Batteries Becoming Limiting Step For Portable Toys

grqb writes "Reuters is reporting that strong growth for portable devices such as laptop computers, game and music players, PDAs and mobile phones is expected to pressure battery manufacturers to improve their products, which are quickly becoming the limiting step in portable technology development. The lithium-ion battery technology that is commonly used hasn't changed in several years. The race is on to find battery technologies that are lighter and have increased life, but major breakthroughs don't seem to be on the horizon other than the lithium polymer battery, which can squeeze roughly 10-20% more life than lithium-ion. Micro fuel cells that run off of methanol are touted to be the next major wave for portable power, although logistics and price still make these fuel cells long shots, which is why Nokia recently dropped development of this technology."

Comments

Batteries?

[superpulpsicle]

I thought DRMs and other proprietory license BS is holding the market back.

Re:Batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. You obviously 1. never owned a portable device more powerful than the remote you use to switch between your 13 gay-porn-channels and 2. have been indoctrinated by the communist, un-American pro-P2P, thievery-defending Slashbot-collective.

Please report yourself to the nearest AOL-TieWarner-station so your money can be transferred to starving artists (George Lucas, Madonna and the like).

P.S.: Where are the ridiculous captchas gone?

Re:Batteries?

[Gogo0]

You dont need as much battery life if you cant play your mp3s or videos on your portable devices.
DRM improves battery life!

Re:Batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you were wrong, sorry.

Re:Batteries?

[dextroz]

Hey! Don't throw Madonna in there! She's *my* all-time hot b*tch - put like Sheryl Crow instead.

Re:Batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cellphone industry should look to Citizen watches...they do not run out of battery!

Obvious solution

[nizo]

Bring on nuclear batteries. Or is the Duracell lobby to strong for them to ever be legal?

Re:Obvious solution

[Spodlink05]

Bring on nuclear batteries. Or is the Duracell lobby to strong for them to ever be legal?

I'm sure the Duracell lobby will run out of energy soon.

Re:Obvious solution

[BlogPope]

I'm sure the Duracell lobby will run out of energy soon.

Its the Energizer lobby you have to watch out for. They keep going, and going, ...

Re:Obvious solution

[nizo]

Hehe.

...lobby to strong for them to...

After noticing the missing 'o' in what I wrote, I worry that the braincell that knows the difference between too and to may have been destroyed by a stray bit of radiation, so maybe nuclear batteries aren't such a good idea after all.

Re:Obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I'd send a quick response to this. You can't get a nobel prize in Mathematics. I'm not sure if they could get one with this research for medicine though. I'm guessing it's that possible. Peace.

Re:Obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

A cure for cancer? By using math? Astounding!

This shouldn't be so astounding. After all, for many it's already cured insomnia.

Re:Obvious solution

[jay-be-em]

I doubt anyone believes that a product called a 'nuclear' battery would succeed on the marketplace. The first thing they need to do is change the name, a la MRI.

Re:Obvious solution

[MillionthMonkey]

These offer long life at the expense of low power. They are good for pacemakers and things in inaccessible environments where the wattage requirements aren't high but the replacement cost is huge. They are not suitable for consumer electronics stuff.
A radioactive source with sufficient power to run a laptop would require significant cooling, especially when the laptop was shut off. For an idea of what it would be like, think of the RTG devices that we attach to space probes in the outer solar system. (Or that are scattered across the former Soviet Union.) Those things usually generate several hundred watts.

Re:Obvious solution

[eck011219]

Good God, no! Given the effect of radiation AND the reproductive capacity of bunnies, I foresee a blue million little drumming bunnies with mutant characteristics ("you wouldn't like me when I'm angry ... thump thump thump").

And I don't even want to think about fifty-foot-tall short-tempered, hairless, and impotent Robert Conrads with huge batteries on their shoulders.

It's all too terrible to consider. I'll stick with my potato clock, thank you very much.

