck maybe he'll stay there and get another job. This is a much nicer site without his leftist viewpoint.

Re:so then

[falzer]

10F at 2.5v

Re:so then

[AKAImBatman]

Don't laugh but nuclear batteries are also feasible mass production artifacts, just no one would want them because they would fuck up the env, so bad idea.

Indeed. In fact, there are quite a few ways of generating nuclear power without building a full blown reactor. The coolest part is that your battery life would be determined by the half-life the the material used as a power source. If they could find a heavy element with a realistic life-span of about 3 years (the average life of a computer), then we'd have a winner on our hands. Plus, the actual amount of radioactive material would be tremendously small (think ounces per hundreds of people). If the waste became a concern, a standard battery slot could be developed so that batteries with longer lives could be manufactured. Those 10+ year batteries could simply be moved from computer to computer over the years.

The real problem is that people freak when you use the words "nuclear" or "radioactive". Maybe we should call them "magic" batteries?

Re:so then

[andy landy]

Batteries may not have been getting any better, but the devices *are* getting more energy-efficient. When I got my first portable CD player, I could get about 3-4 hours out of 2 AA batteries.

My brother's shiny! new portable CD player lasts for hours on end on the same amount of batteries.

Admittedly, greater capacity batteries would be great, but we're not doing too badly!

Re:so then

[Anonymous Coward]

lets make with the cold fusion already.

Yeah... that'd be cool. No pollution energy.

Until then, let batteries SUCK! That's just fine! There's so little incentive already to keep power consumption low.

Re:so then

[lone_marauder]

The real problem is that people freak when you use the words "nuclear" or "radioactive". Maybe we should call them "magic" batteries?

Are you still using archaic and dangerous chemcial reaction batteries to power your personal electronic devices? Depending on dangerous chemical reactions can have disastrous consequences... (insert video of lithium being thrown into a lake here)... and because chemical reactions are very ineffecient, they can have a negative impact on the environment and your sanity...(insert video of frustrated cellphone user dropping a call due to a dead battery)...

But now, thanks to new patented Microparticle (tm) technology, you can get more from your batteries, and get it more safely. Batteries derive their power from energetic particles (...insert video of dots floating around inside a rectangle...) but with out new patented Microparticle design (...zoom back to half-screen, add a new rectangle with many more tiny dots, pulsating happily...), you can get up to 6.023X1023 times more particles! And without any harmful chemicals!

Try it risk-free today, and keep our free gift - the stick-o-matic antenna booster - guaranteed to keep harmful high energy RF radiation away from you - even if you decide not to buy! Call now!

Re:so then

[Anonymous Coward]

we're not doing too badly

Someone please phone IBM to get with the program:

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/30/ 17 44214&mode=thread&tid=136

Re:so then

[AKAImBatman]

Ooooo, I like this! "Micro-particle technology" could be the buzz phrase of the future! Unfortunately, this industry is rather unforgiving. Remember the "scandal" when the Pentium Pro ran 32 bit code faster than 16 bit? People should have been rejoicing and dancing in the streets! Instead, they were pissed off that Windows 95 *might* run slower. All it would take is one Ziff-Davis article that mentioned the word "atomic" and the jig would be up.

The best solution would be to either keep the exact process a "trade-secret" or to be as up front as possible and attempt to educate consumers. If you can convince them of the safety of such micro-atomic devices, they'll be wooed by the always-on power generation features.

Re:so then

[CGP314]

Plus, the actual amount of radioactive material would be tremendously small

What about the price? Microscopicly huge?

Re:so then

[AKAImBatman]

> What about the price? Microscopicly huge?

Depends on the technology and materials used. LiOn and NiMH batteries already use very exotic materials and technologies, thus are extremely expensive. A technology based on the radioactive decay of a few grams of material should be in about the same price range. Besides, I'd be willing to pay more for a battery that never needs to be recharged, lasts for ten years, and can be moved from older devices to newer devices.

BTW, the most likely candidate for an atomic battery would be what's known as an RTG device. Very simply, it translates the radioactive decay of a material into electricity or mechanical power. Such devices have been in use since the 1960s and are used in space craft, UPS devices, and pacemakers.

Re:so then

[mikerich]

If they could find a heavy element with a realistic life-span of about 3 years (the average life of a computer), then we'd have a winner on our hands.

I assume you're thinking about the same technology used by NASA to power deep space craft using Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTGs)? They work by having pelletised plutonium 238 dioxide. Plutonium generates a LOT of heat as it decays (a piece of plutonium is noticeably warm). The heat is used to drive thermocouples (one side hot, one cold = electricity).

But thermocouples are extremely inefficient (say 2%) and there is an enormous amount of heat wasted. An isotope with a half-life such as that you suggest would generate even more heat per gram than plutonium.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:so then

[AKAImBatman]

That's one way of doing it, but as you say, heat is a problem. Yet, very little research has gone into producing more efficient atomic devices. This is 1960s battery technology! The only major work done on improving atomic devices is a Mems generator developed at Cornell. That particular battery does not suffer from the heat dissipation issue, although I'm not conversant in the issues of scaling up such a design.

My point is that atomic power is seen as "evil" and as a result is not explored as a viable technology. Instead, we've got all our technological muscle devoted to low power density devices like hydrogen fuel cells. With the right atomics, I could power your car indefinitely and probably wouldn't generate much more heat than a combustion engine! Sadly, there wasn't enough respect for the power of atomics early on and a string of accidents in power plants forever tarnished the good name of nuclear power.

Side Note: I wonder if anyone has thought of mixing atomics with batteries? Take your car for example. Rather heavy atomics would be needed to power your vehicle during use. However, if you inserted batteries similar to those in hybrid cars between the generator and the engines, your car could self-charge when not in use, and provide full power during driving. Long trips at high speeds (i.e. Interstate travel) could pose a problem for electric vehicles, but it would certainly be an interesting avenue to explore.

Re:so then

[b!arg]

yes..."radioactive" and "lap" (as in laptop) don't really do a whole lot for me. I would like to have kids one day. :)

Re:so then

[hesiod]

> Maybe then I'll have something that will power my intergalactic Segway scooter.

Intergalactic Segway? I think you'd better work on the life support system first. Either that or learn how to hold your breath for a LONG time. Oh and being able to withstand a vacuum might help. Minor speedbumps on the road of progress, though, eh?

Re:so then

[reboot246]

I'd be wearing a spacesuit. The scooter is so fast that even on a trip to another star system I'd have enough oxygen.

There is a model available with a pressurized cockpit, but I can't afford such luxuries.

Re:so then

[anethema]

broken link

Here is a link to the PDF

Caps up to 50 farads at 2.5 volts..

Small too, the 50 farad ones are only 1.8cm diameter, and 4cm long. Course charging it at 2.5 volts still only gives you just over 300 joules. And the cap IS 25 canadian..but still, good stuff.

What about all the advances?

[GaelenBurns]

Seriously, what about all those great Slashdot battery articles we've seen over the past few years? The amazing advances that were supposed to revolutionize our portable electronics? I've been wondering about them recently. Was manufacturing these theoretical advances just too difficult?

Re:What about all the advances?

[beacher]

Two areas of society drive technology inovations - porn and the military. The military guys are too busy dropping lithium batteries in water and anything else would drive the fun factor out of batteries. Porn? Well... D cells rock the vibrators, and there's no need in decreasing the size of those clam shuckers. The only step up from there is an A/C adaptor and discount pricing with your local power company.
-B

Re:What about all the advances?

[mrbuttle]

Here's a recent press release about an alternative to chemical batteries. It's a storage capacitor made of porous carbon. Supposedly can store twice the charge of lead acid batteries, recharge in 1 minute and last indefinitely. Sounds relatively simple.

Re:What about all the advances?

[kfg]

The amazing advances in batteries that were supposed to revolutionize everything have been a constant prediction since the early 70's at least.

In the late 70's I was involved in the design of electric cars. We're all driving them now, right?

Throughout the 90's I was involved in the design and development of electric cars on a smaller scale (of the cars themselves. The work was actually more extensive).

End result was a complete lack of revolution.

I canna change the laws of physics Cap'n.

Over the years batteries have gotten a bit better due primarily to better manufacturing methods of existing technologies, not to any real breakthrough.

Some day we just might have to deal with the fact that batteries are WYSIWYG. I'd love to have a simple wind up toy that could fly me to China in an hour, but, as my mother used to say, wishing won't make it so and just because we wish for a "technology" ( applied science ) does not imply that such a technology ever will, or even can, exist.

KFG

Re:What about all the advances?

[Yenhsrav_Keviv]

if those batteries can last indefinitely,doesnt that mean they'll never run out of charge?

Re:What about all the advances?

[hazem]

My guess is he means shelf-life... as in the capacitor doesn't leak. So, charge it up and five years later, it's still ready to use.

Re:What about all the advances?

[gcaseye6677]

I think the lack of advances in battery technology is the biggest reason why electric cars have never been successful outside of the laboratory. Even in fuel conscious Europe, battery powered cars are just not practical, due to the size and lack of run time.

Re:What about all the advances?

[pavon]

It means it can be recharged an "infinate" number of times. Ie charging and draining the capacitor does not cause it to wear out, like most rechargable batteries do.

Re:What about all the advances?

[Brataccas]

Obviously, you're still living in the old world. Along with the new laws of economics adopted in the 90's we also adopted the new laws of physics. Didn't you get the memo?

Re:What about all the advances?

[swordboy]

The advances are there but people aren't willing to pay for them. Err, rather, the manufacturers don't offer the advanced batteries because they don't believe that people will pay for them.

Most laptops use Li-Ion - a technology that brings the term "suck" to the title of this article. Li-Ion sucks. Not the other technologies out there. They aren't offfered.

NiMH is a decidedly better technology. Matsushita (who, BTW, is currently in arbitration with Ovonic Battery over a patent dispute) has brought the new Toyota Prius battery up to some astounding levels of power and energy density. And the batteries are proven to last for the vehicles lifetime - not this puny 500 cycles like Li-Ion that we get with laptop batteries. Didja ever wonder why your laptop's 2-year warranty didn't include the battery?

Because margins are already too thin. They can't afford real battery technology. We'll have true wireless only when the electronics downsize their power requirements.

Re:What about all the advances?

[iabervon]

The real issue is voltages. Every type of chemical cell has a particular voltage it produces. It's easy to get a multiple of that voltage, but very hard to get any other voltage. Most of the new technologies produce voltages that don't match standard batteries, which means that, unless you have a custom device or a device designed for a range of voltages, you can't use anything new.

Actually, there is one place where battery technology has seen incredible advanced, and that is power tools. Ten years ago, a cordless ("powerless") drill was basically a toy, because it didn't produce enough torque, and the batteries would run out quickly. These days, people just don't use drills with cords, because the battery-powered ones are just as good, and cords are inconvenient. Of course, these use battery packs in the 10-15V range, which is sufficiently wide to handle a lot of variation, and is achieved with several cells, so the number of cells can be varied to change the voltage.

One AA (or AAA) battery is 1.5V; a single lithium cell is ~3V, and lithium ion and polymer are 3.6V. So you can make a newfangled rechargable which is perfect for devices that take 7 AAA batteries, and you can get pair-of-AA-battery lithium disposables, that's about it for new batteries of the sort that you don't get for Christmas.

Re:What about all the advances?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a Lithium Ion manufacturing plant, and I can assure you, it is as cut-throat as every other industry out there. My company spends so much on R&D that we aren't getting raises this year:-(

But seriously, when I started there (3 years ago), we were producing 1.8Ah 18650 cells (18mmX65mm cans) we have since made some astounding design changes and I have watched us re-tool the machines to build 2.0Ah, 2.2Ah, and more recently 2.4Ah.

It is true however that the advances in battery capacity will never be as dramatic as the advances in circuit technology, but the advances in circuit technology will compensate by lowered power consumption.

Our company is also making inroads in the powertool market. We own a patented process which makes Lithium Ion batteries totaly safe, and if all goes well, we will soon see Li-Ion Powertools.

I like my job, that is why I posted AC ;-)

Re:What about all the advances?

[ball-lightning]

And the batteries are proven to last for the vehicles lifetime - not this puny 500 cycles like Li-Ion that we get with laptop batteries

My thinkpad's battery is fr '98, and its still going (relatively) strong. Its not as good as it used to be, but I still get 1.5 ~ 3 hours from it (depending on what I'm doing)

Re:What about all the advances?

[michael_cain]

Supposedly can store twice the charge of lead acid batteries, recharge in 1 minute

Maybe I've just grown overly cautious in my old age, but if it can be charged quickly, it must capable of discharging quickly, no? Energy-storage devices of reasonable density that can discharge very quickly make me nervous about bad things happening. Maybe not on the order of your gas tank "discharging" suddenly, but certainly the possibility of heating conductors enough to start a fire.

Re:What about all the advances?

[IM6100]

An ordinary alkaline 'D' cell can put out the amount of peak current that you're fretting about.

Re:What about all the advances?

[thegraham]

How about a good old nuclear laptop?

Thomas

Re:What about all the advances?

[wankledot]

Actually they're not D, they're usually... oh shit, I've said too much.

Clam shuckers... that's priceless.

Re:What about all the advances?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm under the impression that Li-Ion is used because it has the best energy density. Where size and weight are prime concerns (cell phone, PDA), Li-Ion is top choice.

Re:What about all the advances?

[FinestLittleSpace]

The wonders of perpetual motion and such like; were only days away from inventing things with unlimited energy!

Re:What about all the advances?

[Lispy]

so whats your point? There were some drawbacks and things didnt turn out to be as easy as expected so we better screw the whole thing?

Come on. If everyone would give up that easily we wouldnt have come far. Dont get me wrong, I agree that there are physical limits to some degree but on the other hand I dont think we are that energy efficient inside our mobile devices.

Whats more you can still shift to a totally new energy source such as fuel cells. Personally I believe that within the last few years we made some serious progress with oldfashioned batteries. Latest mobile phones run as long as those with simple 2color displays and no backlight. Just compare a 1990s mobile with todays Nokias in pure size and standbytime. And you tell me theres no progress? I disagree.

Re:What about all the advances?

[Dahlgil]

It's not all bad. When I was in high school back in the late 70's we were being told that fossil fuels would be all used-up in 20 years. That was a rather vacuous prediction.

It's true that there have been no massive breakthroughs in battery technology, but the remarkable capacity and rechargeablility of the NiMH I use, for example, in my digital camera is pretty amazing to me compared to the dry cells I used in the 70's. I'm sure the knowledge of the chemistry behind these new batteries existed 20 and 30 years ago, but the fact that I can actually *buy* them now is the great move forward.

I do think that fuel cells, however, rather than batteries, will probably be the true future breakthrough. Then maybe some of the more lofty predictions will come true.

Re:What about all the advances?

[pj737]

NiMH is decidely the lesser of two batteries (compared to Li-Ion chemistry). There is not a single advantage of NiMH over Li-Ion. Not one. Apparently, you were sleeping through batteries 101.

Re:What about all the advances?

[Alioth]

Lead acid batteries can already do that. Short a lead acid battery, and watch the wire get cherry red hot.

Re:What about all the advances?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the late 70's I was involved in the design of electric cars. We're all driving them now, right?

Looks like you're to blame then.

Re:What about all the advances?

[TClevenger]

And for most consumer electronics, it's not the batteries that suck, it's the chargers. Motorola, despite years of manufacturing cell phones, still can't be bothered to put in the 5 cents' worth of circuits to shut off their cell phone chargers when the charge is complete. My i1000 actually says, "Shut off charger" when the charge is complete, and if I don't, it will continue to overcharge. WTF?

Some laptops are the same way. We had some Toshiba laptops that sat on docking stations since they were new, and less than a year later, the batteries were completely shot. A call to Toshiba confirmed that they continuously overcharge their batteries when on the dock--even though Windows, the laptop and the battery itself know that the battery is full.

Re:What about all the advances?

[homer_ca]

They do have one advantage. NiMH will last through more charge and discharge cycles than Lithium Ion. Li-Ion needs much more precise control of charging current to prevent frying the battery.

Re:What about all the advances?

[vidarlo]

In fact a lead-acid battery can discharge so fast that it explodes... But it requires a great fuse, so this can easily be avoided by adding a PTC to it, or simply the old fashioned fuse. With a PTC the resistance goes up along with the temperature. You could also add a lot of other similar devices.

Re:What about all the advances?

[the_2nd_coming]

his point, IF you can connect 2 ideas in his post, is that battery technology is maxed out, just like wind-up technology, you can only move a technology so far until you need to replace it. Atomic batteries would be better, and no, I am not talking about uranium or plutonium, there are lots of radioactive elements that, in amounts needed for a battery, are harmless to humans and would last years at a time.

Re:What about all the advances?

[danila]

Why that defeatism, KFG? Everything that we humans can imagine can be built. Every problem that we face can be solved. It only takes a finite amount of time, money and effort. There is more than enough energy in a battery to power the whole NYC for a year*, the only question is how to get this energy and use it. :)

* with corresponding advances in various new energy efficient technologies.

Re:What about all the advances?

[pj737]

The later of your reponse is true but this doesn't necessarily make the Li-Ion battery be disadvantaged. The circuit is meant to protect the battery from overcharge, overdischarge, overcurrent, and in some cases, temp protection. Granted Li-Ion batteries can "vent with flame" if proper circuits are not incorporated into their circuit, the ability of the cell, or should I say the propensity of the cell to do this forces manufacturers of Li-Ion packs to install these complex, often expensive PCM (protection control modues) into the packs. Many NiMH lack any kind of control whatsoever, minus the regulation in the battery charger itself. Also, what's nice about having these protection circuits built into the Li-Ion cells is the batteries become much easier to charge. Contrary to belief, a Li-Ion charger need only be a constant voltage/constant current charger with precise voltage control (+/- .05V per cell). Most advanced lead acid chargers are much more complex.

NiMH does not necessarily last longer than Li-Ion batteries. In fact, they usually have lower life cycles. Almost all Li-Ion cells (even the cheapo ones) are rates to >80% of initial capacity after 500 cycles. Most NiMH batteries are good to about the same or sometimes less. The reason why Li-Ion cells often die prematurely is not the result of the cell dying per se, but rather the protection circuit not allowing the battery to supply current or take a charge because the voltage has dropped below a permissable point (usually about 1.75V per cell) Once that happens, you cannot revive the pack unless you bypass the PCM, which is sometimes possible. It's quite sad that many Li-Ion packs hit the trash can prematurely, with life still left in their cells.

From my experience, the only disadvantage of Li-Ion vs NiMH is cost. Li-Ion is currently 2-3 times the cost of comparable capacity NiMH batteries.

Re:What about all the advances?

[renecarlos]

But all electrostatic devices, even this electro-static/chemical one, have linear voltages. A battery stays at 1.5 volts, 12 volts, or whatever, until they're almost drained. A capacitor tapers down in voltage continuously the instant you begin tapping it. Any device with capacitor primary power must either live with this, or have some sort of active step-up circuit.

And they self-discharge faster than batteries.

The auto industry has already been through this- ultracapacitors would only be used as electron buffers in conjuction with a baseline energy source (battery or fuel cell), to deliver peak power.
Rene Carlos

Re:What about all the advances?

[rifter]

Actually they're not D, they're usually... oh shit, I've said too much.

Actually, all sizes of batteries are used in this space. Well, maybe not 12 volt or car batteries... though maybe I just haven't seen those yet. But I have seen AA, C, D, and 9volt batteries employed for vibrators.

Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[Hi_2k]

"nondescript metal cylinders that never seemed to be included with our Christmas toys"

Why is he talking about Nukes? I mean, yeah, you never seem to get them (Top of the list, five years running! But do my parents see fit to get one? NEVER!), but what place do they have in an article about batteries?

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[KiwiEngineer]

the spoilsports with the non proliferation treaties probably have something to do with this lack of tactical nukes in your christmas stockings.

I was sorely tempted to drop in a comment about your constitutional right to nukes but then realised that there is a right to bear arms (short sleeve shirts anyone?) but says nothing about batteries.

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[Theaetetus]

Why is he talking about Nukes? I mean, yeah, you never seem to get them (Top of the list, five years running! But do my parents see fit to get one? NEVER!)

Uday? Is that you, Uday? ;)

-T

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[Wog]

I, for one, fully support the right to keep and arm bears.

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always wondered why batteries aren't included in Canada or in the U.S. Here in Japan, they ARE included, and it's quite refreshing to get a product home and find out you can start using it right away, rather than head over to the convenience store and buy the batteries you didn't know you needed.

Guess it's a little matter of "service" and "let's fuck the consumer over a dollar" by North American retailers. And you people wonder why your economy is going to shit. :-D

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, nukes are ordnance, not arms. Maybe that's the issue? You can always get around the problem by having France build a nuclear reactor for you. They're a little more costly than the Japanese ones, but at least they're easier to take apart.

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[KiwiEngineer]

/me wonders aloud if beer arms are a condition not unlike beer belly, with the wobbly bits of skin like the bit of skin under a turkey's chin

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[Anonymous Coward]

I also noticed that in Japan customer service is almost too good. You walk into a store and they all the staff welcome you, I've even had some bow to me as I walk in. Even though I was a dreaded gaijin and most people didn't even want to get near me on the subway the customer service was fantastic.

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[quacking duck]

the spoilsports with the non proliferation treaties probably have something to do with this lack of tactical nukes in your christmas stocking

Not a problem if you're Captain John "Glowboy" Sheridan, no siree!

His answer to any intractable enemy is to hit them with tactical nukes. First the Minbari, then the Shadows, then Shadows AND the Vorlons, and finally against the Thirdspace aliens. I reckon he set off more nukes personally in ten years than did all the Earthforce brass combined.

Say, those non-proliferation types are kind of an intractable foe, aren't they...?

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[jasontwarnock]

I think it has to do with the US Department of Transportation, there are regulations about having batteries in devices while transporting them, that's why if a device comes with batteries they don't come in the device, or have a piece of paper/plastic keeping them away from the terminal.

Why we have this law I have no clue.

I assume most company use it as an excuse for not including batteries, but my guess is they are cheap and want to maximize profit.

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[izx]

No, this is Qusay.

Note that Dad gave Uday some WMD brand "batteries" last Christmas, but he had to hide them...

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[Anonymous Coward]

"nondescript metal cylinders that never seemed to be included with our Christmas toys"

Everybody give it up for the INANIMATE CARBON ROD! Woo!

(aw, that's probably not metal :P )

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[ChopsMIDI]

Well in Bush's State of the Union address, he spoke of giving every child 3 nuclear missles.

Watch the video Here

Re:Not my "Nondescript metal cylinders"

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno. You might just be an ugly gaijin, not a dreaded one. If you're a pretty-boy gaijin, you get lots of attention from japanese women (though you need to be aware that they are more subtle in their signalling than "fuck me! fuck me!" american women)

That's weird..

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me batteries have gotten a lot better. Maybe not compaired to microprocessors, but that's not really a fair compairison.

Fuel Cells...

[c_oflynn]

There is actually a real use of these, see http://www.ballard.com/tD.asp?pgid=700&dbid=0

Its pretty cool, because you always hear about fuel cells, but almost never see a commercial application.

Hopefully once they make it smaller...

Re:Fuel Cells...

[Anonymous Coward]

For the copy n' paste impaired (like me).

Re:Fuel Cells...

[ThisIsFred]

For those of us that maintain hundreds of laptops with batteries that lose their full capacity after a year of use, affordable compact fuel cell technology can't arrive soon enough!

Re:Fuel Cells...

[Anonymous Coward]

One has to wonder with fuel cells like this on running on hydrogen, perhaps we should be looking at way to sperate water more efficiently, so that a device simular to this could be just filled with a couple gallons of water every hour...

Re:Fuel Cells...

[Bingo Foo]

Luckily, one only need wonder about this if one is so thoroughly ignorant as to not realize that the energy it takes to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen will never be made up by the energy you get out from recombination.

Batteries Continue To Suck

[Anonymous Coward]

"Batteries Continue To Suck"
"The Energy Crisis on Your Lap"

Hey watch your mouth, we got kids here!

Re:Batteries Continue To Suck

[Anonymous Coward]

And so do the articles

Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[RalphBNumbers]

"Had batteries advanced at the pace of the computer processor, a double-A cell would contain more energy than a tactical nuke." - Paul Saffo

I suppose that would be somewhat hazardous wouldn't it.
At least a current day leaking battery will leave a nasty burn mark on my table, not burn thru the table and into the concrete floor underneath.

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Ichijo]

"Had batteries advanced at the pace of the computer processor, a double-A cell would contain more energy than a tactical nuke."
- Paul Saffo

The microprocessor has only had to deal with Moore's law for 32 years. The battery was invented in 1800.

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Batteries have never at any time kept up with Moore's law, so I don't get your point.

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[toddestan]

Actually, the battery is now believed to be much, much older.

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/part hi an_battery.php

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Anonymous Coward]

you may remember T3's batteries. Pretty nasty ones. Too bad T1 didnt think of that when he was holding Sarah Connor!

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Alomex]

"Had batteries advanced at the pace of the computer processor, a double-A cell would contain more energy than a tactical nuke." - Paul Saffo

Actually you can get a tactical nuke not much larger than ten D batteries. It was called a David Crocket by the US Army. Weight would be a problem though, as uranium/plutonium is really high density (almost twice the weight of lead per unit of volume).

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[mwillis]

There is evidence to suggest working batteries in use 2000 years ago:

The Baghdad Battery

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Stephen Samuel]

Actually, the battery is now believed to be much, much older.
</A>
Please do be so kind as to wrap URL references in the appropriate HTML....

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[dildatron]

Exactly. And Moore's Law doesn't apply to batteries since they have no transistors. It makes about as much sense as applying the speed limit on my local streets to a battery.

It's just like most things... it's like a monkey fucking a football.

There. Now we have over-analyzed an attempt at humor.

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Nucleon500]

"Had batteries advanced at the pace of the computer processor, a double-A cell would contain more energy than a tactical nuke." - Paul Saffo

Actually, they already do. One of Energizer's AA alkaline batteries weighs 23.0 grams, 23.0 grams = 4.94e14 calories, and 1 megaton energy = 10e15 calories, so one AA battery yeilds 494 kilotons of energy. By comparison, the Little Boy was 13 kilotons.

So there you have it - a AA battery is could destroy Hiroshima 38 times over.

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Almost-Retired]

The battery was invented in 1800.

If thats the case, lets clarify the word invent, shall we? Lets make it mean the most recent discovery of something, not the first.

I'm not exactly sure which coal mine, in the coal mining region of the french/german border country has it, but one of them has an artifact on display in the museum case in the front office that was analyzed and determined to be the equivilent of a well discharged flashlight battery, the usual carbon zinc style.

The seam of coal it came out of dates to be about 80 million years old...

Think about that for a minute. Or 20. Maybe even do a google search, I haven't. My mental references date back to mentions in schoolbooks of the late 40's before it was analyzed. The analysis, when finally done, was the subject of a science fact article in the magazine Analog, probably 20-25 years back up the log now.

--
Cheers, Gene

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Dahlgil]

I remember reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and recall that most everything, even pocket sized devices, were "atomic" powered. I think we just don't give his ideas enough credit. AA sized nukes would be an incredibly great idea (though it might make your iPod kind of heavy with all that lead shielding).

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comparison doesn't hold up. I assume you're using mass-energy equivalence to calculate the energy of the battery, while you're comparing it with the energy release of the Little Boy. I suspect that Little Boy weighed a bit more than 23g (or they'd hardly have needed a B29 to carry it), but it didn't release ALL that energy.

Neither does an AA battery.

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[Anonymous Coward]

If thats the case, lets clarify the word invent, shall we? Lets make it mean the most recent discovery of something, not the first.

Cool, then the battery hasn't even been invented yet, since I'm sure it will be discovered again. I prefer the definition of invent that refers to the person who started it all. If you "invent" something, but never tell anyone, that doesn't count.

The big part that needs clarifying is what it means to be a battery. Your "coal mine battery" doens't fit my definition. This is the same problem with most who invented what first. The airplane is a great example. It all depends on definitions.

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[savage_panda]

I guess the writers of Terminator 3 read the same quote.

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[SteelRat]

cool. battery design by HG Geiger.

maybe they can do some mockups for the upcoming preditor vs alien movie.

"in space.. no one can hear your pda scream"

Re:Time to dig out an old favorite quote

[jesser]

It's a bug in slashdot. Don't blame the poster.

Fuel Cells!

[Naffer]

It's obvious that reversible chemical batteries will never be up to the standards that fuel cells have.

Portable power should be lightweight, long lasting, and quickly rechargable/refillable.

The Adult Industry

[Anonymous Coward]

The adult industy is the answer! They just need to make less efficent vibrators, than something will be done.

Re:The Adult Industry

[Bendebecker]

No, they need to make more. More demand, more supply, more innovations.

Re:The Adult Industry

[Kneo24]

I was going to make a joke about the adult industry and vibrators as well, but you stole my thunder. Damn you and your adult industry, vibrator joke stealing tactics! You'll forever be doomed with insufficient batteries!

Re:The Adult Industry

[Lectrik]

No, they need to make more. More demand, more supply, more innovations.

I think you misapplied the modifier,
when he said they need to make less efficient vibrators he probably didn't mean to make less of the efficient vibrators, it's more likely he meant to make the vibrators less efficient.
then again I'm not (currently being paid to be) psychic

I wonder if...

[barfarf]

...things have become stagnant because of some logistical backwards compatible form factor issue or if it's just corporate greed not wanting to get battery lives up. The longer a battery will last, the less incentive people will have to purchase batteries more often.

Re:I wonder if...

[buffer-overflowed]

Yes, yes I'm sure it all comes down to greed. Because you know, there's no way they wouldn't price longer lasting batteries higher than lower costing batteries. I mean to make up for the loss in volume. Oh and there's no incentive for any of the various battery companies to one-up their competition and grab market share by making a more efficient/longer-lasting battery. That's why we see that energizer bunny all the time, because it's unprofitable to sell batteries based upon length of life.

Re:I wonder if...

[hildaur]

Perhaps improving batteries is simply a more difficult problem. Some problems are genuinely harder than others, and which are harder than others is not always intuitive. While there are certainly industries willing and able to stear technological development for their own benefit, I doubt the battery industry is one of them.

-Hil

Re:I wonder if...

[kisrael]

That's why we see that energizer bunny all the time, because it's unprofitable to sell batteries based upon length of life.

Well, tehnically in practice, you sell batteries based on perception of length of life. Most people don't go to Consumer Reports to know what battery to buy.

Helpful Hint: always own like 2 more rechargable batteries than you intend to be using at any given time. Keep these charged and near the charger. WHen yoour rechargable using gadget runs outta juice, swap.

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

great point, since this is slashdot and the answer to everything must be either corporate greed or everybody except you is stupid.

Re:I wonder if...

[Drakon]

Neither-
It's simply a lack of advancment in research.
Laptops, MP3 players, and most other such devices use Lithium Ion batteries, which are sorely due for a replacement. Most people's complaints are not that they don't last long (The batteries in this Dell are rated for 500 discharge/charge cycles each) as much as they are heavy and don't hold enough of a charge. This machine, for example, can't be on for more than 4 hours (or something like 8 with the screen off) if both of the bays have batteries in them, which is grossly insufficiant. Also the batteries weigh in at 1 pound each, almost a third of the weight on my back. Corporate greed would lead to batteries that can keep a desktop powered for a week without recharging, but can only be recharged 10 times before they blow up with the machine they're attached to (so you get to buy a new machine too!)

Re:I wonder if...

[ComputerSlicer23]

Actually, there is a lot of truth to that. My physics instructor told us how to make a light bulb that will (almost) never burn out. Light bulbs burn out because they are 120 volts, and the rms of American electricity is 170 volts. I think I remember this right. Essentially, a light bulb almost always burns out when you turn it on. That's because if you turn it on, when its at the top of the sine wave, it's well outside of the spec the light bulb is designed to run in. That's because they are specifically designed they are are capable of burning out. They could easily make a filiment that almost never burns out when you turn it on. It'd last nearly forever. They don't because you'd never make money at it. By the time you start talking about the capital investment to build a factory to do that, and scale up. By the time you sold everybody light bulbs, you'd only be able to see them to new contruction, and the rare burn out. So now you have a huge amount of capital tied up in a business you can't make any money at.

If you go to a light specialty store they'll sell you 130 volt light bulbs that are a lot more durable. Extra cost, ~$0.06 a light bulb. They are used in places where it's a real pain to change a light bulb. They generally last longer in any light socket. The power at my apartment is so bad I've switched to the floresent bulbs to avoid precisely this problem, I was blowing bulbs every 2 months in the 3 fixtures I have.

Next you'll tell me there isn't a conspiracy among printer makers to artificially inflate the price of ink/toner? Which is pretty much a well documented fact.

No razor blade maker has ever jiggered the prices on the blades and the handle so that they made a ton extra on the blades. Far more then supply and demand account for.

You'll tell me the fact that RIAA prices CD precisely according to supply and demand, and that they never had a cartel that price fixed.

Oh, and Microsoft isn't a monopoly, it's just that nobody can compete with them, because Microsoft comes up with all the good ideas in computing. They've never just used OEM deals to build up market share, and then just bought up everybody would had any potential to challenge them in any market they are in.

The really funny part is that in general, in the case of batteries, it is most cost effective to buy the most generic brand batteries you can find. Generally, they last about 80-90% as long, and only cost 25-50% as much.

Other then in specialized electronics that have a very low power draw, it's much smarter to just buy generic ones.

Kirby

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

What crack are you smoking?

Light bulbs burn out because they are 120 volts, and the rms of American electricity is 170 volts

Light bulbs are "tungsten" not "120 volts". Light bulbs do not care if it's ac power, dc power, or what the voltage is.

The mains in the usa is 120V RMS (110V rms if you're picky). Not 170.

That's because if you turn it on, when its at the top of the sine wave, it's well outside of the spec the light bulb is designed to run in.

Does your physics instructor have a platinum-vapor injector on his car, and a 200 MPG carbeurator too?

Re:I wonder if...

[buffer-overflowed]

Outlets in the US are 120 volts DC. FYI. And your lightbulb example is hogwash. Lightbulbs will burn out no matter what. It has to do with the resistance in the filament which causes them to glow in the first place. Think of it like a dam, when you flip the switch on, the current suddenly meets resistance at the weakest points of the bulb, where the filament attaches. Occassionally it will superheat and boom, light bulb goes dead.

Here, go read up on how light bulbs and flourescent lights work.

Now if you're through making wild accusations, perhaps you can explain what precisely operating systems and printers have in common with batteries. I'm not even going to attempt to argue with you on those points on /. which is why you used them. But, regardless, if A is a square and B is a square that doesn't mean C is a square.

Re:I wonder if...

[CTho9305]

The RMS is 120, the peak is ~170. If the bulb could't handle 170, then it would blow out regardless of what the phase of the power was when it was turned on. Besides, the coil acts like a small inductor that limits the rate of increase in current.

Re:I wonder if...

[GMontag]

Corporate greed would lead to batteries that can keep a desktop powered for a week without recharging, but can only be recharged 10 times before they blow up with the machine they're attached to (so you get to buy a new machine too!)

Yea, right.

Now backup and realize that batteries have been around since about 1800, as pointed out previously.

We are in an incramental efficiency improvement phase and have been for a while.

Re:I wonder if...

[ComputerSlicer23]

Actually, you are correct, the RMS of american power, is around 120, but peaks at 170 (the RMS means Root Mean Squared, so it's an average, in this case of a sign wave of the power, so 120 isn't the highest point). The bulb is rated for 120v (which is why a bulb will last essentially forever if you turn it on and leave it on, the average voltage is what the bulb is rated for). If you turn a bulb on at a peak, it has issues and blows. It's not like a light a bulb blows because it's too hot when you first turn it on. It clearly ran when you turned it off. You'd think the heat is what would ruin bulb. Never has been that I've seen, it was alway the initial surge of power. I knew I'd get the details wrong, and some clever slashdotter would point it out.

The instructors was somewhat insane, but what he said makes sense. He's also a considered a leading authority on Extra-Terrestrials. For as insane as he was, they classified a bunch of basic research he did into application of nuclear physics. You also couldn't find a problem in the book he couldn't solve. He was really smart about his physics, and it's applications. He taught all of the electronics classes.

It's also backed up by my emperical evidence of picking up the light bulbs that are 130v instead of 120v last longer in fixtures over the last 5 or 6 years. They aren't any more expensive then the bulbs you pick up a Walmart.

Kirby

Re:I wonder if...

[Feyr]

hu... outlets are 120 volts AC. you wouldn't want near a 120 volt DC outlet! and he was talking about the peak at ~170 (though he said rms, which he's wrong but he really meant peak). the rest of course, is dead on.

btw, there IS longer lasting light bulbs that almost never burn out. i can't remember the reason why they are longer lasting though

Re:I wonder if...

[Waffle Iron]

If you go to a light specialty store they'll sell you 130 volt light bulbs that are a lot more durable. Extra cost, ~$0.06 a light bulb. They are used in places where it's a real pain to change a light bulb. They generally last longer in any light socket.

Long life bulbs last longer because they're designed so that the filament runs cooler than a normal bulb at any given voltage and wattage. What's the catch? A cooler filament generates significantly less visible light than a hotter one. That makes it even less efficient than the already horribly inefficient standard incandescent bulbs. If you take this idea to it's logical extreme, you could use a rangetop heating element for ultra long life, but you'd use 2500 watts of power used to get less cherry-red light than a 1 W night light bulb.

The lifetime of a light bulb is a balance between replacement cost and electricity cost. If you buy long-life bulbs, you'll spend far more on the extra kilowatt hours required to get the same amount of light as you would on new bulbs. That's why they're only recommended for areas that are inaccessible or subject to vibration.

Re:I wonder if...

[buffer-overflowed]

Yea I realized my mistake right about when I clicked submit. A and D are just a little too close together.... Good thing I'm not an EE or we might see some dangerous products coming out.

I'd actually be curious to know how they did that, thicker filament maybe? Less wattage? Different method all-together?

Re:I wonder if...

[lepton noodle]

130V bulbs last dramatically longer because their filaments run much cooler than 120V bulbs (they have larger and thicker filaments, hence a greater surface area to dissipate heat). This is great for longevity, but it comes at a heavy price in efficiency. The lower filament temperature shifts the bulbs emission spectrum towards the infrared (Planck's Law) reducing the amount of visible light produced. This reduction in efficiency will require more electricity to produce a given amount of light. When all is said and done it takes far fewer resources to make higher temperature bulbs that are more efficient than to keep one long life bulb chugging along. Of course, if resource/energy efficiency is a concern halogen and fluourescent bulbs are far better than any conventional incandescent.

There are also other techniques to increase the longevity of regular bulbs. Since the most likely time for bulb failure occurs at switch on, using a switch that only activates at a zero-crossing of the voltage waveform minimizes the turn-on stress. The inrush current to a cold bulb can be on the order of 10x the running current (an incandescent filament is an extremely non-ohmic load because its resistance varies dramatically with temperature). It's this high current that causes high stress on the filament (the motor effect can cause the filament to twist violently). From what I've read, this technique is often used on navigational beacon lights (these lights also use over-rated bulbs to gain lifetime at the expense of efficiency).

Another technique to minimize turn-on stress is keep the bulb running 'warm', that is to pass enough current to keep the filament at a temperature just below that needed to produce visible light. The relatively high temperature raises the resistance of filament, thus dramatically reducing inrush current. According to some theatre techs that I know, this technique is extensively used in theatre and television where a light failure could ruin a show.

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Helpful Hint: always own like 2 more rechargable batteries than you intend to be using at any given time. Keep these charged and near the charger. WHen yoour rechargable using gadget runs outta juice, swap.

Holy shit, Sherlock. Filed a patent yet?

Re:I wonder if...

[enjo13]

There is fundamentally HUGE incentive for someone outside of the battery companies to do it. They've been working on it for years. This isn't for the lack of effort, just the lack of results.

Re:I wonder if...

[geekoid]

there is HUGE incentive for someone in the battery industry to do it.

Imagine owning the patent on the thing that would power every single electroninc product in the world?
considering we make more all the time, the money would be enormous.

Re:I wonder if...

[buffer-overflowed]

There's a HUGE incentive for everyone to do it. You make the perfect battery, it lasts for years and powers things for years. How much do you think you could sell such a thing for? Well above the margins of your "competition", for sure.

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it occur to you that your argument is completely invalid based on your intitial assumption. That Long Life bulbs last longer are designed to run cooler = Larger Filament size...this makes no sense at all.

Re:I wonder if...

[ComputerSlicer23]

Hmmm, curious, read the links section on the light that has the 96 year old light bulb. It's on the related links section of the HowStuffWorks.com. Clearly it's possible to make a very long lasting light bulb. Then again, I might have misunderstood the instructor.

I've got a minor in physics, I understand the basics of electricity.

When was the last time you actually saw a bulb blow while it was running? I've never seen it happen in all might life on an incandesent light bulb. Ever. It is something about turning the bulb on, he claimed it had to do with where on the sine wave you are when it's turned on, and how many hours it had been run. I didn't have enough material science to argue with him. It's what my college instructor told me, I took in on faith, all his demonstrations of weird properties worked just fine. As some says further down in the thread, it could be done just as I said it could, however, it'd be highly ineffecient powerwise.

Toner, batteries, light bulbs and razors in a capitalism economy, it is in the best interest of a small cartel of people to control the cost and the quality of product. Just as the OPEC nations can. Because it makes the most sense for the consumer of the product to get the longest lasting (if they have the same efficiency), the cheapest toner (that has the same quality), and people buy the blades for the cheap razors they bought.

The reason it generally works out, is that the consumer is relatively uninformed, and doesn't think things thru, and/or can't vote with their money because it's a cartel, there are no options. A small group of companies work this area pretty hard. Companies do in fact make cheaper toner then HP or Lexmark. Last I knew, Lexmark was legally challenging people under the DMCA and patent law.

Oil cartels tightly control the supply of Oil to keep prices high. The RIAA was found guilty of price fixing. Microsoft was found guilty of anti-competitive practices, including using OEM's as leverage to keep people out, and have historically just bought any product they couldn't beat.

Just because it is in the best intersest of the consumer to produce more Oil. Just becaue it was in the interest of the consumer not to have the RIAA price fix. Just because it was in the interest of the consumer for Microsoft to compete fairly doesn't mean that is precisely what happens. The interest of the consumer isn't what businesses in a capitalistic society are all about.

If a battery producer could theoretically create a set of batteries that had 100 times the power in them, that cost them the same to produce, it wouldn't be in their own best to sell them. If the battery industry was a cartel (I don't know that it is), it wouldn't get released. It is not in the interest of the company to do so, so it doesn't get done.

The claim that a company would willing release a product that would cut profits by 100 times is insane. Sure they'd own all of the market, in smaller market. That's not smart business. Now, if they tried to charge 100 times the price, they couldn't batteries have a sweet spot in terms of price that the price needs to be between $2-$20 for a pack of batteries at a local grocery store.

Lets say they make batteries that will last 100 times longer, and be priced at times times as high, and cost the same to make. Lets say the current industy is worth $10Bil a year. You'll take a $10Bil/year industry, and now turn it into $1Bil/year industry. Oh, did I mention that your fixed costs are the same, so your profits go down faster then linearly. So your profits will be divided by at least 10. If I told my boss I had a great advancement on technology, but as a side affect it would shrink the market by 10 times, he'd fire me, or more likely, he'd pay me all the money I ever wanted to never tell anyone that.

Tell some VC guy, you have a way to make a battery that will last his entire life, and he'll tell you, he won't fund you to make batteries to compete with Duracell, because you

Re:I wonder if...

[shirai]

Speaking of lightbulbs, here's the truth about the physics of light. The article is titled "The Truth About Light Bulbs" which details the "Dark Sucker Theory." By the way, notice that the URL is at Novell.

Word Doc

Google's HTML version

Re:I wonder if...

[crabpeople]

rofl he probably sells batteries

Re:I wonder if...

[Charcharodon]

Yes. Longer lasting batteries are out there, it's a question of the bastards putting them to use. It makes it tough to drive the technology forward when every other company has a special battery pack for their item, that tends to work just well enough that you need 2-3 of them to make your portable usefull, effectively adding $100 to the cost.

I try to stick with items that use AAA or AA so that I can buy my own NiMH's. In the last 5 years they have gone from about 800mah to over 2000mah. Not too shabby. They don't develope a memory and the put out a steady voltage compared to regular batteries. Only bad thing is they get pretty hot and self discharge pretty quick. So I end up having to charge them up every time before I can use them in my digital camera.

Someone here pointed out that the real solution is to reduce our need instead of increasing the battery life. That could not be more true. I have a 4-cell AAA 3-LED flash light. It's as bright as my 4-cell C Mag flash light, but I can leave it on for 100 hours before it dies, verses about 8 for the other. Only down side is you can't focus the beam nor can you bash someone over the head with it.

Re:I wonder if...

[patniemeyer]

So, what if the light switches had a softer "landing" rather than an abrupt short? Wouldn't that save light bulbs by allowing them to heat up more slowly (relatively speaking?)

Is this already done or should I go get the
patent ;)

Pat

Re:I wonder if...

[jafac]

"According to some theatre techs that I know, this technique is extensively used in theatre and television where a light failure could ruin a show."

. . . also used in photocopiers. It's the dreaded "preheat" you have to wait for when the copier hasn't been used in some time.

Of course, for a show, they'll preheat the stagelights (I think this is really only used for those spotlights, not the regular stage lights) prior to ths start of the show, and then keep em on standby.

Re:I wonder if...

[Benm78]

I don't think this is available commercially, but there is definitely some prior art.

I once read an article in an electronics magazine proposing a 'soft-start' circuit to make bulbs run longer.

However, with bulbs priced at $0.49 or so, it would take very long to earn this circuit back. In that case, it would be wiser to buy fluorescent lamps ('energy-savers') that not only use 80% less power, but also last around 8 times longer.

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it doesn't really matter that the peak is 170 because the
filament doesn't heat up very much in one cycle. If the peak voltage were
the limiting factor in determining the rated voltage, you can bet that
there would be light fixtures with rectifiers and filters to make the bulbs
last longer.

Besides, you have obviously never calculated the inductance of a filament.
At 60 Hz, the inductive reactance is insignificant compared with the
resistance. Also, the inrush current is actually higher than the steady
current, because cold filaments have less resistance. So basically
everything after your first sentence is bullshit.

Re:I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you knew much physics you would realize that bulbs burn out
when you turn them on because the filament has less resistance when it is
cold, and there is a large inrush current. The peak voltage has very little
to do with it because the bulb does not heat up very much during one cycle.

Re:I wonder if...

[ComputerSlicer23]

So what your saying is that by installing a small either time based, or heat based variable resistor, I could construct a lightbulb that last forever? If all that blows the thing up is too much current, then using a variable resistor that slowly (in this case over a period of 10-20 seconds, or make it heat based) takes the current from 0 to full current, then no lightbulbs should burn out then right?

I wonder if a guy could build a light fixture adaptor that does just that. Just create an inline light fixture adaptor, that takes roughly 10-60 seconds to step up the voltage. Sure my lights would take 10-60 seconds to light up, but if the bulbs lasted forever, what do I care.

Kirby

Re:I wonder if...

[NoMaster]

Been done. Look up "soft-start" circuits. Pretty common, in fact, particularly in industrial lighting. If it's big and/or high up it's bloody expensive to change bulbs, so they'd better last as long as possible...

IIRC, some upmarket vehicles use soft-start circuits on their headlights.

I was watching the news

[Bendebecker]

They had this battery recharger that could recharge batteries in 15 minutes. Sure beats the overnighter rechargers I have been using...

Re:I was watching the news

[the_mad_poster]

Like these?

Re:I was watching the news

[ch-chuck]

Try the local hobby shop, or look for one of these. You can easily charged old ni-cads or NiMh batteries in less than an hour using a 'peak detecting' charger like that. Overnite chargers run at .1C or less (C = battery amp hour capacity) and can be left on w/o overheating. The fast chargers blast 'em with 1 or 2C which works, as long as you cut it off when they are charged or they overhead and get damaged. The 'peak detecting' chargers can tell when the battery is full and automatically shuts off. Works great.

Summarizing

[BWJones]

You know, it would be nice if submitters could write their own summary of the article instead of lifting verbatim the first paragraph of the quoted story. Don't they teach anything in school anymore?

Re:Summarizing

[Bendebecker]

Yeah, they teach plagarism and how to develope your uncreativity.

Re:Summarizing

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll make you a deal. We'll start writing original blurbs to go with the stories when you learn proper usage of italics.

Re:Summarizing

[EvilTwinSkippy]

In a well written article the first paragraph IS the summary. Every communication tells you the story 3 times: The tell you what they are going to tell you, the tell you what they want to tell you, they tell you what they told you.

I don't make the rules, I just regurgitate them from my years writing for the school newspaper.

Re:Summarizing

[Anonymous Coward]

because summarizing would allow editors to see that it's not as outrageous or extravegant as the title implies, and reduces the chance of it getting posted on a knee-jerk reaction.

Re:Summarizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least they teach how to close HTML tags properly.

Re:Summarizing

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno what school you went to, but ours taught us memorization and very little else. And that was 10 years ago, it has become worse since then.

Re:Summarizing

[fruey]

I regularly submit articles to Slashdot. I've had one accepted so far, perhaps the least interesting of them all.

I refuse to use words like 'interesting article' and such like, try to include a few links, and try to summarise in my own words.

Now the subject matter I choose (often science) may not fit into the Slashdot editorial line, but I might have to experiment with copying first paragraphs preceded by 'interesting article' and see what happens...

Re:Summarizing

[Alioth]

There's no point going to the extra effort to think up and write a good summary, because the vast majority of articles just get rejected. It's not worth the submitter's time.

Slashdot Poll Idea on Batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the poll is really old, and they don't like any of my submissions, maybe someone will suggest this and they'll use it. Favorite Common Battery? AAA AA C D 9 Volt CowBatteryNeal

three words:

[Pxtl]

dollar store alkalines.

Re:three words:

[Anonymous Coward]

dollar store alkalines.

What a nice attitude, consuming such environmentally unfriendly products with complete disregard for its impact on the future of our world.

Re:three words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you don't give a sh*t about the environment.

Be responsible and use NiMH which can be recharged 1,000 times. They are also a hell of a lot cheaper than "dollar store" batteries over the long run.