Re:Obvious solution

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Nuclear batteries never got out of the Beta particle stage.

Re:Obvious solution

[Stankatz]

Duracell lobby? Give me an effing break. There are no nuclear batteries because:

1. No one has designed one that works well and is safe.
2. Most proposed designs are ridiculously expensive. (Unless you want to pay thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars for a battery that'll power a cell phone.)

The solution is already here: bigger batteries. Guess what, you can double the battery life of a laptop by making the battery twice as big. Sure, it'll weigh more, but that's not exacly a "limiting factor".

Re:Obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. I think that Toshiba and Panasonic are in better position to improve the battery market than anyone. There's even been quite a bit of discussion by one guy over here and here for a while now about this being a long standing problem and possible ways to solve it. As for battery solutions, nuclear batteries are a good idea, but given the number of stupid people in the world, I wonder if it's all that safe. Then again, it may be a good idea to have them anyways as a way to clean up the gene pool a bit? Maybe? ;) Well, all joking aside, nuclear decay batteries are a good idea, but only for low voltage use. Anything above 12v and 20 amps is going to go beyond the current capabilities of nuclear decay technology. So for small devices, they're perfect. Larger devices such as electric cars are going to present a problem...UNLESS, for example, someone finds a way to make them safe, durrable, and able to take being abused like lead acid can. They'd also have to find ways to protect them in event of car fire or accident. If they can do that then they would also be a great solution for electric cars.

Re:Obvious solution

[ikkonoishi]

More likely they will be killed by the environmental lobbies.

THEY WANT WHAT??? NUCLEAR BATTERIES!!! SOMEONE BRING THE PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!!!

oh and slashdot lameness filter we are coming after you next. oh yes. you and your "don't use so many caps. It's like yelling" bah. in my day we yelled and screamed for hours straight to fight the man and his desire for nuclear stuff. because we know the truth, anything nuclear is just an atomic bomb waiting to blow us all away when we speak up against the oppressive jackbooted thugs that run our government. they would control them with their cia mind control devices, which being powered by the evil atoms and various chemicals would finally be able to pierce tin foil hats, but i'm wise to them. i replaced my tin foil with three inches of lead! sure its heavy and cuts off the blood supply to my brain, but i never used it anyway.

Re:Obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

A radioactive source with sufficient power to run a laptop would require significant cooling, especially when the laptop was shut off.

Why would you shut the laptop off?

Re:Obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

RTGs are more suitable to powering an electric car, where you can replace a 600 lbs conventional engine, with a 600 lbs fully-sealed TEG, and also equip an array of batteries that would 'hold' charge when the vehicle wasn't running, either that, or you could have a smaller battery, and have to plug the car in to allow electrical charge to drain into an electric grid, when it was stopped for prolonged periods of time (eg: at the office all day, or parked at home overnight)

Believe you me, the only 'mobile computing' a TEG is going to power is going to be a powered suit designed for military or construction use. (think the little brother of a gundam)

On the plus side, if your americium based TEG is equiped with 1 lbs of fuel, and will provide sufficient heat to create the electricity to power a car as long as at least half remains radioactive, your power plant will run for 421 years before needing a refueling (those numbers are hypothetical, i don't have the math on how much material etc...)

Basically, any RTG powered car has to be designed to have the 'power plant' portion removed so it can be reused when the car is scrapped, and in engineering a car, you need a solid cage around the radioactive materials, preferibly some type of titanium cage that would prevent punctures, tears or crushing... and would protect the cooling mechinism, so that even in the event the vehicle was say, completely crushed by a semi, the power plant wouldn't go critical and spread radioactiuve steam everywhere...

yeah, that's probably the reason we don't use RTGs to power cars... that and they're so less efficient than normal fusion, that they're worthless for normal terrestrial power generation.

Re:Obvious solution

[horos2c]

.. that's the old technology, which is at .1-.5 % efficient (that's right .001-.005)

Because of this inefficiency, there is lots and lots of waste heat, which causes the problems that you speak of.