Re:three words:

[Anonymous Coward]

*farts*

Re:three words:

[Josh Booth]

...that last five minutes until they die. Besides, we are talking about power/size, not power/cost, although, cost is important too.

Re:three words:

[g_goblin]

You are missing the point. I think what he means is it is not in the best interest of the battery companies to create more efficient batteries.

If they become more efficient, consumers buy less batteries and therefore the profit gets smaller.

Re:three words:

[peter_gzowski]

I find that my 1950 mAh NiMH rechargeables last longer on each charge (> 10 hours) than brand-name alkalines, let alone the Sorny versions that choke after a few hours in my mp3 player. You can probably pick up a charger and 4-8 battaries for $30-40. For me it paid for itself in a matter of weeks, and I don't constantly find myself without batteries for my walk home.

Re:three words:

[oobar]

Moderators, in what way exactly is this "Informative"???

I'm sorry, but cheap alkalines are a good solution if you have a flashlight that you hardly ever use but that's about all they're good for. It does nothing for the case of the laptop or PDA, and they're envinronmentally unfriendly for anything that is used a lot or has a high draw.

what I want to know is...

[Anonymous Coward]

why the generic alkalines only last for 5 seconds in my digital camera. I mean, maH is maH right? voltage is voltage? what the hell.

Re:what I want to know is...

[c_oflynn]

the cheapo alkalines may be lying about the mAH rating.

Re:what I want to know is...

[Gothmolly]

Alkalines have high internal resistance, which makes them poor candidates for cameras and other high-current applications. Alkalines rule for transistor radios, etc, where you have miniscule current draw.

Re:what I want to know is...

[damiam]

Because alkalines suck in digital cameras. Use NiMH rechargables, they last longer and they're much, much cheaper in the long run.

Re:what I want to know is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the discharge characteristics of different types of batteries differ. Some devices such as digital cameras cannot cope if the voltage drops by even a fairly small margin. NiMH batteries tend to keep voltage close to constant as the capacity decays.

Other batteries (such as alkalines) will drop in voltage almost straight away as the battery discharges.

Re:what I want to know is...

[localghost]

Energizer e^2 lithiums are your friend. They last forever in my digital camera. Plus they're like 1/3 the weight of alkaline.

Thump ThumP Thump

[AbbyNormal]

Thump Thump Thump. Keeps Sucking. Nothing outlasts the...

Re:Thump ThumP Thump

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Thump Thump Thump. Keeps Sucking. Nothing outlasts the...

Hey, is that the energizer bunny or a new robotic whore?

Re:Thump ThumP Thump

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, is that the energizer bunny or a new robotic whore?

It's both!

Re:Thump ThumP Thump

[Anonymous Coward]

...wife?

Re:Thump ThumP Thump

[ErikTheRed]

Ok, it's old but it's still amusing:

Q: What happens when you put the batteries in the Energizer Bunny backwards?

A: He keeps coming... and coming... and coming...

Re:Thump ThumP Thump

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I'll never look at a cotten-tail the same way again.

So Expensive

[wed128]

Even old laptop batteries are so expensive...here's an example

Used HP Omnibook 900 (circa 1999) - $400

Spare Battery for Used HP Omnibook 900 - $150

What is wrong with this picture?

Re:So Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing.

In fact, you've illustrated the main point of the article. Your laptop drops in price because it's obsolete and can easily be replaced with a better one for the same price. Your battery, on the other hand, is still pretty much state of the art, and can't be readily improved upon, so it holds its value.

Re:So Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is wrong with that picture.

The HP Omnibook probably works fine. People want replacement batteries. The demand is relatively high compared to supply. Therefore the price is high.

Re:So Expensive

[mlrtime]

Two things, first one is used the other is probably new (used batteries aren't much good)

second, they are selling the battery to make a profit. It is common practice for companies to sell maintenance items at a high markup for years after initial production. see the car industry.

I agree they are expensive, sometimes you can get the newest technology laptop batteries for older laptops and get a great increase in usage.

You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Batteries will continue to suck for a variety of reasons. Numero Uno: if you have a lot of energy packed into a small space it has a tendency to want to explode. Duece: Batteries are a chemical conversion of electricity to a chemical reaction and back. Every conversion takes energy. Trece: Even if you get away from chemical batteries, and somehow find a way to store that much potential energy safely, nature abhors a vacuum. That energy is going to leak out any which way it can.

Quit bitching or open-source the laws of physics.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[bigkahunafish]

physics? sounds like to me with all the references to chemical energy you are refering to laws in chemistry...

I swear, people have grudges against chemistry...

Just so i'm not -1 Offtopic, batteries exist the way they do for one reason : they power the economy. Battery business is huge, with them being in everything from cars, to computers, to flashlights, to, well, you get the idea. Creating something like small hydrogen fuel cells would be efficient, but its not about efficiency, esp in the US, its about money. You take away the batteries, you destroy whole economic sectors (including hurting retail, you know, "don't forget the batteries" campaigns at Christmas)

Batteries will be around like they are for quite a while.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Vann_v2]

Except that the person who develops new battery technology will make huge profits.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Drakon]

Chemistry as an independant field of study is becoming obsolete. What doesn't fall into biology (namely organic chem) is going to fall into physics very soon. There's simply no need to seperate the two.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[operagost]

Warning: your Spanish really sucks.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[bigkahunafish]

biological systems are all based on chemistry: thus chemistry doesnt fall into biology, biology falls ultimately into chemistry.

while some parts of chemistry fall into physics, (ie physical chemistry) not everything does... thus i do see VERY much need to separate them...

sorry moderators for being offtopic, but hey, people were threatening my major of study here....

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[inburito]

Yes, but as we all know, chemistry is just applied physics...and physics is just applied math..

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not really true, chemistry is complex enough by itself that as long as there is significant research to be done in chemistry, there will need to be specialists (Granted IMAC, so I'm a bit biased). AND there IS significant research to be done, chemistry isn't plug and play yet, like, say, Optics. I'm offended by the implication that organic will fall into biology, more likely the reverse. Biologists are too math leery to take the place of chemists.

I will grant you, though, when Chemistry reaches the point where optics is now (and has been for most of the 20th century really), then Chemistry as a seperate discipline will vanish, but we ain't there yet!

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

And so slashdot "gets religion"...

Welcome to the New Technological Church. The internet is our Temple, and our Bibles are made of silicon.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[bigkahunafish]

Parent: -1 Oversimplification

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tough. All chemistry is physics. Your "major of study" is an approximation, all the chemistry stamp-collecting is just rules of thumb that mostly work.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[bigkahunafish]

that was a low blow. but i guess you did prove one thing. you dont know anything about chemistry.

once again, apologies for offtopic

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[UserGoogol]

Yes, but Biology is cooler than Chemistry, so I suspect the Organic Chemists will like to pretend to be Biologists so they can go to all the cool parties.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[wfberg]

Duece: Batteries are a chemical conversion of electricity to a chemical reaction and back. Every conversion takes energy.

"Lisa! In this house we obey the second
law of thermodynamics!"

-Homer (after Lisa builds a perpetual-motion machine)

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[syrinx]

And biology is applied chemistry.

It's been 14 seconds since I hit reply.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why. All the bits chemists describe as "other" than physical chemistry are still physical, they've just constructed some wacky arbitrary mental boundary to shield against the realisation all the stuff they do is physics.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[SiliBelgian]

while some parts of chemistry fall into physics, (ie physical chemistry) not everything does...

Some examples would be nice... You're not really proving your point here.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

And math is just applied philosophy...

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[cemaco]

Something I have always been curious about is how the tube on a TV can hold a charge for so long after it has been shut off. Frankly I don't have a clue about how capacitors work. My thought is that if you can charge one to hold so much juice and it can hold it over time, why can't we use it instead of batteries?

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

People that expect technological leaps in bounds in simple chemical reactions to the scale of Moore's law simply haven't been paying attention in science class.

They should be asking why such good and advanced technology is sucking down more and more power at every iteration. I think the reason is that people want performance first and battery life is an afterthought. With a market like that, then that is your reason why each new generation can do more but requires more power. To take less power for each generation, the market needs to demand longer battery life first or balance battery life better with performance. More can still be done with less power if we let it.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[forgotmypassword]

Capacitors make really bad batteries.

It would be like using a bomb to push your car.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[bluesnowmonkey]

You decide that batteries will continue to suck (and net a score:5 in the process!) by observing that nature abhors a vacuum?!? Fascinating! Somebody let all these engineers know they can quit trying, EvilTwinSkippy said it ain't gonna work.

While you're at it, call off all dams under contruction. Nature wants that water to flow, damn it! Better throw away those nukes, too, they'll probably explode like batteries. (Oh, we're already on it.) Tear down the skyscrapers, nature will just knock them over anyway, I'm sure. And cancel those interplanetary missions, nature said we're supposed to stay here and hunt deer.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Hunting deer takes too much energy. We should sit around, drink beer, and bitch about EvilTwinSkippy.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[SparkyTWP]

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/capacitor.htm

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[caveat]

what, you mean the parties that wouldn't be nearly as cool if us Organic Chemists didn't, ah, misapply our skills? :D

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Usquebaugh]

Is math applied philosophy?

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you mean batteries are in both cars *AND* flashlights?

wow!!!!

that's s00per k3wl d00d!!1!!!! u r 1337!!!!

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[archivis]

It's been a while since I was a physics major...but everything is physics if you look it.

chemistry, biology, geology, sociology, etc

Well, except maybe math, but physics is just applied math anyway. Math of course being theoretical physics.

People keep running around making wacky theories paying no attention to the energy fields we are all made of.

From a certain point of view.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually, the laws of thermodynamics imply that in the long run, dams are pretty useless (entropy always increases). The water will flow, one way or another. Nature wins again.

Of course, you can avoid invoking the laws of physics and just observe that it keeps raining, thus you have to release the water sooner or later, but that's not really relevant to the discussion about batteries.

Incidentally, the same thing applies to skyscrapers... due to entropy, they'll fall down (nature will knock them over, as you put it). The only reason they don't is that we're burning up energy in preventative maintenance to keep them standing.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

wfberg! In this website we obey the laws of proper Simpsons-quotage!

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, it would be exactly like powering your car with a source having very low energy density compared to fuel or even batteries!

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[shione]

Not if he has a very short life.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering what the hell that was supposed to be...

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Random832]

Well, actually, the laws of thermodynamics imply that in the long run, dams are pretty useless (entropy always increases)

it always increases in a closed system. the earth is not a closed system, it's going to have external energy pumped into it for quite a long time.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[parksie]

So your car quite literally goes like a bomb, huh :)

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Maset]

Ahhh but we biologists need them chemists to do the structural biology. And there are a *sdlfkjdsf* load of biological molecules that need to be synthesised if we are going to get affordable pharmaceuticals.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[forgotmypassword]

Well, the analogy was that you would fill up with explosives and then blast your self around, quickly running out of fuel. I should have been a bit more descriptive.

This is why capacitors are used for things like camera flash and not regular batteries.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Doctor O]

Actually this is what my Math teacher told us - he had studied philosophy and math because he had always felt so.

But WTF, he was an asshole anyway. And his lessons sucked. Heh.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[j_snare]

you would fill up with explosives and then blast your self around, quickly running out of fuel

Did you intend on making a pretty decent description of a combustion engine? :-)

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[Abcd1234]

So much for "laws" of physics...

Numero un: energy density has nothing to do with stability. According to Einstein's famous equations, the pencil I have on my desk stores a massive amount of energy, but I don't see it exploding any time soon. Or, for a more down to earth example, plastic explosives are incredibly stable on their own. Deux: energy conversion efficiency has nothing to do with storage capacity. That's not to say they aren't both issues, but they are by no means directly connected. Trois: WTF? The ability of a cell to hold charge has nothing to do with it's relative "energy level" (for lack of a better term), which is what you're implying. Again, I don't see my pencil mysteriously dissolving away.

Re:You can't rewrite the laws of physics...

[gorilla]

The splitting of science into fields is always an artificial construct. Anything which happens can be considered physics, so anything biology studies could be considered a branch of physics. However, it would be unmanageable if we tried to always study 'science' as a block, so we split it into fields, which get more and more specialized the longer we study. There are always overlaps between the fields, as the real world doesn't co-operate with our arbitary decisions.

batteries smatteries

[larry bagina]

Seiko has a watch that runs based on your arm motions. Think Geek also sells a flashlight that recharges itself by jacking it off.

Re:batteries smatteries

[Anonymous Coward]

You can jerk off and it will run for a month.
[G's Mom] George what are you doing ??!?!?!
[George] The watch was running behind I had to recharge it.

Re:batteries smatteries

[jester42]

Swatch also makes them and i have one of those. Works fine. There is a half-circular disc inside that turns around when you move. This energy is stored in some sort of battery and it will still work after a week or so of not having moved the watch at all.

I think i also saw some watch that was powered by your body heat...

Re:batteries smatteries

[Anonymous Coward]

god, for the last time, lay off poor Mr. Lucas will you?

Re:batteries smatteries

[Joseph Lam]

so when can we power our PC and laptops with crazy mouse movements and keyboard slamming?

Re:batteries smatteries

[segment]

its a kinetic watch and unfortunately unless you're willing to strap your laptop, boombox, phones, pda's, dildos (for the goatsex pricks), then it won't work.

I'm sure battery vendors can find something to do more or less the same but why should they when they could continue charging you? Salesman: Ok I'm gonna give you this product and dont worry you will never have to see me again! Dream on. Its not in the vendors best interests to do something like that so don't expect anything to come out of their labs for like... ever.

Girls gone g[inset your imagination here]

Re:batteries smatteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Seiko has a watch that runs based on your arm motions

Seiko is just copying what companies like Rolex, Omega and Zenith perfected decades ago. Automatic watches are basically a mechanical watch but instead of relying on manually winding the crown, a counter weight inside the watch winds the spring through inertia when you move your arm.

Re:batteries smatteries

[ruiner13]

It even looks like a dick. They could have at least made it look like a lantern style light or something. Although there is something strangely homo-erotic about it... did I just say that out loud?

Re:batteries smatteries

[Anonymous Coward]

... did I just say that out loud?

No, you typed it. Whew!

Re:batteries smatteries

[Technician]

Have you ever tried one of those forever flashlights? Better off to get a LED flashlight that runs of 2 or 3 AA's. If your not currently shaking it, it's sorta like trying to navigate in the dark by the light from your luminous watch dial. These are far from bright enough to be usefull. Next time you are camping, look to see if anyone is using one to run to the bathroom at night. They are a very limited application device like placed next to the fuse box so you can see what tripped. It won't have a dead battery after 10 years of non-use. For everyting else, I use a light that is bright enough to use.

Re:batteries smatteries

[Moofie]

Looks like a flashlight to me. Maybe you're projecting.

Re:batteries smatteries

[Brandybuck]

Seiko has a watch that runs based on your arm motions.

Whatever will they think of next? Now excuse me while I put on my grandfather's watch, which is still ticking away after seventy five years, despite the fact that there is no way to wind it.

Re:batteries smatteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the power that could be generated a beowolf cluster of high school geeks.

**shudder**

Re:batteries smatteries

[Anonymous Coward]

I own a citizen ecodrive, powered by sunlight. What they don't tell you (but frankly I should have guessed) when you buy it is that its rechargeable battery dies within a few years. So you still have to replace the battery, making the entire solar cell exercise pointless.

This is why this kind of tech is a lot less useful than you might think.

Although admittedly, these kinetic watches do'nt use batteries.

Re:batteries smatteries

[Drunken_Jackass]

Kinetic motion watches have been aroud for a long time. They work by having a weighted piece inside the watch act as a pendulum that swings as you turn your wrist in everyday movement. That weighted piece is what winds the watch.

Re:batteries smatteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Although there is something strangely homo-erotic about it.

The right word is phallic. It's not homo-erotic unless you are male and it turns you on.

did I just say that out loud?

I don't know. Do you talk out loud while you type?

Re:batteries smatteries

[jmacleod9975]

You could also skip the middleman, and just run whatever you want off your own internal chemical enegy stores. Wasn't there a story on slashdot about that a while ago?

Re:batteries smatteries

[Big Nothing]

I hope I'm not the only one to see the irony of:

"The light requires no maintenance so it can be left in your home or car for a longtime but will still be ready to produce light. The bright LED will last for thousands of hours and does not burn-out like a typical lightbulb - it should never need replacement."

"One-year warranty."

Re:batteries smatteries

[ruiner13]

"It's not homo-erotic unless you are male and it turns you on."

I am male, thanks for asking, and I was joking about it turning me on. Nice try though.

Re:batteries smatteries

[Knife_Edge]

So motion powered watches were invented before, then? Or did it have some kind of magic spring?

Re:batteries smatteries

[Brandybuck]

It had a spring. Wound by motion. And no funny motions either, just the normal swinging of the arm while walking was sufficient. So it was indeed a motion powered watch.

In other news...

[tadheckaman]

In other news: The sun continues to rise in the morning, puzzling scientists worldwide.

Human Power

[Anonymous Coward]

I know! We could harness the power of the human body. We could run our computers off our own energy.... Where I have heard this before! Hmmm

Wall Sockets

[KidSock]

What about wall sockets? Considering their perpensity to start fires and the like I would think they're positioned to be in the top 10 list of technologies that need an upgrade. Certainly there must be a better connecter for home power.

more power than a tactical nuke

[ludky132]

perhaps it's good that efforts have been made to design around energy limitations. while i'm all for better power supplies, designing circuits that use as little power as possible to do a given task means that less is wasted. just look at the amount of excess processing power we have in our computers and how much unnecessary code there is in a standard application. engineering around power limitations means smart, efficent designs, not wasteful products that just suck up energy. i think these limitations helped designers innovate.

Radioactive decay batteries

[nurb432]

They could be built now, from radioactive waste, using the same really simple technology used aboard space missions..

Such a small amount of material per battery would make it safe, but would last years... ( not forever, but with teh way things are designed these days, at least long enough for the device to fall apart...)

Re:Radioactive decay batteries

[Lumpy]

already exist, and have been in use cince 1970's.

there's one in almost every older pacemaker. there was somne research at MIT for using them in wearable computing.

Re:Radioactive decay batteries

[the eric conspiracy]

They could be built now, from radioactive waste, using the same really simple technology used aboard space missions..

You mean the plutonium thermopiles used on deep space probes? Aside from the fact they have deadly radiation levels and very high temperature and use the deadliest substance known to man and if enough of them were collected you could make a nuclear bomb, this is perfect.

Brilliant.

Re:Radioactive decay batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh sure.. focus on the negatives....

Re:Radioactive decay batteries

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Plutonium gets a bad rap. It's only poisenous when inhaled. Injested it's about as toxic as caffeine.

Re:Radioactive decay batteries

[IM6100]

So, you're telling me that if I ever encounter a little pile of plutonium dust on a tabletop somewhere, I should quick, hold my breath, and swallow it??

Yeah.

Re:Radioactive decay batteries

[ForestGrump]

and when i take a dump...
oh man! green toilet water!!!

Re:Radioactive decay batteries

[tap]

Plutonium is no where near as toxic as caffeine. 10 grams of caffeine is a fatal dose, eating a 10 gram pellet of plutonium is unlikely to have any health effects at all.

Re:Radioactive decay batteries

[the eric conspiracy]

Actually the fatal dose by ingestion of plutonium is about 0.5 g. 10 g will kill you pretty quick.

Arsenic requires about 0.12 grams.

"Poisoning", J.M. Arena, C.C. Thomas, 1963,pp. 53, 54, 119.

This is of course short term chemical toxicity. Radiation effects are much longer term and require much smaller doses to induce metastisizing tumors.

If only

[nate nice]

If only we could harness all of our wasted energy. Like those watches that gain power by your movement. Devices should be looking to get energy from as many sources as possible. Solar, moving etc. Do I have the answer on how to do this? Hell no, I'm just some punk on Slashdot with crazy ideas that are technically impossible. When *they* create wireless power, I'm definitely investing in their business.

Re:If only

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Well, you could actually power very low power devices with an antenna and a rectifier. The radio waves carry a reasonably useful amount of power if you aren't picky about the frequencies.

Not enough to run a laptop, but certainly enough for a potato clock.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Tesla have something on wireless power?

There are various combinations of EMF generators and tuned circuits that can pull power out of the air, but I can't vouch for the benefits of being immersed in a high density EM field all day so that my watch/notebook/../gadgetx will work.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been done before. Am I the only person around here that remembers what a crystal radio is?

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the tesla field would be pretty low flux-density, being VLF. So while the energy density would be high, it's not going to induce anything in your body, only in specially constructed VLF resonating antenna circuits.

Re:If only

[FattMattP]

When *they* create wireless power, I'm definitely investing in their business.

Like these guys?

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

I took an upper division course in signals and systems about two years ago. Despite being in a room full of budding electrical engineers, who were the especially wonky sort since they were taking a non-prereq course in signal processing, not a single one of them knew what a crystal radio was. It was scary.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Like energy wasted scrolling down slashdot comments. Or general mouse usage. Not to mention keyboard.

Losing power? Type faster!

Re:If only

[floydigus]

When will someone finally work out a way of harnessing all the energy expended every day in my local gym? That's got to be better than a wind turbine.

Re:This is from June 2001

[StarManta]

*nod* wtf?

the standard tradeoff

[EngMedic]

power, size, and longetivity: choose any two

Re:the standard tradeoff

[Geeyzus]

That's what I keep telling my girlfriend.

Ready by 2001

[Clipper]

"The wonderful side of this dream [fuel cells powering laptops] is that some engineers expect it to be reality by the end of 2001."

So we're a bit behind. :-)

Unfortunately, I feel that due to varying lobby groups, the usage of fuel cells as an energy source will always be confined to the lab. The gasoline industry has heavily lobbied governments to prevent research into alternative fuel technologies (e.g., fuel cells) for the last few decades. Battery manufacturer's have also done the same (and they just keep going and going :-).

Until there is major R&D funding available to try to lower the production costs of fuel cells, their true potential will never be realized (no pun intended :-).

economics

[TheVidiot]

If batteries didn't suck, there'd be less reason to buy more.

end of story.

Re:economics

[Quobobo]

But if Company X's batteries last for a long time, more consumers would buy their batteries.

"What about wall sockets?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Firewire 3

waaaah.... Sumerians?

[Ianworld]

I'm not one to whine, but this article is from June 8th, 2001!

It mentions that some people want us to be using fuel cell batteries by the end of 2001. Now i don't own an iPod, but it sure doesn't run on a fuel cell battery. Infact still nothing runs on fuel cells. Any Slashdot readers know the progress of fuel cells in this area in recent times?

~Ian

Re:waaaah.... Sumerians?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA.

The MAIN article, is from November 11th. The OVERVIEW is from 2001.

Efficient programms fashionable again?

[skeptikos]

Since desktop computers can suck hundreds of Watts from the outlet to drive powerful CPUs that can execute bloated applications at a reasonable speed, programmers have become very sloppy. In a portable device that is no longer possible. Maybe this will expand a job market for people who know how to run efficient code.

Re:Efficient programms fashionable again?

[IM6100]

It's already coded.

Ditch KDE or GNOME.

Dig out the old O'Reilly X manuals (vol. 3 and 8, specifically). Edit your .Xsession and .xinitrc file to call twm.

It's not that bad, really.

Hmm... VERY dated ExtremeTech article!

[Johnno74]

"Fuel Cells:

The wonderful side of this dream is that some engineers expect it to be reality by the end of 2001"

Err... whats the hold up? Are they finishing duke nukem first?

Re:Hmm... VERY dated ExtremeTech article!

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA.

The MAIN article is from November 11. The OVERVIEW is from 2001

Actually, they are a great gift!

[stienman]

Best Christmas present ever:

Pack of batteries with label: Toy not included.

-Adam

Re:Actually, they are a great gift!

[Doppler00]

I remember a battery comercial (durecell I think) that came out during Christmas specifically to market their battery because so many toys don't come with them.

I think "Battery Included!" really helps sell a product though. There is nothing worse than buying something and then knowing you have to go out and buy something else to get it to work. (Requires XYZ cpu, memory, etc...)

Re:Actually, they are a great gift!

[HungWeiLo]

I think only North American products do not come with batteries. Most European and Asian consumer products come with the batteries.

Re:Actually, they are a great gift!

[matticus]

i live in germany, and I never get batteries with my remotes...

What about toxicity?

[stefanlasiewski]

I commute by bicycle. Now that it is getting dark early, and I bike through heavy traffic, I have several bike lights:

- One 10-Watt halogen light with a lead-acid battery. It's lasted me for several years, but is starting to loose it's charge.
- 2-3 blinking lights which take any old AA & AAA batteries.

I'm getting sick of having to toss the discharged alkaline batteries all the time, and am looking for a replacement.

Since I'm comparing the prices of the different kinds of batteries and chargers, I'd also like to compare the different toxicity levels.

Are NiMH's safer then NiCADs or Alkalines?

Ironically, my lead-acid battery gets the most frowns, but it seems like it's actually one of the least toxic options. There are several places near me which recycle lead-acid batteries (They strip the batteries, neutralize the acid, and take the lead; all in-house).

Re:What about toxicity?

[CaptBubba]

NiMH's are better than NiCd's because they don't have large amounts of toxic Cadmium. They are also better than Alkalines because they can be reused so many times.

A good set of name brand batteries with an overnight charger will quickly pay for itself. The only problem with them is that they will run down on their own if you don't use them often, which is why I use alkalines for remote controls. So if you remember to swap the batteries every week or so, to make sure you have a fresh set in there you should be in good shape.

Whatever happened to those bike lights that would pull power from the rotating wheels? With the low current that LEDs require I would think such a system would work well.

Re:What about toxicity?

[CokeBear]

Did it ever occur to you that all that energy you put out by pedaling your way to work could also power the lights on your wheels?

Re:What about toxicity?

[stefanlasiewski]

Yes it has occured to me, and I even have a dynamo which generates power from the wheel. However, they have several problems:

A: They don't produce that much light, and they don't blink. I bike through rush hour traffic, and need bright lights like my 10-Watt halogen, and bright flashing lights, which get the drivers attention.

B: They increase the effort required to pedal, especially considering how dim the lights are.

C: The light output is directly connected to your pedalling effort: The light dims when you slow down, and it goes off when you stop. That is really bad.

I'm worked a bit to attach rechargable batteries to the dynamo, but I don't know that much about batteries, and I've burned through several already.

Every bike that I saw in Germany, Switzerland and Austria had a nice dynamo built into the wheel hub. Apparently they are more efficient then the dynamo that I have. Those have only recently appeared for sale in the States, apparently because of some dumb patent issue. The hubs aren't cheap either. About $80.

Re:What about toxicity?

[bussdriver]

I commute too. even in winter.

take a look at:
superbrightleds.com

and also generators are expensive and sparse in the USA, I had to order from europe for my generator. Which I no longer use, because even with lights the cars don't see me. So I avoid them, and as long as I can see its not a problem. And in the city, it never gets that dark.

So now I don't even bother.

Re:What about toxicity?

[Absurd Being]

Just run your lesser lights off of the main battery. (requires a moderately complex power regulation circuit)

Re:What about toxicity?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am reminded of the simpson's episode where bart turns on the pedal-powered light and his bike slows to a crawl. They do increase drag; which may or may not be acceptable if your route has steep inclines.

Re:What about toxicity?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, lead acid is pretty friendly overall. That, combined with it's cheapness, is why it's so popular in cars. Heavy as balls, yeah, but cheap and fairly friendly. Doesn't explode in a collision either. Ni-Cad's have cadmium, so they're bad. Alkalines I don't really know much about, but the sheer volume of physical waste from non rechargeables seems bad to me.

A whole bunch of people seem to be cheering on the generator hub, but I bet they aren't people who avidly ride bicycles. What I wonder is: why nobody has done a good regen braking system? Instead of sapping your energy when you pedal, why couldn't something create electricity when you brake, supplement that with battery or hub generator, and then maybe the typical drag would get down to something reasonable.

Also, why aren't there more LED's out there? Cars should be using them. Bikes should have been using them years ago.

Meanwhile, I drive 1 mile to work. I like my new car. You ride your bike, make up for me and my total abuse of the environment. I'd probably walk, but I can't wake up early in the morning, so I'm always running late and can't afford the extra 15 minutes to walk. Cycling usually leaves me with weather concerns, and the roads to work suck for cycling.

Re:What about toxicity?

[SiliBelgian]

Whatever happened to those bike lights that would pull power from the rotating wheels?

You don't have those where you live? They are on every new bike you purchase here (except terrain bikes)... They don't have any LED's, they work quite well with a normal lightbulb.
When the roads are too wet they can fail though, due to reduced friction.

Is your country being run by battery companies? ;)

Re:What about toxicity?

[Cyno01]

you lazy bastard

Re:What about toxicity?

[Anonymous Coward]

NiMH are non toxic.

NiCad=Cadmium:VERY TOXIC

Re:What about toxicity?

[mattkime]

How far are you biking? Actually, I'm interested in the usage pattern of your blinkin' lights.

NiMH are currently the most purchased rechargeable. People tend to use them on digital cameras and portable CD players - high discharge devices. They can last as long as alkalines, be recharged hundreds (thousands?) of times, and charge in a 2-3 hours. However, they may be a poor choice for you. They lose charge quickly when not in use.

NiCADs only advantage over NiMH is that they don't lose charge as quickly when not in use. They tend to be weaker and after successive recharges tend to lose capacity. I can't think of a reason to use these anymore.

In summary, infrequently used items are still best off with good ol' alkalines. For most slashdot readers that would include blinkin' lights on a bike - but you may be the exception were NiMH would work as a replacement.

Also, it should be noted that most alkalines today do not contain the mercury content previous generations had. I may be glossing over details, but I'm assuming that the three battery types have the same toxicity levels.

Re:What about toxicity?

[ChrisMaple]

Some Raleighs used to be sold with a generator built into the front hub. They were more efficient than generators that rubbed on the sidewall, they lasted longer, and they didn't fail when the tires were snowy or wet.

Re:What about toxicity?

[biff-mo]

Check out these. I use an ErgoXRay velcro'd to my helmet. Three AA's last 3-4 weeks of nightly commutes/rides. It will light your way if there aren't any streetlights. And it will most certainly make you seen in traffic.

Re:What about toxicity?

[Anonymous Coward]

NiMH batteries are relatively benign. Certainly compared to NiCds and 100 or so alkalines. If nothing else, the gas and packaging on the alkalines will get you. NiMH batteries do well in high-drain situations, and have noticeably less memory effect than NiCds. Lead acid batteries have the disadvantages of low energy/weight and energy/volume ratios. They're cheap though.

The generator idea is probably the best though. You can get any number of different generator devices for a bike. 10W for a halogen bulb is probably a bit high though. You could probably replace it with a good array of LEDs and improve things a bit.

Oh, and if anyone in charge of future Maglites reads this board, I want an LED mag with built-in rechargeable batteries. There's quite a bit of space wasted between batteries, between batteries and the sidewalls of the light, and in the packaging of the batteries themselves. Fill that whole area with Li-Ion battery goo and add some contact rings to the base so I could slam it into a charger periodically. You'd have a light that would be super-bright, last forever, and not die when dropped. I'd pay $75 for one of those suckers. I'll bet they'd be pretty popular in industrial situations too (multi-light charger, anyone?).

Re:What about toxicity?

[geekoid]

ypu know, I saw a solar light ones. you leave it on the sun during the day, then it just snaps on its holder mounted on the bike.

you might want to look into those.

Re:What about toxicity?

[IM6100]

I used to have a pile of mercury cells. The biggest size mercury batteries ever made. They were the 'reference' batteries from an old Fluke Thermal Transfer Standard (ultra high-end calibration equipment.)

They were each about the size of two 'C' cells.

They were probably the most toxic batteries ever made.

Re:What about toxicity?

[Anonymous Coward]

A: They don't produce that much light, and they don't blink. I bike through rush hour traffic, and need bright lights like my 10-Watt halogen, and bright flashing lights, which get the drivers attention.

Blinking is a very simple circuit, two transistors. I can understand you not having the knowledge to build such a thing, but it's sad if they don't sell them with that feature.

And do they just use an incandescent light? That would certainly explain low output...

C: The light output is directly connected to your pedalling effort: The light dims when you slow down, and it goes off when you stop. That is really bad.

Yes, and this is also fairly easy to fix. Make sure you're getting DC out (get a full-wave rectifier if you aren't) and put a decent sized capacitor across the output. Again, I can understand you not being able to do this personally, but they're really not trying.

But then I guess it really does depend on the current you get out of the dynamo and the amount of energy you need to put out as light. If the energy you put in isn't enough to produce the light you need then it's just not possible to generate it all as you go. :/

Re:What about toxicity?

[Brandybuck]

When the roads are too wet they can fail though, due to reduced friction.

They also fail when you're stopped at a signal...

Re:What about toxicity?

[gnu-generation-one]

- One 10-Watt halogen light with a lead-acid battery. It's lasted me for several years, but is starting to loose it's charge.
- 2-3 blinking lights which take any old AA & AAA batteries.

My version of the 10W lights you have died after about 6 months. The newer versions have proper batteries, but are about twice as expensive, or more.

For the smaller lights, NiMH cells work just fine, and have a reaonable lifespan and charge. You might want to buy a couple of sets, both for using while the other is being charged, and for carrying as backup.

AAA rechargeable batteries used to be harder to find, but I just noticed them here

Re:What about toxicity?

[dabraham]

They sell. I've had a few, and have one on my current bike. It works, usually.
There's one big problem though. Most generators aren't directlly exposed to weather quite so extreme as that of new england, while being shaken, soaked, and probably stirred, vigorously. Heck, even my car charger has a cover over it, an engine and insulation around it, and shock absorbers holding it up.

All of the problems that I've had with various versions of this doo-hickey have been mechanical.

Re:What about toxicity?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd recommend rechargeable alkalines for your little blinking lights. NiMH are great for high-power devices like digital cameras, but they will also lose their charge when you are not even using them... maybe after two weeks or so. Alkalines (rechargable or not) will never lose their power when they are not being used. NiMH is better suited to power a high-powered light like your halogen one. As far as environmental impact is concerned, I heard that NiCads are the worst, and they also don't perform as well as NiMH. Regardless, no matter what kind of batteries you get, try to recycle them when they're dead beyond recharging... you may have to hunt them down, but there are places that will do it for you.

Re:What about toxicity?

[suitti]

There's an engergizer charger sold at Meier's for under $30. With it, NiMH batteries last 1,000 cycles. That's a charge a week for 20 years. The charger knows when the battery is charged, and does the right thing. You can swap between two sets and run for a really long time.

NiMH batteries perform better in cold weather.

Re:What about toxicity?

[CaptBubba]

With a capacitor or even a small battery this could be avoided.

What really got me thinking is the increasing popularity of disc brakes on bikes. I would think it would be fairly easy to mount some magnets to the disc and use it as an alternator. Combine it with a simple rectifying and regulatory circuit it could be very usefull. With no additional moving parts to break, it would outlast generators that rub the wheel and those built into the hub.

Re:What about toxicity?

[NeMon'ess]

how nice you don't have a job where you might get fired for chronic lateness. no sympathy for you. get up the 15 minutes earlier. rollerblade and it'll take 7 minutes. you'll have more fun doing it too. no you don't have to wear a helmet since that'll mess up your hair. you already have a rain jacket, buy some rain pants to match.

batteries

[cranched]

All I know is when I got my first mercury alkaline batteries in 1966 to power my Ross 3 inch reel-to-reel tape recorder, they lasted over 2 years with daily use! the second set lasted about 6 weeks. I think batteries are like light bulbs, there's no profit in making them well

How about more plugins?

[Omega1045]

If battery technology isn't going to progress, how about some changes to the building codes to add more public power outlets? Perhaps improvements in power supplies to make them smaller would help as well.

It seems simple, but even with recent inovations in other energy storage (fuel cell, etc), we won't see anything small (battery-wise) coming to market for some time. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Re:How about more plugins?

[weave]

Thankfully there is a need for vacuum cleaners in buildings. I (and many others) often plug into the rare outlet in an airport waiting lounge near a chair. I just got back from Heathrow Terminal 4 for example, and the only outlet I could find was on that small half floor between the arrivals and departure floors where the arcade and restaurant is. While I was plugged into that single outlet plug, I saw another bloke looking for one. Kinda sucks to draw down your battery before you even get on the plane.

I do wonder when someone is going to say something about whether or not it's all ethical, despite the minimal current being drawn.

However, back to your point, it seems the UK building codes don't demand as many power points as US codes do. Even in people's houses, finding a suitable outlet is often a challenge (the sheer size of their plugs doesn't help either...)

Human battery!

[cloudless.net]

Don't worry, we can always use human batteries!

Super Capacitors?

[Leomania]

What happened to the super capacitors? You know, caps with such a high energy density that they could be used to replace batteries in many applications. I'm sure I read about them last on Slashdot, but a quick search on the site turned up too many hits.

The ones out there now are already pretty cool because they can be charged quickly. If the energy density gets closer to high-capacity batteries like LiIon, it would be great to have them in portable devices so recharges would be speedy. Hate to have one short out all of a sudden, tho.

- Leo

Re:Super Capacitors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Supercaps are promising, especially in combo with very rapid charge points. Make simple wallwart convertor boxes with a socket, and install similar sockets in public places and you got a nice efficient way to keep a commodity supply of the micro-power going for all, remember we are talking milliwatts - few watts here. A couple of farads would do fine for s-state cmos stuff. Batteries - as removable devices maybe their days are numbered.

Re:Super Capacitors?

[ArchieBunker]

The only thing they are good for is keeping time in your vcr for a while when the power goes out. They can't supply any real current.

Re:Super Capacitors?

[fnj]

What happened to the super capacitors?

Hm, well, if you spend 10 seconds skimming the page you link, you'll see "Compared to lead-acid batteries, EC capacitors have lower energy density." They might have said "much much much lower."

Just what doesn't excite me. Something that can't even match century old battery technology.

Re:Super Capacitors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, get yourself somw ultracapacitors! They're now being sold as "supercapacitors" too, but that just means there's bloody amazing supercapacitors and sucky ordinary supercapacitors.

Re:Super Capacitors?

[egomaniac]

What happened to the super capacitors? You know, caps with such a high energy density that they could be used to replace batteries in many applications.

Nonsense.

1 Farad = 1 Amp at 1 Volt for 1 Second

As anyone who knows capacitors can tell you, a farad is a huge unit. To put things in perspective, common, everyday capacitors often have capacitances measured in picofarads (a picofarad is one-thousandth of one-billionth of a farad).

Now, how much capacitance would it take to equal a single AA battery?

A typical AA battery might be rated at 2200mAH at 1.5V. It doesn't actually keep that voltage up the entire time, but let's just pretend that it does.

2200mAH = 2.2AH = 7920As

So, a typical AA battery delivers 7,920 amp-seconds at 1.5V. An equivalent capacitor would need to have a capacitance of around 11,880 farads. That's to equal ONE AA battery. No such capacitor exists, and even if one did, it would be absurdly dangerous to handle.

The strength of a capacitor is its ability to deliver its power very, very quickly. That's why a big capacitor would be so dangerous -- imagine discharging all of the power in a AA battery in a ten-thousand of a second. The strength of a battery, on the other hand, is its ability to deliver (relatively) unbelievable amounts of power, but it can only do so over much longer periods of time.

Re:Super Capacitors?

[bwen]

I may be wrong, but I believe 1 amp and 1 volt for 1 second is a "joule." A joule per second is a "watt." Anyways, as I recall the energy capacity of a capacitor in joules is 1/2 X Farads X Voltage ^2. I don't know where my old physics books are to check this. Wen

Prices

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

The thing that's always bugged me about batteries is the price of the damn things, and I don't recall any big price drops in the last 20 years. That's the thing with batteries: you can either suck it up and cough up a ridiculous amount of cash for them (I mean, some of these batteries retail for arouns $2 PER AA battery! And that lasts, what, 10 hours?) or, uh, not use your electronic device (and no, AC's not a real option for portables). Anyway my real point is the fear I have of fuel cell batteries or any other new battery tech making this crap even worse. Ignoring for now safety/environmental concerns and whatnot, can't you just see a $150 battery coming down the line for high end portables? Sure, only rich crazy bastards will buy it at the beginning, but what about when the Sony PSP3 won't run without one?

It's a funny thing, this battery business - battery companies try to make their product more appealing to consumers by giving increased performance for the same (never less!) price, while keeping them just inefficient enough to require monthly battery purchases (or in the case of laptops, multiple batteries! Yay!)

Ah well, still beats winding the gears yourself.

I don't suppose...

[MoneyT]

It's possible that batteries have indeed gotten better and more efficient but that the technology that we've been using them in has gotten more and more power hungry?

Re:I don't suppose...

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

Yes, but if you play your cards right, this can work in your favor.
My computer is an aged Dell laptop (Lattitude CP-x, P3-650, maybe only 600) but it accepts newer batteries. Using the snazzy 75UYF cells at 3800 mAhours, I get between 9 and 10 hours of WiFi use if I pop two batteries in.

How long does your laptop go between charges?

--

Re:I don't suppose...

[Dun Malg]

It's possible that batteries have indeed gotten better and more efficient but that the technology that we've been using them in has gotten more and more power hungry? Actually, on average, devices have gotten LESS power hungry. Take, for example, scientific calculators. I had one 25 years ago that could run on a 9 volt battery for almost a month (if you remembered to turn it off when you were done). Now the power-hogging-est HP calculator I have runs on three 1.5v button cells that have only needed changing once in the last 6 years. Batteries, on the other hand, have improved only slightly. We still don't have rechargeable batteries that can beat a decent alkaline cell in amp-hours. The last significant improvement in battery-life was the non-rechargeable lithium battery, and that was 30+ years ago. Ever since the first ni-cad was invented in 1899, the big push has been to get rechargeables up to the same volume-to-power ratio as non-rechargeables. Really, batteries have gotten only incrementally better for 100+ years, while everything else has improved exponentially.

Why would battery manuf. make a better battery?

[teamhasnoi]

They have the perfect gig! Disposable product, vendor lock in, endless demand.

It's like asking why hookers are popular.

Sure, release a 'better' battery every couple of years, and sit on the pile of money. Better battery?

I can sooner see MS making Office for linux.

Re:Why would battery manuf. make a better battery?

[Zelet]

Actually, MS was hiring a while ago to port Office to Linux. They aren't stupid - Office makes more money than Windows - they will have a version just in case.

Lithium Ion batteries are great.

[miscellaneous_havoc]

I don't think that there is such a battery pitfall. My iPAQ Pocket PC uses it's own built-in lithium battery and that could easily last me a week a regular usesage, with a few games here and there. Furthermore, my Nomad Zen MP3 player gets over 12 hours of life on it's built-in lithium battery, as well. That's well more than I need considering this: It is extremely easy to hook up these built-in battery units to the wall/computer to recharge. When I get home after the day I just plug my pocket pc into the cradle and let it charge and sync, and my MP3 player charges from the USB cable that I already have it plugged into to transfer files. I'm not a mobile phone user, but the two examples I listed are very high on the portable electronics market and I haven't noticed a problem with battery life at all.

Movement power!

[Gldm]

But that would require us to move around to power our electronic devices, and I don't think too many slashdotters do all that much moving around.

How about one of those blood sugar powered setups. Then your laptop could help you lose weight without all that inconvenient moving around. I can see it now. "I need to finish this paper by midnight, bring me more Krispy Kremes NOW!"

Re:Movement power!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe health clubs could at least generate their own electricity.

Re:Movement power!

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Hmmm... call it "the grid" and charge $100/month. You have a winner.

Ok, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... do you have a pee-niss?

Plus: your server is a bit slow; perhaps you should get someone professional to administrate it. I am sure you are paying a lot of money for the hosting, but in its current state, it is really unusable.

But thank you for your efforts!

And good luck with this Iraq-thing; I'm sure you folkds will win. Perhaps your government should spend some more 6 billion on the campaign; those 40 remaining guerilla fighters seem to be pretty tough.

Batteries are not the constriction...

[heyitsme]

It's not batteries that are the constriction, it is slow IO hardware.

Imagine what you could do if your hard disk could read data as fast as your processor could handle it (think RAM-like or cache-like speed)

Re:Batteries are not the constriction...

[turm]

Who mods this crap up?

No matter how hard I "imagine", I still can't write my masters thesis on a four hour plane ride without my battery crapping out.

Re:This is from June 2001

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it's not like there have been any huge advances in battery technology from 2001, so quit whining!

Re:NOT A TROLL! HERE'S A LINK TO THE CNN ARTICLE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but what does it have to do with the article, or it's parent post, for that matter?

I can't say why...

[alexandre]

But i'm sure that somewhere along the food chain of battery developers, oil companies are slowing things down as always...

serious question:

[Unknown Poltroon]

One of my co-workers claims that very early battries could be recharged just by putting them out in sunlight, or warming them up somehow. I think hes full of crap. Anyone know for sure?

Re:serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes , we used to take the metal off D cells and put the paper wrapped body on a hot radiator, you could usually get about another 1/3 worth of juice after that (no not that sort - it was for toy racer cars - i was 11 ok), it having been apparently dead before.

It only worked once, so its not a 'recharge' phenomenon, some chemical process enabled already present energy to be freed.

Re:serious question:

[Organized Konfusion]

microwave your nimh's for 3 seconds @ 800 watt. It will charge them about 20%.

Re:serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

yes he is full of crap.... in fact next time you see him do the following....

start sniffing all over, end up near him and say "I though something herre smelled like it was full of shit!"

early batteries were/are zinc cans and carbon rods with an acidic mixture inside. when you used them or let them sit they drained and then they were dead.

they had to be fresh or they died on the shelf.

Re:serious question:

[Knetzar]

The article says that warming batteries reduces their life. Anyways, I've always heard that frezing a nearly dead battery will make it work well again for a short period of time.

Re:serious question:

[Dun Malg]

One of my co-workers claims that very early battries could be recharged just by putting them out in sunlight, or warming them up somehow. I think hes full of crap. Anyone know for sure?

Full of crap. Earlier batteries' chemistry had a more limited "optimal" temperature range, e.g. at 50 deg F an old battery would run down to like the 10% point and the chemical reaction would slow down. Warming them up when they got weak would get the internal chemistry "going" again and give them a little more life. Batteries now aren't as touchy about temperature, so heating them up when they're dead doesn't do squat.

Re:Hi Jennifer! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Malik? Is it you?

I really enjoyed last night.

You hard sweaty black cock is so much bigger than that of AC.

I lLUV U!!! 3 *g*

Old as Dirt

[KarmaOverDogma]

That article in Extreme Tech *looked* interesting until I noticed the date: June 2001.

Just goes to show the poster's point about the lack of truly revolutionary development in the battery field. But *please*, don't describe a two year old article as an "overview."

It's better described as "history."

.

Re:Old as Dirt

[timeOday]

I don't think it's history until it's outdated, and I can't think of any noticeable battery advances in the past 2 years.

Wake me up when the first fuel cell laptop is shipping.

How about rechargable battery technology?

[MongooseCN]

If a big battery company used their money on R&D, they could make a perfect rechargable battery. Then no one would have to buy lots of disposable batteries anymore! Or could that be the very reason rechargable battery technology hasn't improved much? Hmm...

Re:Niggers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but your wife sure needs them.

Big ones, above that.

duty cycle 'em

[corporate zombie]

Back in college I ran across a website (eaaarly WWW) which had a small circuit you put between your batteries and a headlamp. A caver who had a EE degree had designed it. It had a small capacitor and circuitry to charge the capacitor based on a duty cycle for the batteries. (If I'm getting this all wrong my apologies. I know little about electronics.) As the batteries ran out of charge the duty cycle became quicker. It greatly extended the battery life but when the batteries died they did so in about 15 minutes instead of your headlamp just getting dimmer and dimmer.

I had always figured the battery-run device companies were in bed with the battery companies because such a circuit would seem a natural.

Couple of Google searches didn't turn it up which is a bummer because I could afford one these days.

-CZ

Re:duty cycle 'em

[Major_Small]

that's what name brand batteries are designed to do... you don't need to do that for them...

batteries like duracell have a battery life that lasts as long as it can, but drops off suddenly. they don't last as long, but they don't harm sensitive electronics.

Re:duty cycle 'em

[topham]

Believe it or not, but some people like the idea of having some level of warning before the batteries die.

Me, i'm thinking of putting a couple of lithium batteries in my new LED flashlight. Where I live most batteries don't last if used outside for long. (-25C or colder). But lithiums work fine. The down side to this? Lithium batteries lose power similar to your description; they drop like a rock. (And lithiums tend to be expensive when compared to other battery types.)

Actually, there IS a lot of R&D

[mercuryresearch]

A few years ago I got to meet with some folks from Eveready and a number of charge controller companies, and trust me, there's quite a bit of R&D that goes on.

For disposables, consider that we've gone from carbon-zinc to alkaline to lithium chemistries. In the case of Eveready, they have the L91 lithium AA, and it's pretty amazing in terms of power density and battery life (about 3X alkaline.) It's now about 10 years old.

Rechargables have gone from lead-acid to Nickel-Cadmium to Nickel Metal Hydride and also Lithium-Ion.

Keep in mind we're talking about a chemical device here that's storing larger and larger amounts of energy as times goes on. More energy = more potential for bad things to happen. Since it's chemical we're dealing with chemistry, materials science, and environmental factors (heat/cold, issues of outgassing, etc.) There's a lot more going on than a simple metal tube here.

A lot of the work that goes on is hidden -- it's hidden in the fact that the battery works for more than a few cycles. Many battery chemistries are very touchy when it comes to repeated cycling, for example, while others if not formulated (or charged) correctly would outgas or swell and explode. If any of you remember the good old days of carbon-zinc, it was routine to have things destroyed by leaking cells. That's one of the reasons the battery manufacturers actually offer warranties on the devices using them. (Think about that: It's like Exxon giving you a warranty on your engine if the gas harms it.)

While the future is probably fuel cells (I'd bet on methanol cells in particular, perhaps like Neah Power is working on) it'd be wrong to think that batteries aren't improving -- or that they won't be around for a long, long time.

Re:Actually, there IS a lot of R&D

[SuperBanana]

rechargables have gone from lead-acid to Nickel-Cadmium to Nickel Metal Hydride and also Lithium-Ion.