If the nuclear battery mentioned on slashdot truly reaches its supposed 200 times efficiency, this is *80%* or thereabouts efficient, which means that there is a lot less material to radioactively decay.

Second of all, the batteries studied operate off of beta decay, which essentially means that they give off an electron. Electron == electricity, so the chances of needing lots of cooling equipment are probably not true.

So.. I haven't done the calcs yet, but nuclear batteries would probably be more feasible than you are thinking from an engineering standpoint.

On the other hand, tritium and strontium-90 are *damned expensive*, and would be so unless there was a circuit that connected supply (the nuclear power industry) to demand (the batteries) and even then, its doubtable that the nuclear power plants could produce enough strontium and tritium to keep everybody happy...

horos

Re:Obvious solution

[zeketp]

I have a watch that uses tritium to make the hands glow in the dark. The metal case and crystal window on it ensure that it would take extreme force to even expose the hands. I especially like the part where they say it is safe because the weak radioactive particles can't penetrate the skin, and then they say it is safe enough to implant in the body. "It can't penetrate the skin, but the doctor can take care of that!"

Re:Obvious solution

[MillionthMonkey]

So.. I haven't done the calcs yet, but nuclear batteries would probably be more feasible than you are thinking from an engineering standpoint.

You obviously haven't done the calcs. Efficiency is not even the major problem here. The problem is that ionizing radiation is an extremely deadly form of energy- a median lethal dose in humans is about several watt seconds per kg of body mass. And to get even a tiny little bit of heat, you need an enormous amount of radiation.

Say we use a radioisotope to power a space heater. Efficiency is not an issue in a heater, since all it needs to do is trap the radiation in enough shielding so that all the energy is converted to heat. If the decay mode yields 10 MeV of energy, 100 watts will require 62.4 trillion decays per second, or 1700 Curies (Ci)- something nominally similar to 1700 grams of radium. For comparison, total leakage in the Three Mile Island incident was approximately 13 Ci. (Chernobyl leaked millions.) If your laptop were running on a 1700 Ci source, it wouldn't be on your lap.

Pu-238 is the sort of isotope used for generating heat via decay. It generates about a half watt per gram. You'd need to run around with several hundred grams of it to power your laptop. The Am-241 in smoke detectors generates 114 milliwatts per gram. You'd need to scrape clean about 10000 smoke detectors to get a gram of Am-241 together- and about ten million smoke detectors will generate enough power to run a laptop. In fact all the smoke detectors ever sold in the world probably contribute something around 1 kilowatt of heat to their surroundings.

Re:Obvious solution

[markass530]

I studied nuclear physics and a wide variety of other subjects for 1 1/2 years just to be allowed to "operate" a nuclear reactor for the US Navy. So I am almost sick of hearing people's great idea's about miniaturizing nuclear power. I didn't even read the blurb on nuclear batteries because I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt, no, never, will not, cannot happen. The things are very complex, and inherently unstable, and every terrorist in the world would give anything to get his hands on them, and I'm speaking of the (relatively) small nuclear reactors aboard our submarines. Miniaturizing nuclear power has been tested by our government extensively, and a submarine is the smallest it's gotten to be used effectively, and safely (excepting some spacecraft, which I know nothing about). Also only in a military atmosphere has the safety record been 100% (the scorpion and thresher imho were 'submarine' related and not nuclear). Nuclear power should just be left where it is, and not even mentioned in any other subjects.

Re:Obvious solution

[kaze dcat]

Then you should have read the article because the title is misleading. It's not about miniaturizing nuclear reactor. The battery is powered by betavoltaics which utilizes natural decay of beta emitters like tritium, Carbon 14 and the likes. It's safe because beta emission cannot even penetrate the skin. and it's very stable because emission is dependent on the elements half-life. And even living thing's have beta emitter's in them. Even you have carbon 14 inside your body.