...and unfortunately, NiMH was 'too' good and was phased out pretty damn quickly. It didn't have quite the energy capacity of LiIon, but NiMH doesn't destroy itself with every cycle. I dunno about you, but I'd rather have a battery that lasts 2 hours instead of 3, if I don't have to replace it every 6 goddamn months.

LiIon is the biggest scam around- complete garbage technology that will no doubt be the subject of a consumer lawsuit, if it hasn't been already- even now, the "this battery looses capacity with each charge/discharge cycle" notice is buried deep, deep in the owner's manual...if included at all.

One of the top complaints about the iPod is that its battery is utter garbage- and useless within months of anything even resembling moderate usage.

As if the environment wasn't suffering enough from electronics- "gee, lets put a highly toxic battery that won't last but a few months inside a SEALED consumer device that the consumer will just chuck in the trash!"

Re:Actually, there IS a lot of R&D

[GallopingGreen]

Actually, there isn't enough.
Ever try to get an AA lithium polymer?
- You can't because the battery companies know just how valuable the disposable AA market is.

Re:Actually, there IS a lot of R&D

[ForestGrump]

AAH, LiON batteries.
In the past year of having this laptop.
I'm currenetly on my 4th cell.
Thankfully, dell has covered my replacements so far.

Now that the warranty is out, I guess i'll have to suffer when the two cells I got go poop.

Re:Actually, there IS a lot of R&D

[zero_offset]

Think about that: It's like Exxon giving you a warranty on your engine if the gas harms it.

Actually, many gas stations do this. (Although this fact does not change or invalidate your point in any way.)

Re:Actually, there IS a lot of R&D

[pmz]

While the future is probably fuel cells (I'd bet on methanol cells in particular, perhaps like Neah Power is working on)...

Actually, Eveready and Duracell would be pretty stupid to not also have their own lines of fuelcells, if fuelcells really are the way to go. If you can't beat'em join'em.

Re:Actually, there IS a lot of R&D

[Rob Simpson]

No kidding. While it's possible to get AA and AAA NIMH batteries, it's getting harder and harder to find portable devices I can use them in. My main complaint is that I can find any PDAs being made that still take AAAs.

no battery advances? huh?

[Lumpy]

Obviousally the writer is so young as to not remember the evil that is the NiCad battery.

Today's batteries are unbelieveably nice and great compared to the utter crap we had to use just 7 years ago.. NiCad batteries would get a memory effect, last very short times and have abyssimal storage capacity.

batteries have came a long way, and they will continue to improve... how about making processors and displays that dont suck down amps of power?

the problem isn't the batteries, the problem is the horrible inefficency of today's tech!

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Dun Malg]

NiCad batteries would get a memory effect, last very short times and have abyssimal storage capacity.

Actually, the "memory effect" thing is a myth. What really happens with multi-cell nicad packs is one or more of the cells runs down to 0 volts before the rest do and subsequently gets "anti-charged" by the other batteries in the pack. The reverse voltage damages that particular cell, reducing its capacity. A multi-cell pack only gives full voltage for as long as the weakest cell in the pack can. The weird thing about the "battery memory" thing is that the recommended means of avoiding problems (full discharge before recharging) is more likely to result in cell damage. Then again, the difference between that and the opposite (recharge frequently without discharging) is practically nil: nicads are just crap.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[barawn]

nicads are just crap.

Well, kindof. They have SOME advantages over NiMH: for one, they're cheaper, and for two, they've got virtually no internal resistance. They can source huge amounts of current - do NOT, repeat, do NOT short a NiCad battery.

Other than those (extraordinarily specific) advantages, though, yah, they pretty much suck.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[bluesnowmonkey]

Does anyone have a breakdown by component of how a laptop uses its memory? It would be interesting to see real numbers. Offhand I would guess that the display is the biggest consumer, followed by the hard drive and processor. All of these have very-low-energy versions being researched. I think we'll see large improvements in what can do with the energy, even if battery life sees no improvement at all.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Moofie]

So, the net effect is that the batteries (which are very frequently used in a multi-cell arrangement) appear to the non-multimeter-equipped person to have decreased charge carrying performance over time?

Gosh. Sounds just like the "memory effect" that people describe with NiCad batteries.

The technical detail is useful, but calling memory effect a "myth" when actually it's a pretty accurate description of what users observe under service conditions is just sorta silly.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Detritus]

Many of the problems seen with nicads are due to poor design of equipment, improper usage and dumb battery chargers.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Moofie]

Poor design of equipment: How is a user supposed to know if the product is designed well? What's the metric they should check to see if it's ni-cad friendly?

Improper usage? Put in the batteries. Use till it stops. How is this usage improper?

Dumb battery chargers: Fair enough. I've got a pretty smart one, and I get great performance out of my NiMH AA's in most of my hardware.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Detritus]

Poor design: The user has to hope that the engineers knew what they were doing. Not buying cheap crap is one way to avoid the problem.

Improper usage: Short cycling the batteries or running them down to the point that a cell reverses polarity.

Smart chargers: There are chargers that can actually recondition nicad batteries. They aren't cheap. To do it properly, you need to be able to isolate the cells.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[CvD]

Making processors and displays is all well, but when it comes to devices that communicate with the rest of the world, there is an absolute limit to how little power a device communicating with RF can use. It will always need to use so many mW of power to be able to communicate with a base station/tower; you can't improve on this.

The only solution to this is placing the towers closer to eachother. This is already happening, with 3G phone systems. AFAIK, UMTS towers need to be more closely spaced than GSM towers, due to bandwidth and stuff like that, but I think it'll mean the phones can also output less mW to communicate with the tower.

Cheers,

CvD.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[AchmedHabib]

I don't know which battery there was in my first Ericsson GSM phone, but when charging it, it would somtimes empty the battery first before starting to charging it.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The memory effect is real, but you are right, that reverse charging is a bigger danger. Both problems can be fixed. However to fix a reversed cell, you need to open the pack and charge that cell individually. I've seen both of these problems and fixed both.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Dun Malg]

So, the net effect is that the batteries (which are very frequently used in a multi-cell arrangement) appear to the non-multimeter-equipped person to have decreased charge carrying performance over time? Gosh. Sounds just like the "memory effect" that people describe with NiCad batteries.

"[It] sounds just like" and "It is" are not the same thing. The "memory effect" myth goes something like this: "if you don't run down a nicad all the way before recharging it, it chemically 'remembers' at what point it was recharged and won't discharge below that point next time". This is, despite what the behavior may appear to be, absolutely incorrect. There is no chemical "memory" going on. It is just one or more cells being damaged by polarity reversal. Neither the undamaged batteries nor the damaged ones "remember" anything, thus the "memory effect" is myth.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Dun Malg]

The memory effect is real, but you are right, that reverse charging is a bigger danger. Both problems can be fixed. However to fix a reversed cell, you need to open the pack and charge that cell individually. I've seen both of these problems and fixed both.

The "article" you like to is the weakest piece of tripe i've ever seen on the subject. They even say themselves that it's not actually "memory", it's "voltage depression". Voltage depression is caused by overcharging, especially at high temperatures. The cure for voltage depression is complete discharging before recharging. The problem you run into there is the danger of running reverse polarity current through one or more cells.

What it comes down to is this: Nicads have trouble with voltage depression and cell polarity reversal. In multi cell nicad packs, you can end up with a situation where the cure for one problem will cause the other problem. The only solution is to cut the cells in the pack apart charge each cell separately.

Please understand, I'm not saying that people are imagining that their nicad packs go to shit-- only that the explaination cited is factually incorrect.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking pedantic asshole.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Moofie]

To a layperson operating the device according to the manufacturer's instructions, the distinction is academic. That's all I'm saying.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[suitti]

Two things make modern NiMH batteries superior to old NiCad.

Modern NiMH formulations store about double what NiCads did per charge.

Modern chargers know when the battery is charged, and stop. So, now it really is typical to get 1,000 cycles out of them rather than less than 100. Modern chargers can do this for NiCad too - mine does.

Heat kills rechargable batteries. This can come from the charger, through overcharging. This can come from use - through high discharge rates.

Re:no battery advances? huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can also ZAP a nicad.

a "dead" nicad can sometimes be brought back to life for another 20 charging cycles by nailing the battery with Approx 100-200 volts AC for a very short amount of time. (less than 1/4 second)

I brought back to life many nicads that way. in fact I got a ton of free laptop battery packs for my old toshiba by grabbing the dead packs and opening them, zappingthe dead cells and then trickle charging them.

bullshit information

[Anonymous Coward]

this is bullshit: there has been very good improvements in batteries. the problem is the technology around them also evolves and eats more power. if you grab one of today's lithium ion battery that offers 4 hours on a Pentium 3 M and use it to feed an old 368 or 486 laptop you will be amazed. but as time goes the power use of new machines follows the improvements on battery research and this is so obvious I wonder why that stupid journalist did not see it. Er.. Well. It's a journalist so we already got the explanation...

Fuels will be the new print cartridges

[bluegreenone]

All the big gadget people out there (including me) are all waiting anxiously for fuel cells to come along and give us super long usage times for our devices. But what I suspect will happen is that fuel for fuel cells will become the next ink jet print cartridge, with manufacturers charging insane prices for refills. The price you pay for plugging in your laptop will be a fraction of what a single fuel cell refill will cost. And of course you can expect the same manufacturer technical lock-ins as ink, except now with even more warnings like "Use of non-approved refills will result in EXPLOSIONS AND DEATH, buy only certified refills UNLESS YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BLOWING YOUR HEAD OFF. You've BEEN WARNED, JACKASS!"

Re:Fuels will be the new print cartridges

[TO11MTM]

Truth is stranger than fiction. I'd be afraid to open certain batteries, Especially those that are Lithium Based. Lithium reacts very violently with water... which is why they tend to be so well sealed, and have things like 'do not puncture' warnings.

Re:Fuels will be the new print cartridges

[pmz]

with manufacturers charging insane prices for refills.

Er, how do they enforce this? Proprietary methanol??? That'd be one hell of a marketing stunt.

Re:Fuels will be the new print cartridges

[simonjester2424]

Yeah, just like Proprietary ink.

Re:Fuels will be the new print cartridges

[pmz]

Yeah, just like Proprietary ink.

My point is that methanol cannot be proprietary. It's chemical formula is printed in every organic chemistry textbook ever written, can be made using well-known processes, and can be purchased at nearly every hardware store in the country.

Refilling a "proprietary" fuel-cell cartridge requires little more than a drill bit and a rubber plug to fill the hole. The only real enforcement schemes would be those electronic sensors embedded into ink cartridges, which I believe were ruled against in court (North Carolina, perhap?).

Battery lmitations

[Artifakt]

1. If there was a chemical reaction that could produce energy on the nuclear level, it would disrupt nuclear processes - So whatever elements it happened between would transmute each other on contact. Look around. Do you see any natural element below the radioactive ones on the periodic table that is undergoing alchemical style (i.e. lead to gold style) transmutation to another element? No? Then there is a peak limit for how much power you can get out of any chemical battery, and it's lower than the weakest natural nuclear reactions observed. 2. The most electromotive elements are the reactive metals, like Potassium, Calcium, and Sodium at one end, and Florine and Clorine at the other. The reactive metals burn on contact with cold water, and the problems with handling the reactive gasses are legion. Batteries generally work with an anode and a cathode of two different mentals or metal compounds. Electrodes are generally made from metals in the middle of the electromotive range, like Pb, Cd, Cu, Ni, and even Hg, and their compounds. To get better energy storage per weight than zinc, nickel or cadmium just about always means working with something more reactive for at least one electrode. So "better" batteries are generally more environmentally damageing, or pose bigger health risks to humans working with them. 3. There is a metal with electromotility better than oxygen or clorine gas. It's called Gold. Unfortunately it is hard to get gold to react with chemicals, it's heavy, and it's just a touch expensive.

What do the submarines use?

[AintTooProudToBeg]

Diesel submarines have batteries that last for years. What do they use?

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Yaztromo]

Diesel submarines have batteries that last for years. What do they use?

Having just attended a Canadian Forces Naval briefing on this very topic, I'm glad you asked :).

Naval subs use massive "wet" batteries, something akin to what your car uses, except exceptionally massive, typically filling two large-ish rooms. They are exceptionally heavy.

Note that diesel-electric submarines are only rated to run for aat most two weeks between charges. They have to surface to run their diesel engines in order to recharge their batteries, as the diesel engines need clean air for the combustion, and need to be able to vent their exhaust gasses.

This is a disadvantage over nuclear submarines, which can stay down for months at a time. The benifit of them, however, is that diesel-electric subs are quite a bit more silent than their nuclear counterparts :).

Yaz.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Sycraft-fu]

Lead acid batteries, like your car. Really, they are just bigger and there are more of them. Same thing the phone system uses, actually. If you go to a telco station, they'll have massive racks of lead acid battries to power the hardware in the event the power fails.

For long life and cost, you just can't beat the lead acid battery currently. The problem is weight mainly. They are pretty heavy, and fairly large, for the amount of juice they hold. Puts them right out of the running for things like cell phones and laptops. However other things, like UPSes still use them. If you like Tripplite makes devices that you can wire car battries or marine battires to and use for power.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Zak3056]

The benifit of them, however, is that diesel-electric subs are quite a bit more silent than their nuclear counterparts

Yeah, until you need to recharge your batteries, everybody in the north atlantic hears you, and a P-3C comes along and sinks your ass.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[timeOday]

Why don't nuclear subs have batteries to run silently too? And why do they need them, is the nuke plant noisy? Thanks.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Sycraft-fu]

Actually the noise from the reactor of a modern, quality nuclear sub is less than you might think. Most of the noise problems from subs come from the sub itself, the shape, the screws, or both. The US Los Angeles subs and the new Virgina subs are amazingly quiet, despite being nuclear.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Yaztromo]

Yeah, until you need to recharge your batteries, everybody in the north atlantic hears you, and a P-3C comes along and sinks your ass.

Note that you can also charge such subs while in dock, by running cabling to a charge port (no kidding!).

Obviously, you need to pick and choose what types of missions you use such subs for. As I mentioned, they aren't for long-duration underwater missions. They serve a different purpose than nuclear subs serve.

And BTW, the Canadian Forces routinely detects the US Los Angles-class nuclear subs while they're supposedly running in "quiet" mode :).

Yaz.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Yaztromo]

Actually the noise from the reactor of a modern, quality nuclear sub is less than you might think. Most of the noise problems from subs come from the sub itself, the shape, the screws, or both. The US Los Angeles subs and the new Virgina subs are amazingly quiet, despite being nuclear.

I just saw one of the Los Angeles class subs. They are indeed impressive machines.

I'm not trying to slight the US's nuclear subs. They're obviously not rusty old junk buckets making a racket that any old fishing trawler can pick-up. They're exceedingly advanced machines.

However, if you run a decibel test between a Los Angeles class sub and one of the Canadian Forces Victoria class diesel electric subs, the Victoria class scores better. They have their own issues, of course (the Victoria class subs needing a whole lot of work to make them seaworthy for one thing :P)

Yaz.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Yaztromo]

Why don't nuclear subs have batteries to run silently too? And why do they need them, is the nuke plant noisy?

That's probably a question for Janes Defence Weekly :).

I'm hardly an expert on nuclear submarines, but I'd hazard a guess that there would be a potential issue of over-charging the batteries. You can't really readily stop and start the reaction, so you have to somehow use the energy they produce. You can _control_ the reaction, but taking it completely offline is probably a time-consuming procedure you don't want to undertake.

Thus, I imagine they control the reaction such that they generate more-or-less exactly what they need at any given timeframe. This is probably easier and more efficient than the stop-start-stop nature of the diesel generators on a diesel-electric sub.

Oh, and for anyone wondering, the Victoria class diesel-electric subs have two main batteries (as I mentioned previously), consisting of 240 cells each. There are charged by two 1400 kwh diesel generators.

Overall, not the kind of batteries you're going to power your laptop off of (unless you're using it on the sub... :) ).

Yaz.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stopping a nuclear reaction is relatively simple. Its the starting part thats a long, long pain in the ass. :)

Re:What do the submarines use?

[ChrisMaple]

Thanks for the info. Personally, I'd feel safer with Edison cells (Iron-nickel) because of the non-acid electrolyte. My understanding is that their life greatly exceeds that of lead-acid.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Nex]

Some more detail:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?L19921386

Nex

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why nuclear submariners should have the option of ejecting the warp... err, reactor core!

Anyway, I think they actually can eject them for emergency purposes. At least I heard the Russian subs might have been designed that way. The Americans, well, screw the crew, I guess, and bring the radiation to the bottom when you go down.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[geekoid]

true, but for some reason they decided to make them so damn big.

There was an article on /. a while ago about these small nuclear ractors that could be used for rural towns, un manned and where only about 30 feet long.

I wonder if it would be better to build many smaller subs, instead of one monster sub.

hell, at that sixe you could make tiny 5 man subs that you kept on ships, and then deployed when advantages. there fire power would be less, but 5 subs, each with only 2 topredos would be a scary ass propostion or any larger sub.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will say, being stationed on a US Los Angeles class sub that in the engine room, we are required to wear earplugs. Also, we do have a battery (lead-acid), and a diesel. They just both have a laughable capacity. The submarine is slightly negative bouyant when submerged. Without propulsion it sinks. An Emergency blow could be performed but is dangerous aka USS Greenville. The battery is mainly only there in the case of an emergency to get the sub back to the surface. Or if in port with the reactor shutdown, it can be used to absorb some of the starting surge of large motors/pumps that are beyond the capacity of shorepower. Also, even shutdown the reactor needs continuous monitoring. This can't be done without power. Continuity of power is very important, hence the battery/diesel combo.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Sycraft-fu]

So an interesting claim:

Allegedly (and of course I've no way to verify this) the new Virgina class subs entering service next year to replace the LA's are as quiet fully underway and operational as an LA is tied to a peir and turned off.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[cascadingstylesheet]

And BTW, the Canadian Forces routinely detects the US Los Angles-class nuclear subs while they're supposedly running in "quiet" mode :).

Just out of curiousity, how about Sturgeon class (when there were stil some around)?

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Yaztromo]

Just out of curiousity, how about Sturgeon class (when there were stil some around)?

Unfortunately, I don't really know. My data comes from a CF declassified submarine briefing I got to sit in on last week. They mentioned the old Oberon class subs in passing, but that was about it -- the briefing was primarily about the Victoria class subs.

I am, unfortunately, far from an expert on submarines! :) But if anybody knows the answer to your question, I'd certainly be interested in hearing it too!

Yaz.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Zak3056]

And BTW, the Canadian Forces routinely detects the US Los Angles-class nuclear subs while they're supposedly running in "quiet" mode :)

Well, the platform IS 32 years old... :)

I wonder how they do against a Seawolf, or even an Ohio?

Re:What do the submarines use?

[jafac]

THe other disadvantage is the manual maintenance of the wet cells (same deal for off-grid home-solar power).

Re:What do the submarines use?

[Anonymous Coward]

(posting anonymously here)
I used to work for the dept. of fisheries here in Western Canada and we would occasionally get these strange pickups on our underwater acoustics and generally we just looked at each other and said "U.S. Sub" or "Russian Sub" depending on the harmonics and continue on our work.
The whole "silent running" thing is a myth... you can pick up the sounds of subs MILES away.

Re:What do the submarines use?

[EduardoTheBastard]

A Canadian submarine, eh?

Canada has a warship?

(Sorry, had to be done. I love our neighbors to the north!)

Re:What do the submarines use?

[cascadingstylesheet]

we would occasionally get these strange pickups on our underwater acoustics and generally we just looked at each other and said "U.S. Sub" or "Russian Sub" depending on the harmonics and continue on our work.

The whole "silent running" thing is a myth... you can pick up the sounds of subs MILES away.

Hmm ...

• How did you really know who's they were? Did you ask them on the underwater telephone?
• Did you hear them well enough to target them? That's what matters, typically.
• "Miles" isn't really that far, when we're talking open sea, underwater.

why would they get better?

[deus_X_machina]

The public accepts the idea that batteries die and need to be replaced, so therefore, battery companies make money. What would be their incentive to create better batteries? So that the public would have to purchase them less frequently? Then we'd probably just end up paying the difference for the better battery. I doesn't sound like a good business model to take a cut in profits to make everyone's life a little bit easier. I don't really think there's much of a public demand to reform the battery industry, so therefore there's no need to do so for the industry. Just keep up with the technology.

I guess on a side note, my rechargable batteries are a godsend. While you can debate the economics of it all (40$ for a charger and 4 batteries), I just like not having to worry about having batteries for my MP3 player [Nike PSA64]. I use it primarily for working out, I go through a battery every week or two, throw it in the charger, and then replace it. They've lasted all summer and still give me numerous days of life. Prior to purchasing them, I was going through batteries like a mad man, buying a pack every two weeks to keep up with my working out. I think its the best solution for anyone who goes through a lot of batteries...

Re:why would they get better?

[Dun Malg]

The public accepts the idea that batteries die and need to be replaced, so therefore, battery companies make money. What would be their incentive to create better batteries?

If you invent a bettery that lasts twice as long, you can charge three times as much. The convenience of a longer-life battery has value too. Notice the price of lithium vs. alkaline one-shot batteries.

Re:why would they get better?

[gnu-generation-one]

"The public accepts the idea that batteries die and need to be replaced, so therefore, battery companies make money. What would be their incentive to create better batteries?"

So that they could sell better batteries?

The fact that NiMH batteries exist and are selling, suggests that this is the case.

Re:why would they get better?

[kmo]

The public accepts the idea that batteries die and need to be replaced, so therefore, battery companies make money. What would be their incentive to create better batteries?

It's called competition. It's the reason monopolies are bad. If I can create a better battery, I can sell them to customers that are currently buying your newly obsolete batteries. I can make more money.

Of course, if there are no other battery companies, I don't have any reason to build a better battery. In fact, I have some motivation to ship crappy batteries so that you will upgrade them more often, in hopes that the new battery is better. Sound familiar?

Re:why would they get better?

[suitti]

Take AA sized rechargables. I have NiCad, from
20 years ago. They didn't last as long as
disposable per charge, but were cheaper in
the long run due to reuse.

Then NiMh's came out, aproaching disposables
in per-charge performance. They were
something like 1400 milli-amp hours.
I bought them.

Then, better chargers came out, increasing
the number of cycles, not just for the new
batteries, but for my old ones too. I bought
a new charger.

Then, the 1600's came out. I bought them.

Then 1700's - I have some of those.

Then 1800's - yep.

Now I've seen 2200's. I'll be buying those
soon.

At the store, the cashier says, "but no
one buys recharagables, compared to disposables".
Of course not. They last 20 years instead
of a few days.

I get 8 hours out of my walkman for about
a penny. I'm not going back.

The King is dead. Long live the King.

[Graymalkin]

How is it that "batteries don't last as long as I'd like" turns into "there's no development put into batteries" in some people's minds? There's lots of time and money put into developing better batteries because if someone creates the better battery they will make lots of money.

The lack of headway is the chemistry, not the funding or effort. There's a finite limit on the amount of energy you can safely store and retrieve chemically from a given volume. A lot of development is focused on getting higher energy/volume ratios, lithium polymer and methanol fuel cells are good examples of this branch of development.

Looking for better battery chemistries is much more difficult. Between environmental concerns and ridiculous patents trying to market new chemistries isn't a cake walk for any company. There's a lot of materials that can be used in batteries. Not all of them are things you want ending up in land fills or in the hands of complete and utter morons.

Re:The King is dead. Long live the King.

[Anonymous Coward]

if someone creates the better battery they will make lots of money.

Wrong. If "they" make batteries that last a long time, "they" make a lot less money because "they" sell fewer batteries.

Re:The King is dead. Long live the King.

[SiliBelgian]

Waauw. You're a real economic expert. Let me explain to you how this works.

Suppose you invent some new kind of AA battery that lasts twice as long as the average alkaline AA battery. Don't you think people will be willing to pay more for your battery? If a normal AA battery costs 2$, you could easily charge 3$ and people would still buy it. 50% higher price but 100% more capacity, a moron can do the math (even an anonymous one).
And if you deliver a good product, people will be happy with it and continue to buy it. So what if they'll buy it less often? You will be the most succesful battery producer, because you deliver the best product. That's the free market for you.
Now, the real problems occur when big companies work together to rip off the consumer. For example, if all battery companies around the globe would make a pact to stop research and keep selling the same batteries to keep squeezing money out of the customer at going rate. But to my knowledge, there is no such agreement. (Conspiracy theorists of Slashdot, unite to prove me wrong !)

Re:The King is dead. Long live the King.

[Graymalkin]

Thank you Mr.Ifailedcriticalthinking for your insight. Try this brain buster on for size. Company A develops a new battery with five times the capacity of competing Li-ion batteries. It is small and light weight to boot. Trying to hock this battery to dumbards who can barely cope with the letter abbriviated battery sizes would not make a lot of money.

Selling the batteries to cell phone, PDA, video game, and camera manufacturers however would make them a fair chunk of change. Such devices don't always have user servicable batteries. If Samsung puts this new battery in one of their MP3 players they can trump all of their competition stuck in the days of Li-ion batteries. Such an advantage would be worth Samsung signing a long term exclusivity contract with Company A.