Re:Obvious solution

[cheesybagel]

The problem is cost. Nuclear batteries have been used before, in pacemakers for example.

Re:Obvious solution

[horos2c]

> You obviously haven't done the calcs. Efficiency
> is not even the major problem here. The problem is
> that ionizing radiation is an extremely deadly
> form of energy- a median lethal dose in humans is
> about several watt seconds per kg of body mass.
> And to get even a tiny little bit of heat, you
> need an enormous amount of radiation.

I'm not sure, but I don't think you know the difference between alpha decays, beta decays and gamma rays. As per:

http://www.ehs.ucsf.edu/Manuals/RSTM/RSTM%20Chap1. htm

"1 cm of lucite is enough to shield the most active beta emitters (32 P, 90 St)".

Beta decay rapidly breaks up when it encounters matter.

As for tritium, its beta decay is so weak that it could be stopped by the single layer of dead skin cells in your body.

And your math is off. To power a 15 Watt laptop, using Strontium-90 as a source, and assuming 50% efficiency, you need:

15 Watts * 2 efficiency factor / 2.3 MeV

equals

81 x 10 ^12 decays / second.

Given Strontrium's half-life is 28 years, this means:

8.83 x 10 ^8 secs = ln 2 / lambda

lambda = 7.84991 * 10 ^ -10;

N0 - 8.1 x 10^13= N0 * e^-lambda * 1 sec

Solving for N0, we need

1.03695 x 10 ^23

atoms of the stuff, or .17 mol

Given Strontrium's molecular weight is 90 g/mol, this equals approximately 15 grams. And given that batteries weigh in excess of a pound, this is highly doable, if it weren't for the cost of strotrium.

In fact you mentioned it yourself - Pu-238 (with a halflife of 87 years) gets a half-watt a gram, which means - if you had a 'nuclear battery' that was 80% efficient, you'd need:

15/.5/.8 = 38 grams

of plutonium to run a laptop.

However, of course you wouldn't use this, because plutonium is an alpha emittier, and hence is a lot more damaging than the betas. Hence, the use of betavoltaics in places like pacemakers, etc.

Ed

Re:Obvious solution

[MillionthMonkey]

I'm not sure, but I don't think you know the difference between alpha decays, beta decays and gamma rays.

Sure I do. For example "several watt seconds per kg" is the threshold for beta and gamma radiation. For alpha radiation it's 5% of that, even if the alphas can be stopped with paper. If you ingest or inhale an alpha emitter, there will be extreme tissue damage.

Your calculations are reasonable; you don't make your mistake until the end when you come up with 15 grams (2200 Curies) of Sr-90 and figure that's just great for personal electronics with a small form factor! I don't know if you move in Sr-90 circles, but 15 grams is a lot of pure Sr-90 to have. It would emit 30 W of heat. Its radiation would kill you in a few seconds, if you were directly exposed to it. It would deposit in your bones like calcium if it ever escaped its lucite container. Its weight would be the least of your concerns.

The Sr-90 decay nuclide Y-90m is also notorious for emitting gammas. And don't forget gammas from bremsstrahlung, which all beta radiation generates, even if it's tritium.

They would just never let you have that much fission product in your house. Guys in moon suits would show up, you'd go somewhere for questioning, and property values in your neighborhood would go down.

Re:Obvious solution

[horos2c]

> Your calculations are reasonable; you don't make
> your mistake until the end when you come up with
> 15 grams (2200 Curies) of Sr-90 and figure
> that's just great for personal electronics with
> a small form factor!

> I don't know if you move in Sr-90 circles, but
> 15 grams is a lot of pure Sr-90 to have. It
> would emit 30 W of heat.

well, to be totally fair it would emit (30 W * .2 == 6 watts of waste heat (the rest being translated into electricity, which eventually would end up as heat, but in a diffuse sense). And you did start by saying that you would need kilograms of the stuff to run a laptop, which isn't true.