Even if Company A were shrewd and sold their batteries directly they could charge a mint for them. The best part of that deal is people would buy them. If they sold batteries than could power modern Palms as long as the IIIx used to go on its AAAs Palm owners would buy them in droves. The AA batteries you see at the super market are not the end all be all of the battery industry. YHL.

Re:The King is dead. Long live the King.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I advocate the usage of high explosives in batteries, due to the enormous energy densities that materials like C-4 and TNT pack. If there were only a way to harness the energy in a controlled manner. Heck, forgot the chemical explosives--once we've figured that one out, we can use H-bombs to power our civilian fusion plants.

Re:The King is dead. Long live the King.

[BuckaBooBob]

Its aparent that a revolution is needed in that department... Look at what the IC did for the Vacum Tube :)...

Re:The King is dead. Long live the King.

[jafac]

I, for one, would really like to know if there ARE, in fact, any patents standing in the way of such chemistry research.

If some group of Plutocratic Lawyers is sitting on an overly broad submarine patent, similar to the ones commonly discussed here on slashdot, which is acting as a barrier to finding a decent energy storage technology - then that's just another reason, and a crucially important one to every man, woman, and child on the planet, that our bassackwards system of patent law needs real reform, and like, YESTERDAY.

Monster caps are great,

[Absurd Being]

Until you short one with something you care about. 50C of charge flowing down something in a fraction of a second (or 50-500A of current) is not what I want to think about. "Instant disintegration" comes to mind.

Re:Monster caps are great,

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Reminds me of the stories my Uncle would tell of his days fooling around with Tank batteries. Tanks have enormous cells, 1 meter cubed, that store insane amounts of current. In the field they don't need to bring an arc welder. They just tie the frame to the ass end of the battery, and lug a jumper cable to where they want to weld.

Of course our million dollar tanks, at least at this time, were equipped with cheezy aluminum tools. One a buddy of my uncle was tightening the lugs on a battery and crossed both terminals. The tool literally melted and burned in a flash.

Re:Monster caps are great,

[Anonymous Coward]

And what happened to your uncle's buddy?

Re:Monster caps are great,

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Since that wasn't part of the story, I'm just assuming that he didn't breath the toxic vapors and lived to tell the tale. Burning aluminum is really nasty stuff.

Re:Monster caps are great,

[hesiod]

> I'm just assuming that he didn't breath the toxic vapors

I think he meant more along the lines of being electrocuted. Unless he happened to be jumping in the air while tightening lugs. Err, I suppose he could have worn boots too...

Re:Monster caps are great,

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Oh, no he leapt the hell out of the road. You see a bright flash, you bolt.

Re:Monster caps are great,

[Anonymous Coward]

Capacitors are nothing to be afraid of, batteries (the right kind of course) can do 500A too. Just treat potentially dangerous electronic components with the same respect and care for safety as you would any other dangerous component.

The greatest inventor in western history

[cassady_]

Actually, the greatest (and most under rated) inventor in western history, Nikola Tesla, has already created it. For some unknown reason, J.P. Morgan refused to back it.

Re:The greatest inventor in western history

[giblfiz]

mod parent up.
It can be done... there are just some nasty side effects.

Batteries? Have a look at ultra low power tech...

[Anonymous Coward]

Batteries have come so far, but microprocessor power conservation has come a lot farther. Laptops have backlights and hard drives (which haven't come as far), but there are cpu's meant for embedded systems that get 100 MIPS+, have a few hundred k to several megabytes of onboard memory.. and flash for permanent storage. All told, these setups are not that special and consume only about 10-30 mA under full load.

If you only need about 10-20 MIPS, then there are embedded systems CPUs that will run for months on AA batteries. If it doesn't seem like much, keep in mind the 286-10 was only several mips.

Then why did you?

[rmm4pi8]

1) Energy in a given space has nothing to do with exploding. TNT doesnt explode without a detonator, Plutonium needs a critical mass and a neutron source, etc etc.

2) Since the original electricity is a trivial cost of batteries, the question is how much energy we can keep in the battery, not how much we use to get it there, so this is utterly irrelevant.

3) Vacuums apply to pressures, not energies. Have you seen the sun exploding lately because it's more energetic than the surrounding vacuum? (No, sorry, flares dont count.)

Real problem with batteries: inorganic chemistry hasn't made any huge progress lately.

Solution: capacitors. GM is planning to use them instead of car batteries in the relatively near future.

Re:Then why did you?

[Anonymous Coward]

TNT doesnt explode without a detonator.

It does with age. Imaging making as many sticks of TNT as batteries and giving them to everyone. You honestly don't think that would be a problem?

Re:Then why did you?

[SparkyTWP]

"Solution: capacitors. GM is planning to use them instead of car batteries in the relatively near future."

Could you give me a reference to this? As a EE student, I can't see why this would make any sense at all.

Capacitors can't store any amount of energy even close to a car battery and they wouldn't be able to hold it very long without making it very expensive.

Car batteries are fairly inexpensive and reliable. It doesn't make sense to replace that with something won't be, unless somehow GM has radically improved capacitor technology and I haven't heard of it.

Re:Then why did you?

[addaon]

State of the art in capacitor technology: www.maxwell.com/ultracapacitors

They have seriously cool stuff, and they sell small quantities (i.e., 1) so you can play around. Their ultracapacitors have 10x the power density and 0.1x the energy density of batteries, more or less, so except for specialized applications you're looking at a combination of the two, not one or the other, in an efficient system.

Re:Then why did you?

[loose electron]

Capacitors leak.... i.e. slowly discharge over time. That said, no matter how much charge you put on a cap, when you come back in two weeks, the silly thing is going to be at zero volts. Batteries can sit for months. Yes, they too go stale, but a capacitor goes flat a lot sooner. He who truly solves the battery problem will die a very rich man.... (or woman...)

Re:Then why did you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Capacitors may leak, but they're not all that bad. High farad capacitors (on the order of 1F) are used in VCRs these days instead of batteries to power the digital clocks. The big thing in capacitors has been to pack more charge into a smaller space, which has allowed truly humongous capacitances to fit in the palm of your hand. For automotive applications, just think of the sort of charges you can store up.

Now, I still have my doubts about capacitors as the solution. Fuel cells make a lot more sense to me, since they'll store their "charge" indefinitely, can deliver power at a high rate (mainly a problem with batteries, not capacitors), and we can generate hydrogen directly in a multiple number of ways, rather than converting to electricity first. The logistics of distributing hydrogen are also a lot simpler, since it can be stored and transported relatively easily (ever tried charging an electric car in, say, the Sahara?).

Re:Then why did you?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Real problem with batteries: inorganic chemistry hasn't made any huge progress lately."

Correct. And it probably won't either. Just another one of the ways nature limits the powers granted to man. Law of Thermodynamics, along with the physical properties of the best chemicals we can find (as granted by nature, once again), if you care to know.

Ever wonder why your room gets messy? Why metals rust? We we will never live forever?

Re:Then why did you?

[simong_oz]

1) Energy in a given space has nothing to do with exploding.

The word "exploding" is probably misleading here, but what the original poster said is still true. Any system wants to be in a state of maximum disorder, ie. entropy (2nd law of thermodynamics). If you pack a massive amount of energy into a small space, this is doing the opposite - if you can figure out how to encourage the system to go the other way, it will do so if it can.

Re:Then why did you?

[Maset]

1) Plutonium, large amount of energy in a little volume: leaks a lot of energy. Might not be the most correct explanation, but the original poster's assertion that the more energy you pack into a given volume the greater the leakage does not get revoked by your simplistic argument.

2) Cost of inducing an energy releasing source is of the prime importance. Economic and environmental. Either way I'm sure the original poster was talking about rechargeable batteries. That is, the same technology that the article was refering to.

3) What about the brief but measurable effect of particles created in a vacuum. There is no net matter, but there is a net amount of energy.

Inorganic chemistry is not to blame. The basic physics of elemental chemistry on Earth limits the electrical output of chemical interactions.

Re:Then why did you?

[renecarlos]

Discharge in months? I think you meant self-discharge in days.

Several automakers have experimented with supercaps in cars. All used them as buffers, not primary storage. Which is not a bad thing: increases POWER to the wheels (not range), and reduces spikes to the battery pack.
Rene Carlos

Re:Then why did you?

[addaon]

Ah, but increasing power to the wheels does increase range. This is because battery storage isn't constant. If you have a battery that can provide, say, 2 kWh with a current draw of 20A, it may provide only 1 kWh if you draw 100A. (These numbers are probably pretty reasonable for a light-weight, 48V car). Another aspect of automobiles, of course, is that you need more power to accelerate than you do to cruise, yet you spend 90%+ of your time cruising. So, without using a capacitor pack, you have the options of getting screwed when using more than usual power (reducing range), or building for higher current draw (increasing weight and decreasing range, or decreasing space for more battery and decreasing range). With a capacitor pack, you can shield the battery from the increased draw almost all the time (unless someone's flooring it for thirty seconds straight, for instance), meaning (as you said) increased power, but also meaning increased range if the capacitor pack's weight is reasonable.

Re:Then why did you?

[rmm4pi8]

1) 'most correct'? hardly correct at all. c4 doesnt 'leak' more than tnt, etc. purifying uranium (increasing density of u235) does not increase the energy leakage. there's just no sense at all in this supposed correlation.

2) the problem with battery technology isnt rechargability--as the article points out, charge/discharge cycles have increased for batteries, and charging is now faster and more efficient. what hasnt changed is the amount of energy stored in a unit of volume, that's the sticking point. an increase in the amount of energy used to recharge batteries wouldnt even be noticeable to the grid, whereas a difference in the amount of energy batteries can discharge would be very noticeable to the consumer.

3) there may or may not be net energy, depending on whose GUT you believe, but furthermore this effect isnt increased in areas with lower mass densities, proving that its got nothing to do with nature 'abhorring a vacuum'.

and i didnt mean the discipline was to blame, i merely meant that yes the principles (physics) of inorganic chemistry are responsible for the limit.

Batteries suck for a reason

[ljavelin]

Fuel cells suck ONLY because no one ever commercialized fuel cells 30 years ago.

Fuel cell technology should have been the next leap forward. But it's taken a long time because most investments in fuel cell has been centered around space applications... where light weight, high-performance electrical power is a requirement.

An incredible amount of fuel cell technology was developed in the 1960s and 1970s for space programs - and when you make money on space programs, the bean counters know that there is no reason (financially) to look at other potential markets. That was simply a sign of the times.

Unfortuantely, now most fuel cell expertise has been lost to the retirement of industry experts. Much of the "innovation" in recent years is merely a rehash of research done 30 or 40 years ago, but forgotten because no one back then had a vision for using fuel cells to replace (terrestrial) batteries.

I contend that many modern fuel cell related ideas and patents are really old ideas that have been rediscovered by a new set of researchers unfamiliar with the developments of the past.

It's like we just lost 30 years of ful cell development... too bad, because if the corporations that originally developed this technology had their shareholders in mind, they'd have a slightly longer vision and would be leaders in a new industry.

Re:Batteries suck for a reason

[commodoresloat]

Fuel cells suck ONLY because no one ever commercialized fuel cells 30 years ago.

Yah. Good thing someone thought to commercialize operating systems then....

Re:Batteries suck for a reason

[ljavelin]

How true.

VMS, MVS, VM, were (and are) real operating systems with features very competitive with those found in modern day operating systems.

Using those seeds, Sun was able to propel Unix into the business environment, leading to further OS refinement. And Apple's commercialization of the GUI desktop forced the development of Windows and OS/2 (and Gnome and KDE for Unix).

Now OS technology is mature thanks to all the investment of commercial predesessors. Operating systems are stable and robust... and like you alluded, some are free.

Linux and BSD wouldn't be where they are now without those early & significant contributions by industry. Those early investments couldn't be had for "free".

The same thing goes for fuel cell technology. Despite the research, it is very expensive to do research, development, and commercialization - fuel cells have some expensive chemistry instide (platinum, palladium, gold), and most people can't afford to "build their own effective fuel cell in their basement" (although I am interested in hearing about those who do!)

Flashlights

[Burpmaster]

According to the How Much Is Inside article on batteries, Duracell D-cell batteries costing $3.69 powered a flashlight for 116 hours, while some unknown brand costing 48 cents lasted 40 hours. This means Duracells cost 3.2 cents/hour and the other brand costed 1.2 cents/hour.

Who would have thought batteries could last that long, or that the brand would make such a difference?

Re:Flashlights

[sql*kitten]

This means Duracells cost 3.2 cents/hour and the other brand costed 1.2 cents/hour.

That's not really an accurate assessment of the relative value, tho'. Take me for example: my idea of a good vacation is to head out into the wilderness. Sure I might save some money buying the cheaper batteries, but at the cost of tripling the weight and volume? It's just not worth it. That is why I believe that there is a market for longer-lasting batteries even at a premium price, because cents/hour doesn't tell the whole story.

What I wanna see is...

[ScottBob]

A rechargeable battery that puts out 1.5 volts instead of 1.2 like current NiCds and NiMH batteries. That way you can use them in devices that were designed for alkalines, e.g. boom boxes and portable TVs. Using currently available rechargeables sucks, because you have less useable time with the device because the voltage was low to begin with.

And like what was mentioned in another post, faster charge times. I would drive an electric vehicle everywhere if I could go 200 miles (with no slowing down towards the end) per charge, and a completely full charge only took 10 minutes.

Re:What I wanna see is...

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

I would drive an electric vehicle everywhere if I could go 200 miles (with no slowing down towards the end) per charge, and a completely full charge only took 10 minutes.
200 miles of reasonable performance isn't that hard to do, but it costs more (economy of scale, probably) to build one.
Charging in 10 minutes isn't a factor of the batteries so much as the wire feeding them. I know of a company building a lead-acid based cell that has less internal cell resistance than an extension cord. You can charge their cells just about as fast as your house wiring can deliver the amps, but 15 amps @ 115 volts is still only 1725 watts, and 10 minutes @ 1725 watts isn't going to drive a car for 200 miles.

--

Re:What I wanna see is...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Use 30 amp wire double-ganged like ai air conditioner and you could pump out 240V*30A= 7200W.

Granted that's not much of a help.

Re:What I wanna see is...

[heli0]

"A rechargeable battery that puts out 1.5 volts instead of 1.2 like current NiCds and NiMH batteries."

You should be able to use NiMH batteries in every application that uses 1.5V alkalines. The reason is that while alkalines have a more linear discharge(i.e. in a certain usage after 1hour use they output 1.4V, after 2hours 1.3V, 4hours 1.1V etc.) NiMH maintain 80-90% output for the duration of their charge and then drop off suddenly.

Look at figure 3-10 on page 14 of this document (500KB PDF) to see the discharge curve for NiMH, and here(top image) is the discharge curve for a 1.5V alkaline.

Re:What I wanna see is...

[Anonymous Coward]

They exist, rechargeable alkalines made by Rayovac.

Re:What I wanna see is...

[NoMaster]

Somebody else has already mentioned discharge V curves, endpoint voltages, etc.

But many years ago, 12V portable equpiment designed to run on replaceable batteries (e.g. test equipment, walkie-talkies, etc) usually had 10-cell holders. When used with 1.5V cells, two positions had dummy cells, or "fillers", giving 1.5 x 8 = 12V. When using rechargeables (in those days, NiCads), all 10 positions were used, giving 1.2 x 10 = 12V.

Just a bit of low-tech history you young'uns may not have known ;-)

Just use VLF beamed power!

[Anonymous Coward]

It works fine, use a VLF antenna actively driven to resonance. Transmits oodles of power.

The important thing is to operate the antenna in the near-field region. Tesla wasn't talking about the energy of the waves themselves, when he said the low-frequency waves were better for power transmission! It's that the lower frequencies mean the near-field region is bigger.

not good for business

[asdren]

Why would Duracell or Energizer want to put themselves out of business? The business model for batteries is just like light bulbs, razor blades and other disposable items, ie relatively frequent repeat sales.

That's why

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why when you buy vibrator batteries from the porn shop they seem to last longer, but do jack squat for my digital camera.

Generator Hub

[spreer]

You want safe and clean? Try a generator hub.

This one is the Shimano NX-30, and it will power a 6 watt front headlight.

Maybe not as bright as your old 10-Watt, and sure, there is a little drag, but it's not bad, and you get to stop charging your bike lights for good. And $60 for the functionality of a battery *and* a front hub is a good deal.

spreer

Re:Generator Hub

[spreer]

Ah crap.

It'll only do a 3-Watt light, which is more of a "be seen" light than a "see" light.

Re:Generator Hub

[stefanlasiewski]

Excellent link, thanks!

I did a bunch of research about 2 years ago about these HUBS. There wasn't much information available, and I couldn't find a shipper for these Shimano hubs. Not that I pursued it real aggressively. I'm a little intimidated by the prospect of building my own wheel...

I also went for some bike rides while in Austria. All of the bikes there had a dynamo hub. I had a cheap rental, and the light put out by my bike was pretty low. I saw a few bikes that had brigher lights, but still much dimmer then my 10-watt. There was one guy who had LED lights, but I think his system was homebrewed.

It looks like they don't work with LEDs as is, and probably require a battery and some fancy doohickies....

mod + 5, obvious

[wolf_m16]

mod + 5, obvious

Six Words

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop copying David Letterman, it's lame.

make a better engine

[Easy2RememberNick]

Well a better idea would be to make products more efficient if possible. Electronics today are like a 1970's gas guzzler car, don't put a bigger gas tank on it, make a better engine.
Or if that isotope-doped halfnium idea ever gets developed for batteries instead of pencil-sized bunker busters that would be good too :P

I disagree that batteries suck

[reboot246]

The battery pack for my Nikon 5700 uses 6 rechargeable NiMH batteries. I can take 200+ photos with one set of batteries. Using flash lowers that to about 150 photos. I usually take an extra set with me just in case, but I've never had to use them. I'm well pleased with the batteries.

Just a few years ago I owned a simple 35mm camera that used a non-rechargeable proprietary battery. It was expensive and good for only a few rolls of film. Yeah, things have improved since then.

Re:LARRY FLINT HAS NUDE J. LYNCH PHOTOS! ANAL HO!

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that pfc Lynch might have been sodomized sometime between when she was rescued and the time she arrived at the hospital in Germany. Will the government investigate what the "boys" may have done, or sweep everything under the carpet...

By the way, I recognize her as a bigger hero now for her actions in America: fighting for the truth and giving credit where due.

Speaking as someone who still uses nicad batteries

[Unknown Poltroon]

They seem to work just fine when youve got a modern charger. You cant be tthe radio shack rechargable double aa nicad.

Re:Muslimse

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one appreciate the graphical accuracy of the genitals. However, I dont really appreciate the post otherwise.

"extensive overview"

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is an "extensive overview"?

I did that once

[ruiner13]

I sucked on a battery once. It was an electrifying experience. I was shocked by the outcome.

(sorry)

look at the damn date...

[spir0]

this is mid 2001.

get up with the play motherfuckers

Li-ion = good, but not for consumers...

[Magus311X]

Most Li-ion batteries that consumer get is typically at most 15-20% of the density that is used for military applications.

It's possible to have a battery that would make a Centrino laptop run 24 hours under load and be the exact same size and nearly identical weight to what you can get now. It just would cost a ton to produce, develop, and if it failed you better have a buttload of Lithex available to put out the fire -- cause water, baking soda, fire extinguishers, and smothering won't do anything to help save your life.

-----

Re:JOIN THE JIHAD!

[Anonymous Coward]

anti-slash continues to suck.

How about the other way around

[xenophrak]

There are two ways to increase the life of a portable device. Either give it more juice, or cut the current draw.

It seems to me, that there is a brighter future in making existing technologies more energy efficient, rather than increasing the load of the power source.

Batteries

[Jonathan Platt]

Batteries have been improving; just our power consumption has increased at a much faster rate.

Think about it, the largest consumers of power in a laptop are the monitor, the cpu, and the HDD. All the things which have been getting bigger and more powerful, and at the same time we have seen too fewer improvements in efficiency.

At the same time there has also been the introduction of USB, which is a nice way for an peripheral to also draw power from the battery; and demands from the public to build smaller and lighter computers, which has required smaller batteries.

If you are willing to have a slightly larger computer, than battery life is really quite reasonable. For instance the Thinkpad T40 with 9 cell battery lasts over 7 hours.

I think the future for battery life really is in more efficient components. Think how long a battery will last when we are using super conductors.

Its all about money..

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally think that this is enitrely done by purpose. They do this just so that we go buy more batteries, which means profit. Same thing goes for other devices that we cannot live without..

I think the key is..

[Epistax]

A battery that knows whether or not it is in use. Perhaps it would be possible for another voltage to trigger the chemical compounds in the first place, that is, when there is no voltage across it, the chemicals are relatively inert. A while ago I read (possibly on slashdot?) of a substance which is a liquid when any current is going through it, and a jelly-solid when it isn't.
Now the downside to this avenue is that each battery would have a battery (likely internal). However this wouldn't have to be nearly as big-- by design, make a very low current required to start/stop the chemical process in the larger battery, which is now free to be much more caustic in nature. Now the battery may still explode from mal-use, then again a passive fuse element could also be added which makes sure the battery permanently becomes in it's inactive state.

I'm not saying we know how to do half of this, it's just one option we can persue. Another option is fundamentally chance the amount of electricity anything handheld uses. This would be happening right now, but every time we make something more efficient, we make it faster so that it's consumption is more or less equal (usually more).

Re:I think the key is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Batteries already don't supply any current when they're not in use (this is due to something physicists like to call the conservation of energy): you only use as much power as you draw. Portable devices inevitably leak current, which is the real problem. Batteries do leak charge, but the fundamental physics doesn't require a special on-off switch built into the batteries to turn them "off", and as a practical matter, it doesn't make any more difference than having an external on-off switch.

Re:I think the key is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to high school chemistry class and learn about oxidation-reduction reactions, okay? The fact that there is a voltage potential across the terminals of a battery does not necessarily mean that anything is begin used up. There is a reason that it is called a "potential" you know...

Re:I think the key is..

[Hannes Eriksson]

The voltage required to "ignite" a battery could well come from the energy required to push a button. There have been successful experiments with radiotransmitters operating purely on pushbutton power.

Think of a cigarette lighter, that spark could be useful, couldn't it?

Re:I think the key is..

[duguk]

each battery would have a battery

And whats wrong with a dirty great giant crank handle?

/. religion?

[Cyno01]

Kinda like this?

Why would they make batteries that were good?

[Anonymous Coward]

lets be real... if i were working for a battery company, i'd make batteries which people would _have_ to replace... it makes me money! sure, i could make 1 battery, that was really good and charge 20 bucks for it, but cheapos wouldnt buy it.

then again, as a consumer. its a bitch :/

Uhm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm. Anybody notice this article was dated June 8, 2001?!?!

Tough Choice

[SlipJig]

From the article:

Similar designs use ethanol (beverage alcohol) but currently have substantially lower efficiencies

So theoretically I could power my laptop with beer? Hmmm, which to choose: code, or drink.... code, or drink.... dammit!

Or if I want to play Quake instead of coding, maybe I should use something stronger, like, say, vodka. That'd be cool.

Batteries *have* gotten better ...

[dougmc]

Batteries may not have kept up with Moore's law (and it's not like we'd expect them to) but they have definately gotten better over the last few decades.

The non-rechargable batteries gotten much better, going from the Zinc cells to the modern alkalines -- the capacity has gone up greatly (a factor of 10 or so?) And then there's the non rechargable lithium cells that can hold MUCH more (and costs more too, of course.)

Also, and perhaps even more importantly, the rechargable cells have gotten much better recently. Maybe fifteen years ago, you'd buy 500 mAh AA NiCd cells ... now most people buy 1800 mAh NiMH cells, and for a few dollars more, you can get 2100 mAh AA NiMH cells.

(Quick aside, NiCd vs. NiMH: NiMH have more capacity, but usually cannot deliver as much current in a very short period. NiMH cells do not suffer from voltage depression (often mistakenly called `memory'). NiMH cells are not as environmentally unfreindly as NiCd. NiMH cells usually don't last quite as long as NiCd cells. But for the most part, for most applications, NiMH and NiCd cells can be used interchangably.)

And more recently, Li-Ion and Li-Poly cells have really come of age. These cells often have energy densities and power densities several times greater than what NiCd and NiMH cells have. Li-Ion cells were extremely fragile and could not handle abuse at all, but the new Li-Poly cells are overcoming many of these shortcomings.

Ten years, electric R/C planes were very rare. Now, thanks mostly due to the improvements in batteries, they're found all over the place, and they can perform just as well as the glow and gas powered planes in many cases. All three types of batteries (NiCd, NiMH and Li-Ion/Li-Poly) have improved greatly recently, and all three are quite popular with pilots today.

(Li-Poly especially looks incredibly promising for the future -- today, some planes with motors powered by them can often fly a full hour on a single charge, and things are getting better all the time.)

In short, I don't agree with Michael Rogers at all -- there's all kind of developments being made in batteries. It's just that they're not happening fast enough for him :)

(Semi-relevant aside: I have a TRS-80 Model 100 laptop computer. It's powered by 4 AA batteries, and it lasts a very long time. Perhaps the problem isn't the batteries -- maybe it's the laptop makers who use CPUs that use so much power!)

Re:Batteries *have* gotten better ...

[cr0sh]

Not just electric R/C - but *indoor* electric "slow-fly" R/C has taken off, so to speak - something that would have been deemed almost impossible 10 years ago. Sure, tiny motors have helped, but tiny (and lightweight) batteries have also been a huge improvement allowing for these hobbies (in addition to more electric helicopters, which take way more power to run than a plane)...

Re:Batteries *have* gotten better ...

[KjetilK]

Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, I had to have a full pack of batteries just to drive a small LEGO car. Now, my girlfriend's nephew got a small train for his birthday. The locomotive has a small battery-driven motor, it is really small, yet it does pull a few wagons. I was impressed. So, battery technology has progressed.

Also, my first cell-phone lasted 48 hours in standby, just a few years ago. My new Siemens ME45 lasts about a week. That's definately progress.

That being said, I'm not buying a laptop for myself before they have more than a few hours battery time.

Re:Batteries *have* gotten better ...

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine has a Crusoe chip laptop that tends to last 10-12 hours.

if you need long battery life.. go Crusoe, or Efficion or whatever they're calling it now :)

Re:Batteries *have* gotten better ...

[suitti]

Smart battery chargers made more difference to me than increased capacity.

In the old days, you put your NiCad batteries into the device, and ran it to zero. Then, you'd put the batteries on the charger for exactly six hours. If you forgot, you reduced the life and performance of the batteries.

You ran them to zero, because otherwise you didn't know how long to charge them.

Modern chargers know when the battery is full, and stop. Leave the battery on the charger for weeks and you now get fully charged batteries when you want them. And, you get 1,000 cycles instead of 50 to 100. Is the battery at an unknown charge level, or known to be half charged? No problem. Just throw it on the charger. 1,000 cycles is a cycle a week for 20 years.

Modern chargers do this for old batteries too.

So, with the old chargers, the batteries required vigilent maintenence. With new chargers, the batteries are at your convenience.

My digital camera takes about 100 pictures on a smart media card. It also takes about 100 pictures on one cycle of batteries. When I'm done shooting, I dump the pictures on my computer, and swap batteries to another set. If it was $2 for new batteries, I would take fewer pictures. For me, it's about a penny.

INCORRECT!

[michaeltoe]

The future, my friends, is in the WiFi of the power supply world; Tesla Coils! That's right, tell your stock broker to start investing in the human sized bug zapper market asap! *bzzrt*

Sorry about this post.

[SiliBelgian]

80 motherfucking dollars for a stupid dynamo hub ???
That makes me really angry...
Seems like your country is obsessed with making rich companies richer, at the cost of the environment. (From the US, are you? Interesting)

Anywayz, we have dynamo hubs on almost every bike here, and they work quite well too, giving bright light without requiring much extra labour. I can understand you want to use reliable flashing battery-powered light if you have to go through rush hour, though. Point taken.

Re:Sorry about this post.

[stefanlasiewski]

Seems like your country is obsessed with making rich companies richer, at the cost of the environment. (From the US, are you? Interesting)

Actually, this is the price charged by the European dealers...

Schmidt hubs were something like $180: http://www.kinetics.org.uk/html/son_hub_dynamo.htm l

Re:Sorry about this post.

[Moofie]

Gosh. here is a rear hub that costs $164 bucks. And it's Japanese. And it doesn't have a generator.

I think you could probably think of something a little less stupid to criticize America for.

Radio Shack Batteries

[waldoj]

Remember, kids: for good ol' fashioned batteries, you can't beat Radio Shack brand batteries, sez Consumer Reports. Plus, their alkaline D batteries really are Ds, and not Cs in D cases. Longest life, lowest price, non-deceptive -- what's not to like?

-Waldo Jaquith

TESLA Magnifying Transmitter

[johnrpenner]

Tesla had this problem licked early last century, until funding dried up, and they tore down his Magnifying Transmitter... and we're stuck without powerless - here's in 1900's:

My belief is firm in a law of compensation. The true rewards are ever
in proportion to the labour and sacrifices made. This is one of the
reasons why I feel certain that of all my inventions, the magnifying
Transmitter will prove most important and valuable to future
generations. I am prompted to this prediction, not so much by thoughts
of the commercial and industrial revolution which it will surely bring
about, but of the humanitation consequences of the many achievements
it makes possible. Considerations of mere utility weigh little in the
balance against the higher benefits of civilisation. We are confronted
with portentous problems which can not be solved just by providing for
our material existence, however abundantly. On the contrary, progress
in this direction is fraught with hazards and perils not less menacing
than those born from want and suffering. If we were to release the
energy of atoms or discover some other way of developing cheap and
unlimited power at any point on the globe, this accomplishment,
instead of being a blessing, might bring disaster to mankind in giving
rise to dissension and anarchy, which would ultimately result in the
enthronement of the hated regime of force.

The greatest good will come
from technical improvements tending to unification and harmony, and
my wireless transmitter is preeminently such. By its means, the human
voice and likeness will be reproduced everywhere and factories driven
thousands of miles from waterfalls furnishing power. Aerial machines
will be propelled around the earth without a stop and the sun's energy
controlled to create lakes and rivers for motive purposes and
transformation of arid deserts into fertile land. Its introduction for
telegraphic, telephonic and similar uses, will automatically cut out
the statics and all other interferences which at present, impose
narrow limits to the application of the wireless. This is a timely
topic on which a few words might not be amiss.

(Nikola Tesla, From 'The Strange Life of Nikola Tesla')

Batteries not included

[igny]

I just bought a pack of batteries, but the batteries were not included, so I had to buy them again.

...and mixed with a certain kind of Fusion

[ryg0r]

The machines have all the energy they need.

Well, I'd hate to become a battery, but I'm sure I could coax some one to become for me, if I made an interactive neural simulation

I had to say it....

Ethanol-based Fuel Cells

[Preston Pfarner]

The ethanol-powered fuel cells are the way to go (not methanol). Then you and your gadgets can share the same hip flask. "One for you, one for me"

Energy Density...

[polarbrowser]

Gasoline, diesel, propane or the overlooked butane. If you want power you need to think about energy density. What are the most practical energy dense storage mediums?

Forget fuel cell, think engine or turbine. I don't mean nano or thing exotic like that, just tiny. Tiny engines, whats so difficult about that? really what is?

Of course you can't just scale down an inline four from a toyota, you would need to take into account the physics of micro fluid dynanics and such. And think how cheaply a little engine could be made. Some casting, stamping and drilling. And a tiny engine wouldn't need to be overhauled, think disposable.

I imagine a butane lighter with a reciptocating piston engine and ac generator, through in a transformer, full wave bridge rectifiers and voltage regulators and you could have a universal portable power supply.
And how much would it cost? lighter + a few ounces of machined metal + magnets and coils + a chip and some caps + liscensing fee

It would be so small that the heat and exhaust fumes and noise would be negligable.

I figure it would be cool...

[Kaki Nix Sain]

... to have a rechargable battery charger that could suck energy out of near-dead non-rechargables and put it (well, most or some) into the rechargables. I have several gadgets that don't drain batteries of all their energy before they stop working (probably picky with the voltage level or something), and running all my other stuff on "near-dead"s from the pile I have accumulated has its own annoyances.

I might look into making such a thing myself someday, if I get sufficiently bored or I could use it for credit in some lab class. As it is, I'll more likely switch to all rechargables and accept the hit in mean time before power loss in those picky devices.

Research is continuing

[Hecatonchires]

My housemate works at the Inteligent Polymer Research Institute(IPRI) at Wollongong Uni. His thesis is on polymers for batteries. Interesting stuff. Talks about batteries that can be sprayed onto the chassis of a car in layers, to make a battery that lasts forever and is amazingly efficient.

So does

[Anonymous Coward]

your mom.

Just curious...

[MoeMoe]

I have always wondered something... I know that there are ways of converting heat to electricity, and I know that electricity can generate heat... I am just wondering if there is a reason why no one has used this mutual connection to investigate enhancing battery technology based on this simple cyclic loop... Can anyone explain?

I know this one

[GFW]

Why don't nuclear subs have batteries to run silently too? And why do they need them, is the nuke plant noisy?

You can't just turn off (and turn back on!) a nuclear reactor the way you can turn on or off a fossil fuel engine (whether diesel or anything else). It's a major, time consuming process. So, shutting off the reactor to "run silent" is not an option.

Yes, reactors are noisy relative to batteries. They have hot fluids being pumped around in heat exchangers and driving generating turbines.

toys?

[glitch23]

'Ironically, in our headlong rush to create sophisticated untethered computing, the most problematic technology turns out also to be the oldest: those nondescript metal cylinders that never seemed to be included with our Christmas toys.'

I don't know about you but somehow the wife always seems to get her vibrators that are with the rest of the presents and *I'm* not the one buying them for her.

All this talk about...

[nuclearsnake]

All this talk about batteries and only one matrix reference?!
For shame Slashdot. For shame!

Is it worth it? Let me work it. ;-)

[MacFury]

It's most likely worth the small percentage of problems. Everything has it's flaws. Our current batteries are terribly toxic. The new design looks to be more enviromentally friendly.

There is an older solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinetic Flashlight technology is about 20 years old. It works and it lasts forever... Not the best power source for a laptop or palm, but look on the bright side: after using it for a few month you would be able crush rocks with your fingers.

Batteries aren't the problem.

[SetupWeasel]

Listen up all y'all. It is time to testify.

Maybe the problem isn't the batteries, maybe the problem is what we expect them to do. Sure a laptop that runs Unreal Tournament 2003 at 100 fps is nice, but when was the last time you saw anyone playing it off their battery.

Portable eletronics will always need to be more rugged and less power hungry then their stationary brethern, without exception, no matter how good batteries get. So here is a bright idea.(let me know if this gets too deep for you) How about we stop expecting portable electronics to be as powerful as non-portable electronics?

Sure try to make better batteries, work as hard as you can at it, but keep in mind what Lone Star said to the Druish Princess Vespa: "Take only what you need to survive"

No, and by that I mean zero, laptops need a DVD-R. Almost no laptops need any 3D accelerator. Why, on god's green earth, do cell phones need a camera? Why does a PDA need enough hardware to play videogames? Do you buy a cellphone for a camera? Did you go shopping for a portable video game system and say to yourself, "Hey this GBA is pretty cheap and has really good games, but I am looking for something that is 4 times as much and is hard as hell to play games on?"

Opmization is what must prevail. Making one machine that does everything, will not work. Give the people what they need. No one is buying a phone for its camera. They buy a camera for that. Power saved. No one needs to burn a DVD while flying from New York to LA. Power saved.

I mean look at the Game Boy. The first took 4 AAs and lasted 4-6 hours. The Game Boy Color took 2 AAs and lasted 10 hours. The Game Boy Advance takes 2 AA and lasts 15 hours. Batteries have not gotten that much better, but today's Game Boy users are spending 1/8th as much on them.

Programmers need to care about memory and processor usage again; engineers need to care about power consumption again. Do you really think that an mp3 player really needs to take 20MB of space? Power saved.

Batteries aren't the problem. People are.

SW

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[geekoid]

yes, but the drive to add more stuff, drives the technology that lets that stuff use less power.

I mean, if it was the way you say, cell phones would still be worn on the sholder.

you don't give the people what they need, you sell the people what they want.
and if nobody is burning a DVD, then how is it wasting power. beside, people use it for movies.

you know, we don't need these fancy buttins either.

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[Chris Pimlott]

I mean look at the Game Boy. The first took 4 AAs and lasted 4-6 hours.

Where are you getting this from? I had an original Game Boy and the battery life was great. We're talking about battery changes on the order of weeks; sure, that's not constant usage, but you figure an hour or two a day and that's maybe a few dozen hours.

This Usenet thread backs me up on that, with one person saying 30-40 and another saying 30. This one also says 30 hours

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

A DVD-R drive doesn't actually require all that much power, because most of the time it's spun down. The real power suckers are the CPU, display, and hard drive (especially the CPU and display), none of which you advocated chucking. While I agree with you on principle, I think your ire is misdirected.

Similarly with all those picture phones; sure, nobody actually asked for a built-in digital camera, but I bet a lot of the people who use them might not want a full-fledged digital camera, but are willing to play around with the one built in to their cell phone. And a CCD chip doesn't have a huge power requirement, especially when it's not always in use.

I happen to use an old 486 notebook when I need to be mobile, and it happens to work just fine for everything I need, but a lot of people buying notebooks these days actually are buying them in lieu of a desktop, which makes perfect sense (if you move around a lot, what's easier to move, even if you do have to plug it in all the time?).

We have what we have today because that's what the free market demands. My own desires are for smaller, cooler, more efficient, quieter computers (I haven't upgraded my main machine since I put in an Athlon 1 GHz chip in a few months ago), not for the latest and greatest, but I'm pretty much in the minority in that. And while I may be satisfied with the current state of art, it's only the nature of progress to demand more from our electronics and our batteries.

There are cost-benefit trade offs, but as in anything, common sense is usually a bad guide for figuring out what the right balance is.

The only really silly thing about this whole demand for better battery technology is wondering why batteries aren't improving as fast as chip fabrication; batteries, after all, are a matter of material science. These are the same kinds of fruit cakes who probably wonder why we can't build ropes that are twice as strong every 18 months. Bandwidth is increasing at a rate even faster than computer speeds, but nobody is demanding that computers improve at a rate of something like 10x every 18 months.

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

...How about we stop expecting portable electronics to be as powerful as non-portable electronics?...No, and by that I mean zero, laptops need a DVD-R. Almost no laptops need any 3D accelerator.

OK, even if I agreed that all of those things are not necessary in portable electronics, there's one thing that's totally critical in portable electronics and also a huge power drain: wireless communications. Trust me, it's not the camera in the cell phone that's wasting your battery, it's the transmitting.

The "killer feature" of laptops isn't a built-in DVD-R or a 3-D accelerator. It's 802.11 - and that uses a lot of power.

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[bluesnowmonkey]

No, and by that I mean zero, laptops need a DVD-R. Almost no laptops need any 3D accelerator. Why, on god's green earth, do cell phones need a camera? Why does a PDA need enough hardware to play videogames? Do you buy a cellphone for a camera? Did you go shopping for a portable video game system and say to yourself, "Hey this GBA is pretty cheap and has really good games, but I am looking for something that is 4 times as much and is hard as hell to play games on?"

True dat! If all need is to take notes, a 3D accelerator in your laptop is definitely overkill. So is the laptop; just use pen and paper instead, though it won't work as well. Better yet, save some trees and just try to remember everything, though it won't work as well.

Wait a second, I don't think I like your line of reasoning at all.

All those battery-wasting devices you mentioned are kinda handy and/or fun, so people like to use them. There's nothing wrong with wanting better batteries so we can use our gadgets longer. Basically, don't be so closed-minded.

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Batteries aren't the problem. People are."

<morpheus voice>

But SetupWeasel, what happens when the people ARE the batteries?

Free your mind.

</morpheus voice>

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

On a completely random note, every cell phone in Japan comes with at least a 1.2 megapixel camera. Even the cell phones that they sell for 1 yen. It's the Japanese way, no one in Japan doesn't have a cell phone, and hey, when you can get a 1.2 megapixel camera for 1 yen, why the hell not?

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[ForestGrump]

I back you up.
I have a laptop because I move around alot. Though, most of the time it is plugged in and used just like a destkop.

One problem many laptop users have is that they don't turn down the brightness on the display.
Yea! try it some time. you'll be shocked that it can be up to an hour of battery run time.

Lastly, the user needs to educate himself. People look at a laptop and see "4 hour battery" and they assume that no matter what they do, the battery will last 4 hours. SORRY! 4 hours if your doing something light. watch a movie or play a game, or some music. that battery just isn't going to last that long.

-Grump

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[Tim C]

Why, on god's green earth, do cell phones need a camera?

I recently bought a 'phone with a camera, a Nokia 3650. This is the first mobile I've bought, having previously vowed never to buy one, but to always get the free one whenever I renewed my contract.

I bought it mostly because I don't have a digital camera, and wanted one that I could carry with me everywhere, for those times when I just want to snap a quick picture and I'm not too worried about the quality. For example, if I'm out buying something for my girlfriend, I can take a picture & send it to her, to make sure it's the right one before buying it. Or I might be out and see something funny/unusual/whatever and just want to take a quick picture.

I wouldn't want to carry a "proper" digital camera around with me, for cost and convenience reasons, but my 'phone goes everywhere with me; it just lives in my pocket.

Besides, as others have pointed out, your rant is entirely misdirected - the camera draws no power when I'm not using it, which is 99% of the time.

No one is buying a phone for its camera.

Maybe that's true where you are, but it's certainly not true in the UK.

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[Maudib]

No, and by that I mean zero, laptops need a DVD-R. Almost no laptops need any 3D accelerator.

Why has no one marked this as a troll? No one needs a DVD-R in a laptop? Some of us actually do video editing, and need to do it at multiple locations and then need to distribute works in progress. Im supposed to carry a full blown desktop and monitor around?
IMHO, current battery tech is finally getting good. On power conservative settings, I can get close to NINE HOURS (9!!!) on a single charge. If I want to play HALO, I can play it for 2 hours before needing to plug in. That aint bad.

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[ediron2]

No, and by that I mean zero, laptops need a DVD-R. Almost no laptops need any 3D accelerator. Why, on god's green earth, do cell phones need a camera? Why does a PDA need enough hardware to play videogames?

<sarcasm>
You're so right. Don't bother examining things in balance. It isn't a question of how many features can be crammed into a device while still attaining the typically-needed battery life. Balance is irrelevant! JUST... SAVE... POWER!

One question: can I at least keep the AC and passenger seats in my car? I realize they're power-hungry features, but I've grown fond of having them there the 20% of the time I use them.
</sarcasm>

Oh, and I think you meant 20 gigs is excessive on an mp3 player. 20 megs is just absurd...

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[jafac]

PDA/Cellphone and Camera/Cellphone combos are a great idea. They solve the portable storage problem. Instead of storing your photos or PDA info on the device (ie. constant power drain to keep them in RAM - or expensive and slow NVRAM), you dial in through the phone network and store your data on a "server".

Re:Batteries aren't the problem.

[haxor.dk]

Yeah! And while you're add it, why do people need to do work on the plane with "laptops" ? They hould do it before they travel, and be well prepared for whatever meetings or presentations they're going to do. Sheesh!

And whats with this "cellular phone" craze ? Foolish, I tell you, phones are supposed to stay at home, so people know where you are when they call.

More efficient electronics might be solution

[failedlogic]

Portable music is all the rage right now and all the devices need batteries of some sort.

When I had a walkman I'd change batteries (even Duracell, Energizer.. other major brand Alkalines) every 15 to 20 hours play time.

I don't own an IPod but a friend tells me that even though they're rechargable they last about the same .. 15 to 20 hours.

Somehow though, Sony seems to have made the Mini-disc player play for over 60 hours (conservatively ... I'd say my play time is closer to 80 hours) on one AA alkaline. Whatever motor they use is obviously very efficient.

My point being... instead of using "better batteries" for everything electronic - or at least portable music - why not ask manufacturers where possible to make products more efficient? I've saved money on batteries and the environment. Yes -- I'll probably buy rechargables soon too.

Re:More efficient electronics might be solution

[Big_Breaker]

Those mini-disc players only read the disc once into memory and then function like memory chip based mp3 players - ie no moving parts. You are gettin 80 hours of life because you probably aren't changing the disc very often.

The ipod has a buffer as well but with 10+ gigs on the hard drive it can't store all the songs in the buffer. The ipod spins up its hard drive and stores those songs in the buffer then powers the HD down to save energy.

Electronic devices are already being designed with energy efficiency as a major design parameter. Some things just take a lot of power ie transceivers, color/backlit screens, speedy cpus.

Re: Physics Review

[Brad Mace]

Every time anything related to energy is mentioned, people forget simple things like conservation of energy. Watches powered by your movement are not capturing wasted energy. They are making it harder for you to move, but by such a slight amount that you don't notice.

This is cooler

[jvonk]

Seiko made the Seiko Thermic watch. Runs off inverse Peltier effect: heat differential->electricity.

Re:To loose a charge

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an ass. Ever hear of a typo?

Re: Physics Review

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is that you expend the same amount of energy, so your arms don't move as far. Since swinging your arms aren't doing anything for you except keeping you from falling over (and not even that, if you're just moving them around for no reason), the device is recovering energy which is otherwise "wasted". Ditto with devices that capture the energy when your feet hit the ground.

The general idea is to prevent as much energy as possible from becoming heat, which is the least organized (and thus useless) form of energy. As long as you have energy in a non-thermal form, you can always do work with it. Thermal energy is only useful when you have a temperature difference, and the smaller that becomes, the less efficient heat engines becomes.

Re:NOT A TROLL! HERE'S A LINK TO THE CNN ARTICLE!

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the article, the whole fucking article, and now I just want to sleeeeeeepzzzzzzzzzz.

Re: phone with camera

[trops]

Look at europe and statistics how many people buy a new phone because of the camera.

fe. me, i would like to wave camera with me all the time, but i do not want to carry all the stuff with me. it would be nice to have a point'n shot in my pocket together with my phone in one small device.

How to slow NiMH's self-discharge rate

[Spoke]

While NiMH batteries (and NiCad and to a much lesser extent, Alkaline batteries) will self discharge over the course of a a few weeks to a few months depending on the battery, you can greatly slow down the rate by storing the batteries in the freezer. I keep all my charged up batteries in the freezer sealed in a zip-lock baggie where they will store for a long time without losing much of their charge.

Re:How to slow NiMH's self-discharge rate

[real_smiff]

is this good advice, seriously? i have some nice expensive NiMH batteries and am tempted to try this, if it doesn't damage them. also wouldn't your fingers freeze to them when you get them out? sounds kind of a hassle. thanks for the interesting idea to this real problem though :)

Re:How to slow NiMH's self-discharge rate

[Wanderer2]

I don't know about freezing them, but storing batteries in a fridge (well wrapped to avoid condensation issues) is recommended by many places. The lower temperature slows down the chemical reaction inside the battery, meaning less leakage. It also makes them less effective if you try to use them before they've warmed up. You'll want to let them thaw before grabbing them and shoving them inside your favorite appliance.

My father stores photographic film in his freezer. Again, that's a case of slowing down a chemical reaction - in this case the one that causes the film to deteriorate over time.

The NiMH are actually pretty cool..

[rofthorax]

I use about 20 NiMH batteries, and the best ones I've found are the Energizer ones.. Have you bothered to hold them in your hand, they are heavy!! There is a new charger from Rayovac that charges special batteries in 15 minutes, they are costly. but I wouldn't mind having some.. If you haven't heard about them, its probably something to do with the fact that I'm living next door to two major national laboratories, Sandia and LANL.. Its harder to pull wool over scientists eyes here.. I don't buy anything but rechangeables.. Buying storbought brand of batteries are like buying brands of toothpaste.. You know there can't be that much that has changed, they are still changing the package sizes, changing charge amount, changing the packaging materials to see if people really do buy stuff based on looks and not on function.. Anyhow, back to batteries.. If you could sell a battery like a laptop or cellphone for anything else, say digital cameras.. I'd be all for that..

Urine Batteries are no joke. link

[zymano]

Just piss in you new powerbook

How they power their clocks in INDIA

Why not solar cells?

[TheUz]

...or a solar cell used to recharge the compound that best recharges with a slow, small current? Ah, but we need fast discharge, yes? Don't they make these things called capacitors? I am kind of shocked that nobody else has mentioned solar power. Seems obvious. -T

exactly....batteries work .

[zymano]

Blame Intel and Amd and the public for buying their space heaters.

Transmeta chips last for 6 hours on one charge. Maybe even more than that. I have kept up on the news for their brand new chip.

a button-sized gas turbine is what's wanted

[Bob Bitchen]

"engines of Lilliput"
micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)

Cool (actually very hot), but need I say more?

http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory .c fm?story_id=1020811

Hard Drives

[CaptainAx]

PC speed is lagging horribly because of hard drive technology. Seems to always be something.

Plain alkaline good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always used plain alkalines in my blinkies and they last nigh on forever.

deltaV

[real_smiff]

this is a deltaV (greek delta, triangle, i can't type) charger (rate of change in voltage). the other type of intelligent charger is deltaT (temp.) dV work on the principle that when a battery is at full charge there is a 'blip' in the (voltage-time) graph which you can detect with some simple digital logic. not only can these chargers charge fast, they *have* to else this point is not as obvious and they're more likely to miss it (bad!) dT work by sensing the sharper rise in temperature after a battery is full.. not as clever imho but a good backup. just thought someone might find that interesting, if not n/m :p

So where is Sarium Krellide?

[skinfitz]

Holds a maximum of 1.3*10^6 megajoules per cubic centimetre with a maximum leak rate of no more than 1.05 kilojoules per hour apparently.

But they have improved...a lot

[Zog The Undeniable]

20 years ago there were no consumer rechargeable batteries. NiCd rechargeables weren't very good for battery life or the environment, but now NiMH rechargeables last about as long as normal batteries.