Anyways, 6W of heat is a bit, but not anything a decent cooling system couldn't handle (even air convection would do it). You would need to leave your laptop on all the time, however.

> Its radiation would kill you in a few seconds,
> if you were directly exposed to it. It would
> deposit in your bones like calcium if it ever
> escaped its lucite container. Its weight would
> be the least of your concerns.

well, the trick is not to get directly exposed then, isn't it.. ;-)

Anyways, the curie is not the unit of measurement about health, but the sievert.
You're right though, I didn't do my homework about this and if the battery escapes its containment you are pretty much toast.

I guess its a question of how much faith you have in the ability of people to make an 'spill proof' container.. Given a system where the battery was bolted to the unit (and hence undetachable), and not requiring aqua chemistry simplifies the engineering problem. The working conditions would be difficult though (you'd probably need a completely automated factory to do it)

I did the math however, and it would be feasible to mass produce these - the nuclear industry has produced 40,000 metric tons of high level nuclear waste since its inception, and of those 40,000 tons, approx 500 out of every 10000 particles is sr-90.. So, we've got:

40000 * 500/10000

or 2000 tons of the stuff. Divide that by 15 grams and we could make 130 million of said batteries..

Increase the share of nuclear power by a factor of 10 and you get 1.3 billion batteries. Hell, at that level you could probably provide enough electric power for cars..

Ed

The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

The Solution: Nuclear Batteries

The market is practically screaming for a battery that doesn't run down in a short period of time. At the very least, nuclear radioisotope technology could be used to create batteries that have longer lives and recharge themselves. If the full potential of this technology were used, then our devices could be powered for YEARS without replacing the battery. Potentially, the battery could even outlast the device!

I realize a lot of people have concerns over the safety of nuclear batteries. But before you run off half-cocked, consider a few points:

1. They use the radiation for power. As a result, the batteries would be designed to capture as much of it as possible. In the case of Alpha and Beta radiation, that can easily reach 100% even if power isn't realized for all of the radiation.

2. You're probably sitting on a highly unstable, very dangerous bomb right now. See that Lithium-Ion battery in your phone? It just happens to be a powerful explosive.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

Darn. Forgot to add on the end of point 2, "Nuclear batteries CAN'T explode!"

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[FidelCatsro]

Problem with nuclear batterys , is that they need excelent shielding and a very good disposal system . All too often people just dump batterys in with the ordinary rubbish .
If you pierce a Radiation based battery, your going to need to get in the Hazard units to lock down your house .
Ok perhaps this is slight hyperbole , but the risk is still far greater than a small explosion from Lithium-ion based batterys.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

And the (tiny) problem of smashing the battery open by mistake and releasing enough radio-elements in the environment to poison your entire neighborhood for decades doesn't bother you?

Did you know people with pacemakers who die are cut open to recover the darn thing before they're buried, to avoid exactly what I just described, on a much smaller scale? if they take that many precautions for a well-designed pacemaker embedded in a corpse, itself embedded in a coffin 6 feet under, I have a feeling they won't give you a consumer product with radioisotopes to play with at home...

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Frangible]

How's that any different from Americium-241 based smoke detectors, multiples of which are installed in every home (by law)? A tiny amount of radioactive material just really isn't the threat you make it out to be.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[rpozz]

Your smoke alarm also has radioactive materials in it. Doesn't make it dangerous. I doubt a nuclear battery would 'poison your entire neighborhood for decades' unless it was extremely large.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Radioactive materials in smoke detectors aren't made to power things. They just ionize the air around them, therefore they are only very weakly radioactive. Pacemakers are quite a lot more dangerous, and they don't require that much power either.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Have Blue]

One of the problems with a nuclear battery is that the energy it produces is constant regardless of whether or not the device is operating. That means something has to be done with the energy when it's not being consumed, and that means it gets emitted as heat. That is a problem, to say the least, for anything meant to go inside a container (such as a pocket).

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Ziviyr]

See that Lithium-Ion battery in your phone?