In the last 5 years, mobile phones have really driven battery technology, with weight being a big consideration - hence Li-ion batteries. In the 1980s mobiles were the size of a house brick and weighed about the same, but you still had to charge them daily. Now they weigh as much as an astronaut's fart and last 5 days (partly because digital phones are less power-hungry, but the battery is still a huge factor).

carbon nanothings

[js7a]

The problem with nanoporous carbon capacitors is that they can't hold their charge over time as well as electrolytics. Of course the little press release linked to in the parent comment doesn't say, but I'd be suprised if they get more than a few hours half-life. Another thing is that medium amounts of physical trauma to such capacitors can cause plasma arcs (i.e., fire.)

However, carbon nanostructures are perhaps the most promising areas of energy storage research. When someone finds out how to do with nanotubes what people have been doing with nanofilaments, then we're going to have hydrogen storage approaching half the energy density of gasoline, at which point fuel cell transportation becomes much more attractive. (And considerably safer than gasoline storage, although such nanotube H2 storage can be very easily engineered into a powerful bomb beyond anything you can do with gasoline.

Anyway, I also like the Lithium polymer stuff and am sure that will be the next big advance that the consumer sees.

Re:carbon nanothings

[4of12]

Another thing is that medium amounts of physical trauma to such capacitors can cause plasma arcs (i.e., fire.)

Sounds like good after-school fun.

harnessing the body's energy

[commodoresloat]

This crazy Australian performance artist Stelarc gave this question some thought and decided that the throat was a natural wind tunnel that could be used to harness wind energy. So he hired a team of scientists to see what it would take to surgically install a windmill in his throat and to calculate how much energy could be produced there. He gave up on the project after learning that it would take some 600 years of heavy breathing to power a 9-volt battery....

Re:harnessing the body's energy

[Harald Paulsen]

Again it would be porn that drives the new technology.

They've got this all wrong

[OrangAsm]

Vacuum cleaners suck. Fans blow. Batteries discharge.

Excuse me while I milk my chicken. Now where is that nipple?

The problem is not in the batteries

[Rotaluclac]

Batteries have too little stored energy to power the devices.

Why not turn that around? The batteries are okay, but those stupid devices need too much energy to do something useful.

Technology gave us LEDs for light bulbs. If only the same reduction in required energy could be achieved for computers...

This article is more than two years old.

[bludger]

The extremetech article was written on June 8, 2001. This is a bit old for technology overview.

Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Those nondescript metal cylinders are cells. A battery is one or more cells.

And it's still current...

[thrill12]

..seeing the discussion below. So why didn't we progress is the question that is put forward ?

Not too far from the truth?

[Channard]

That may not be the case in the battery market, but in other arenas, the situation is disturbingly similar. When games were available on CDs and floppy together, the CD version was always more expensive, despite it costing less to produce. And there's the magazine that tested CDRs to find that older ones retained data better than newer ones, suggesting that the makers were trying to ensure the continuation of their market by reducing the CDs life.

Re:Not too far from the truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

yep...capitalism is a big fairytale...get used to it

clueless journalists

[simong_oz]

How is it that someone who so obviously doesn't understand the first technical detail of battery technology is allowed to write an article about the R&D state of the battery industry? As if this isn't enough, he then makes a sweeping statement to the effect that battery research is not happening fast enough. Of course, he gains instant credibility for using this year's buzzword "fuel cell".

Fuel Cell Fire Risk

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuel cells powered by "methanol, probably sold in tiny pressurized containers like the canisters used to refill cigarette lighters", seem more dangerous than batteries.

Here's a report of a huge fire 2 weeks ago, opposite my office, which was started by exploding cigarette lighters.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl and/hampshi re/dorset/3224063.stm

At least exploding batteries don't start fires. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/32462.html

Wait till this little breakthrough goes commercial

[MikShapi]

Then I'll be able to charge my smartphone.

Using... umm.. me. Growing humans may not be a power-efficient way of producing power, but it sure as hell can give you a handy power socket when you need one. Maybe in a decade or two...

My first cell phone

[weave]

My first mobile phone, purchased c. 1994 had an entire 15 minutes of talk time or 4 hours of standby. I had to have a charging station that took multiple batteries and carry spares with me during the day. It was horrible.

My t610 goes about a week (assuming I don't draw it down running the bluetooth connection for hours using GPRS dialup through it).

Granted, modern phones don't draw the current as the earlier generations do, but I consider the entire package a big gain (plus I get a cheezy camera as well! :)

A nice graph

[awol]

A nice graph would be Ah/g over time for the last 20 years. Or even Ah per AA cell over the last 20 years. I would be interested to see the shape of the graph. Unlikely to be exponential, but would it be logorithmic (ie diminishing returns). Or even Ah/$ from AA cell.

All of these metrics would show (I think) that batteries suck much less than they used to and they suck only marginally now. Sure the ideal world of never having to care about power is a way off yet, but things aren't so bad.

(* Batteries Included)

[Dogtanian]

I think only North American products do not come with batteries. Most European and Asian consumer products come with the batteries.

I noticed that. It never used to be the case, but now most battery-powered goods in the UK tend to come with them; often ready-installed (you pull out the small piece of plastic between the battery and one of the terminals).

Don't understand why the situation would be different in North America, or have people just failed to notice that things have changed since their childhood?

Re:(* Batteries Included)

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the cost is transparent to the buyer because Americans are, in general, more stupid and tend not to consider other factors such as needing to buy batteries.

Actually...

[Benm78]

This is not the major problem with lightbulbs pooping out.

When you switch one on, the tungsten filament is still cold, and - like most metals - the resistance of the filament is lower at lower temperatures.

This is what causes a major surge in amperage, and this is what actually 'breaks' the filament. The cold period lasts only a split second, but this is enough to fry a weak spot in the filament.

The weak spots are formed during 'normal' use, since it is virtually impossible to create a wire with even with along its entire length. A part that is only marginally thinner than the rest, will have higher resistance and hence voltage drop and power dissipation than the rest of the wire. This higher temperature will cause the tungsten to evaporate faster, and condense slower, on the already weak part of the filament - causing the weakness to get weaker until in eventually poops out under start-up conditions.

The funny thing is: some ordinary bulbs can run for decades continously, but don't even think of switching them off and on after that!

info on NiMH batteries

[cagle_.25]

I've been looking into different battery types because of a robot I'm building (nothing snazzy -- just a toy). I found the technical docs at www.duracell.com and www.energizer.com pretty much answered all my questions about batteries.

How old was this article?

[iii_rjm]

I point to this one quote on page 2 The wonderful side of this dream is that some engineers expect it to be reality by the end of 2001

Re:Monster caps are great

[JCMay]

Until you short one with something you care about. 50C of charge flowing down something in a fraction of a second (or 50-500A of current) is not what I want to think about. "Instant disintegration" comes to mind.

Ever change a automotive battery and have the wrench touch the body of the car?

Batteries have that same "no current feature" that caps do.

Re:Weight

[DrEldarion]

Yeah, but there isn't really THAT much of the uranium or plutonium in there, is there?

isotope batteries

[poelzi]

Isotope batteries produce power for 12-50 years constant. But with the multi billion market of our battery industion, would be destroyed by such a device.

http://discuss.foresight.org/critmail/sci_nano.8 8- 94/1260.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=isotope+battery

In other news ...

[Scholasticus]

1. Fusion Power Still Fifty Years Away.
2. No Cure For Cancer Yet.
3. Where The Hell Is My Robot Butler!?!
4. Still No Cities On The Moon.

Of course there's been limited/no development

[iceT]

There is an entire class of industry that revolves around the fact that their products are disposable.

Batteries, Light Bulbs are two of the oldest members. Neither set of manufacturers have any kind of incentive to make their products last SIGNIFICANTLY longer. Their revenue streams are BASED on the fact that you have to replace them.

The faster you go through them, the cheaper they are.. (carbon batteries are cheap compared to Alkaline, which are cheap compared to NiMH), becase they can make up the different in volume. But they still have to make money.

So, what incentive do they have to make a battery that lasts substantially longer? I shy away from replacing my laptop batteries until the absolute last moment, because they run about $120 each, and most people that have one will tell you that a used laptop battery (charge/discharge, lather rinse repeat) will only last about a year, maybe 2 before your runtime is in fractions of an hour..

It's simple economics.

GENPOW(a, h):Enegery generating instruction

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a CPU instruction which outputs the required amount of energy? It would take as input, the number of watts to be generated as input, and produce the desired amount of energy as output.

For example:
LDI %eax, 5 // Put input value in %eax
GENPOW %eax, [I/O port address] //Power output port

would generate 5 watts of power to the I/O port specified in the instruction.

This may very well be the solution to all our energy problems. Each home could have it's own power generator. I better patent it while I can.

His last sentence decreased his credibility

[kg4eyf]

"we're going to need all the volts we can get."

Unfortunately, it's not volts we're after, it's capacity. Amp-hours, or even more fundamentally, coulombs. If you wanted allthe volts you could get, then shuffle your feet on the floor and touch something metal. It might hurt, but it won't power a laptop for very long.

genpow(wattage, I/O port) instruction

[GillBates0]

Posted as AC by mistake

How about a CPU instruction which outputs the required amount of energy? It would take as input, the number of watts to be generated as input, and produce the desired amount of energy as output.

For example:
LDI %eax, 5 // Put input value in %eax
GENPOW %eax, [I/O port address] //Power output port

would generate 5 watts of power to the I/O port specified in the instruction.

This may very well be the solution to all our energy problems. Each home could have it's own power generator. I better patent it while I can.

Sure laugh about it now...

[SageMadHatter]

How about one of those blood sugar powered [smh.com.au] setups. Then your laptop could help you lose weight without all that inconvenient moving around. I can see it now. "I need to finish this paper by midnight, bring me more Krispy Kremes NOW!"

Didn't we learn anything about been human batteries for machines, in this movie: The Matrix

Mad Hatter

The article repeated some misconceptions...

[AB3A]

That bit about NiCd batteries having "memory" but not NiMH? Not true. Yeah, they got the crystalization part right, but they ignored the usual cause. Too many people (manufacturers and users) used dumb chargers and overcharged the batteries causing them to release hydrogen and oxygen. The resulting charge/discharge curve led people to think this was the memory effect, when it really wasn't.

Battery chargers today are much more sensitive to the charge state of a battery and as a result they're much less likely to overcharge a battery.

According to the GE manual on NiCd batteries, there really is a "memory effect" on NiCd batteries, but it relates to their use on board spacecraft in orbit where charge and discharge cycles are very regular. This effect is slightly different from that which results from overcharging the pack. Most people don't charge and discharge their battery packs so regularly.

In the case of the batteries in orbit, the full capacity can be restored by one or two irregular charge/discharge cycles. However in the case where you overcharge the batteries, you actually lose capacity in the battery.

By the way, overcharging a NiCd battery is less damaging than overcharing a NiMH battery. The former can recover some of it's capacity by exposure to air to recover the hydrogen and oxygen gasses it released, but the latter generally doesn't.

And in other news...

[jd]

Sex addicts expressed frustration and irritation at what they claimed were misleading statements by the Slashdot news service. "They said these batteries sucked!" one person noted. "This is blatantly untrue! They just kinda stand there and do nothing."

When reporters contacted Slashdot, CowboyNeil refused to comment, on the grounds that he was a poll. Every electrical appliance within 50 feet of the phone ground to a halt, many showing signs of severe overload.

Re: phone with camera

[Anonymous Coward]

me, i would like to wave camera with me all the time

I, too would like to wave a camera with me all the time, but it seems to draw an awful lot of attention from all the people waving back.

Isotope decay batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

I think someone may have mentioned it already, but there is some research being done with isotope decay batteries. Here are two links that talk about the technology.

http://www.betavoltaic.com/main.html

http://www.americanantigravity.com/betavoltaic.h tm l

Your LED flashlight must of been just crappy

[cbriscoe]

I take mine with me on backpacking trips and it is great. Not only is it brighter than my friends conventional flashlight that is 3X bigger, I don't have to worry about the extra weight of a bigger flashlight and spare batteries.

Re:Your LED flashlight must of been just crappy

[Technician]

I don't use a regular flashlight due to the low use time, breakable bulbs and the need for spare batteries. The Eveready LED folding lantern is a small brother to the florescent folding lantern. Great for reading and lighting the entire inside of a tent. 200 hours of light means a spare set of AA's is just insurancen not a nessacity. If you want a tiny spot of light like the Forever Flashlight provides, the Brinkman long life LED light runs on 2 AA batteries. I like to see more than just a spot, so I haven't ever changed it's batteries yet. It's useful for looking for signs in the dark where a wide pattern light won't reach the distance. The brinkman is about the size of a AA maglight and is waterproof. The Inova X5 is just about industructable, weather tight and the brightest of my LED lights, but is the most expensive to feed. It uses 2 camera lithium cells so a battery change is about $12. The CampCo 3 LED torch uses 3 regular AAA batteries and feels light and breakable like the forever flashlight. It works OK, but it seems lightweight and flimsy. The Coast TechTorches are a good personal light complete with belt carrying case and screw on diffuser. They put out a lot of light in a small size, but they use N cells so they are ot the cheapest to run, but they are much cheaper to use than the Inova.
So in a nutshell, I use the Eveready the most in the tent and home for book reading. I use the Inova for daily use because of the brightness and it fits nicely in the Mag Light belt pouch. I keep a Brinkman in the car glovebox as a standby and the CampCo by the bed for the trip down the hall in the middle of the night.

Fry's has the Forever light on it's shelves. I tried one. It puts out much less light then any of the above lights. With it's lense, it has a small light pattern like the Brinkman. With the Brinkman I get hundreds of hours of brighter light without having to shake it and it's much smaller. The AA batteries are not hard to find. Most of the time I want a wider pattern to light a bigger spot than my footprint size spot on the ground.

Re:Your LED flashlight must of been just crappy

[cbriscoe]

I just fished mine out of my backpack to see the check the brand. It is a Dorcy and it takes 4 aaa's. I got it at GI Joes. I would have to say it is kind of on the flimsy side and definately is not waterproof. However, it is very lightweight and that is important when backpacking. I am very satisfied with the amout of illumination it puts out. Maybe I will check out some of the other brands and models to see if something else may suit me better.

Re:Your LED flashlight must of been just crappy

[Technician]

Just for grins, If you have a FRY's near you, take your flashlight to the store and compare it directly with the highly advertised Forever Flashlight and let me know if you get different results than I have. Of intrest is brightness, beam size, time of bright output, etc.

In other words, would you consider using the Forever Flashlight in place of one of the battery LED flashlights? The single AAA cell Dorcy I have has an aluminum body with 0-rings at both ends, but the push switch is not watertight, a weak spot in an otherwise fine very compact light.

Re:Your LED flashlight must of been just crappy

[Technician]

I think your friends flashlight must be a real wimp. I just found a review of the Forever Flashlight that repeats my findings. It is dim.

The review can be found at http://www.equipped.com/led_lights2.htm#hds

I'll take a set of AA 200 hour batteries rather than mess with the constant shaking required to get marginal light from a Forever Flashlight
.

Re:Your LED flashlight must of been just crappy

[cbriscoe]

Sorry for the late reply. I do have a Fry's within 5 miles of where I live. Next time I go there I will check out the forever flashlight and compare results. Is your Dorcy flashlight one that hooks onto a keychain?

Re:Your LED flashlight must of been just crappy

[cbriscoe]

I think your right about my friends conventional flashlight. My Dorcy is not the brightest but it works for what I need it for. A light weight flashlight. I would even consider the battery free one on the link you provided if it weighed less. Sure, it is inconvenient to have to shake it every 5 minutes but backpacking is filled with inconveniences. My major goal is to make my pack as light as possible and still have some luxuries such as a flashlight. When you are hiking 15+ miles a day, every ounce counts.

Capacitor != battery replacement

[TeknoHog]

There's a more fundamental reason why capacitors are unlikely to replace batteries. As you already hinted, their capacitances are measured in F = C / V = As / V. This means that their voltage goes linearly with the charge stored. In a battery you want to keep the voltage as steady as possible, between full and empty charge.

Capacitors are good at taking and giving huge currents. That's why they are used to smooth out peaks in voltage and current, in many different devices like motors and CPUs. This also means they ease the load of the device on the batteries. Thus capacitors are not going away anytime soon, but neither are batteries.

Re:Capacitor != battery replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Just put a voltage regulator on it. Digital battery-powered equipment needs
one anyway.

Fe3

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't remember password. . .

anyway, there's SuperIron (Fe3) batteries which last a lot longer. They replace the side of the battery that always dries out first with a much longer lasting material: Fe3 Superiron. It corrodes quickly, but the electrolytes used in batteries actually stabalize the molecule and cause it NOT to corrode. Just google for Superiron Battery and look around, the technology is 5 years old or so and I'm surprised it hasn't been implimented.
--Bluefox Icy

Bah.

[poot_rootbeer]

No, and by that I mean zero, laptops need a DVD-R.

I'm a film editor and the studio has just told be to be in their office in LA tomorrow morning with a rough cut of the project.

Do you buy a cellphone for a camera?

Maybe you don't, and maybe I don't, but there are a lot of people out there staring at the phone displays going "Hmm... phone without a camera, or phone with a camera for $50 more... which is a better deal?" And they're choosing the camera phone.

You're making the mistake of assuming other people's needs are the same as yours. You think having a DVD-R drive in a laptop is dumb? Then uy a laptop that doesn't have a DVD-R. Why would you want to restrict the options presented to the rest of us?

No one is buying a phone for its camera. They buy a camera for that. Power saved.

Power usage of cell phone + power usage of digital camera > Power usage of camera phone.

I mean look at the Game Boy.

Yes, let's. The reason they've been able to increase battery life with each hardware revision is because they've stripped out extraneous features, right? The LCDs are darker and display fewer colors, the processor is less powerful... No, wait. Actually the opposite happened. There must be some other factor involved.

Al-Qaeda Plots to Buy 10,000 AA Batteries

[BigBlockMopar]

Plus, the actual amount of radioactive material would be tremendously small (think ounces per hundreds of people). If the waste became a concern, a standard battery slot could be developed so that batteries with longer lives could be manufactured. Those 10+ year batteries could simply be moved from computer to computer over the years.

Depending on whether or not the material is fissionable, with enough such batteries (not large quantities at the wholesale level), I'm sure you could build a bomb.

And in any case, a dirty bomb.

I think, in this world climate, it's unlikely to ever happen. Never mind the reactions from all the ill-informed hippies who think nuclear power is inherently evil.

Even so, you'll never get all the batteries back at the end of their service lives. Some will get thrown out. Some dude will get pissed off when his girlfriend calls him to dump him and throw his nuclear-powered cell phone into a lake. A kid will take apart the old pager he found.

I love nuclear power. It's far from perfect or even the panacea that it was claimed to be in the 1950s. And while I think it's still the best overall solution for our energy demands, it's like hydrogen-powered cars: I would be very afraid to see it in the hands of consumers.

Re:Al-Qaeda Plots to Buy 10,000 AA Batteries

[AKAImBatman]

Al-Qaeda Plots to Buy 10,000 AA Batteries

Actually, that should read "Al-Qaeda Plots to Buy 10,000 Laptop Batteries." The truth of the matter is that access to atomic batteries would make no difference. There could be a headline in tomorrow's paper that reads "Al-Qaeda Plots to Buy 10,000 Smoke Detectors". Radium, Radon, and other radioactive materials are easy to come by. Yes, these could be used to create a "dirty bomb". However, the materials necessary to create a fission bomb, much less a fusion bomb, are carefully controlled by all major super-powers.

Even so, you'll never get all the batteries back at the end of their service lives. Some will get thrown out. Some dude will get pissed off when his girlfriend calls him to dump him and throw his nuclear-powered cell phone into a lake. A kid will take apart the old pager he found.

This would be expected. As long as the majority of atomic material never makes it to the landfill, the impact on the environment should be minimal. After all, there are TONS of natural formations that give out radiation. Even your own body gives off a few millirads per year!

The most frustrating part is that atomic batteries are already in use. Pacemakers use a miniscule atomic battery that keeps them running for the life of the patient. If people can get atomic batteries embedded in their bodies, why can't I have one in my laptop?!

Re:Al-Qaeda Plots to Buy 10,000 AA Batteries

[AnyNoMouse]

It's not a battery, but if you head over to the Register, they sell glowing keychains that last 30 years or so. You can't buy them in the US, though...

Re:Al-Qaeda Plots to Buy 10,000 AA Batteries

[anethema]

It's too bad no one saw fit to reply to this, because this is a question i'd also like an answer to. It IS a nuclear power source in a pacemaker, and its small. I wonder whats stopping companies from using it in larger devices. Probly the amazingly prohibitive cost, but oh well.

Suck ? I thought they were beginning to BLOW

[ozzee]

I've seen reports lately of batteries blowing up.
Nokia: Other Batteries Explode
Google

While you make a good point that battery technology has failed to make the leaps that other technologies (like disk drive technology, for example) have, the issue remains, increasing energy density may cause explosions (batteries blow - literally), other technologies in comparison don't have similar failure modes (few, if any, disk drives cause serious injuries).

Remember!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mare needs no batteries!

Re:Monster caps are great

[Absurd Being]

Batteries do have a fixed (but very high) current limit, due to internal resistance. Capacitors inherently don't (Ohms compared to milliOhms). But for disintegration, I was thinking a kF or so, I believe (enough electons to displace a good portion of the ones in the body). My mistake.

Fart-powered portable devices

[Retired Replicant]

If a little bit of methanol can power a fuel cell, I think most people should be able to power their portable devices using the methane that all of us emit on an almost continuous basis (at least judging from the guys who always seem to sit next to me on airplanes). Sure the little hose you would have to wear would be kind of uncomfortable at first, but I think we'd get used to it. It would also give us all a good excuse to break wind in public: "Um, sorry, but I need to make a phone call." On the days you just aren't very flatulent, you could just "bum some fuel" from the person next to you.

Re:Monster caps are great

[hesiod]

> Ever change a automotive battery and have the wrench touch the body of the car?
> Batteries have that same "no current feature" that caps do.

I don't think I understand what you mean by "no current," because I've done that a few times & lotsa sparks jump.

Car batteries too

[bluGill]

You can do that welding trick with any car battery. You have to know what you are doing, and it is harder than a normal welder, but it can be done. OTOH, if you don't weld often, connecting some jumper cables to your car battery is a lot cheaper than a real welder.

Warning: using a car battery in this way can ruin the electronics on your car, if you attempt it you better first know how to prevent those problems.

The technology is there

[BubbaJonBoy]

Actually I worked on a project code named Condor that was involved with new battery technology. I have personally witnessed a battery pack the size of a pack of cigarettes start a car 10 times. The amazing thing is that it was able to recharge to a fully in 15 minutes. The company was in negotiations with Black and Decker to use them. The battery packs were configured as 48 volts enabling B&D to develop a line of power tools that were lighter, but had more torque than existing equipment and were cheaper because they could use smaller diameter wire for the motor windings. No more spare battery packs. Plug it in and by the time the worker had a cup of joe he was ready to go again.
Unfortunately they could never develop a cost-effective method for producing the things - the electrolyte was too difficult to work with.

Moo

[Chacham]

The usage of the word "suck" in the title, is an example of poor reporting. Comments are comments, title's are not comments. Whatever happened to standards?

Re:Moo

[Dun Malg]

The usage of the word "suck" in the title, is an example of poor reporting. Comments are comments, title's are not comments. Whatever happened to standards?

Standards? Pfff! Slashdot has degraded to Yet Another Weblog. They should change the line to "Views for Nerds; Stuff the Blathers"
I wish I could think of something funnier.

"Cordless" = more corporate profit

[macraig]

This is yet another example how unchecked capitalism is bad for both consumers and the environment: batteries and "cordless" devices actually lead to a higher profit margin for the manufacturers, and at the same time a much higher TCO for consumers. Since many small devices use components that require DC voltage, prior to the popularity of cordless devices the manufacturers were obligated to provide either built-in AC-to-DC conversion or an external "AC adapter"; either of those represented a higher cost of design, materials, and production compared to cordless devices that use batteries. Further, the "convenience factor" of cordless devices meant that manufacturers could charge even more for an equivalent cordless product even while it was less costly to produce. Perhaps worst of all, for those devices with non-removable internal batteries, the manufacturers have known for years that most people will simply DISPOSE OF THE ENTIRE PRODUCT and buy a replacement rather than "repair" the worn-out battery, thus netting the manufacturers even more profit. All of this needless disposal, of course, comes at a cost to both the environment and consumers. If one compares the TCO of corded versus cordless devices, even excluding the environmental cost, one finds that cordless devices really aren't worth what we've been paying for them. Even so-called AC adapters are a wasteful alternative, since they remain connected to the AC power grid 24/7, drawing a small amount of current to power one coil of a transformer even when the device isn't in use (though I suppose the waste heat generated is a minute help to winter heating costs). Footnote: in my own private way I fight this tyranny: I've disassembled, de-soldered and replaced the batteries in numerous small appliances rather than replace them outright... twice for my Norelco razor and once for my Braun toothbrush, for instance. Finally, I retrofitted them to use AC adapters instead, to which on/off switches have been added.

The problem is a business model one

[ministeroforder]

I know there are technologies which have revolutionized the life and power density of batteries. They have been surpressed just like the auto industry has sucessfully surpressed every alternative to the internal combustion engine for over 100 years. The problem is that batteries are a replacement business. If you double the life, you sell half the number of batteries. And you can't charge twice as much. So any innovation simply cuts into the bottom line. No real innovation will happen unless done by an evangelical start-up.