My phone?

Actually its across the room and has a 9v battery that it doesn't rely on except for blackouts.

I must be on the bleeding edge of technology to be so lucky!

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

And the (tiny) problem of smashing the battery open by mistake and releasing enough radio-elements in the environment to poison your entire neighborhood for decades doesn't bother you?

Depends on the design. A thero-electric battery (e.g. Pielter or micro-Sterling) could easily be encased in a steel cladding that would prevent the materials from ever being released short of being heated to a molten state. This probably wouldn't work for beta-voltaics, but a strongly sealed battery would achieve the same effect.

Did you know people with pacemakers who die are cut open to recover the darn thing before they're buried, to avoid exactly what I just described, on a much smaller scale?

Did you know you have this wrong? The pacemakers are recovered to be refurbished and reused. Plutonium is very expensive, so Pace Maker receipients were required to sign a contract that allowed the device to be retrieved after death. AFAIK, there are no concerns about contamination due to the fact that the pacemaker casing would easily outlast the life of the plutonium power source. Linky

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[LordNimon]

My smoke alarm isn't portable. It stays attached to my ceiling for years, so there's no chance I'll lose it. Batteries, on the other hand, get lost all the time. Plus, for every one smoke alarm in my house, I must have a dozen batteries. I would have even more battery-powered devices if the batteries were nuclear.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you actually have any references on this, or are you just one of those anti-nuclear idiots who thinks that nuclear power plants are more dangerous than ones powered by fossil fuels?

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Frangible]

The danger in the pacemakers comes from chemical toxicity, the amount of radiation released from that quantity of Pu-238 is relatively minor. In fact, Am-241 (smoke detectors) has a decay energy of 2200 kEv, Pu-238's is 2400, a difference of only 8.4%; both are alpha decay.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

Oh! Forgot this one:

I have a feeling they won't give you a consumer product with radioisotopes to play with at home...

Did you know that gun scopes, watches, and fun little keychains? Oh, and doctors inject you with radioactive materials for diagnostic purposes. And false teeth used to be lined with Uranium. (Gives it that shine.)

More radioactive products here. If you use Google, you should find a plethora of wonderful products!

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and provide the 'tewwowists' with dirteh bombs uh

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Frangible]

Considering the price of nuclear materials, you'd be losing nuclear batteries with about the same frequency you lose your wedding ring.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been recovering from a broken finger the past month or so. I've studied the stemcell research describing the process. And what would otherwise be vague itching, swelling and aching instead resolves to actual awareness of incremental growth in the new tissue. I've modified the splint in feedback with the changing critical anatomical areas, and already have much more mobility than the literature describes. Before it's even completely healed. As we do more research on these self-organizing cellular growth systems, we'll be able to work with these tissues, facilitating their growth for maximum recovery with minimum risk and downtime. Theraputic stemcells are just the mannered cousins of tumorcells - we might very well live to see a day when they're all domesticated for our health, and even recreation.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Frangible]

Not really, you'd have to have a LOT of material to produce any sort of heat gain. Even the tritium "betalights" which are essentially tritium-powered flashlights and have massive amounts of it aren't any warmer than the background temperature.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[0olong]

I think many of us remember the Slashdot Article on this last month.

There are various reasons why this won't work any time soon. I'll just do a quick quote of two different slashdotters here:

from Bun:

"There is no mention of the power delivered by the battery - only its lifetime. It doesn't take much to run a pacemaker, but a laptop might require a battery the size of a loaf of bread, for all we know. Also, while tritium isn't all that dangerous, it IS radioactive, and carries all of the regulatory baggage that goes with that designation, so great care would have to be taken to prevent leakage during its lifetime, which wouldn't be easy."

from kravlor:

"This seems like a rather nifty extention of the technology. However, note that the fuel source, tritium, is rather hard and expensive to come by. (The total world supply of the stuff is 40 kg.) So I see this as a great boon for, say, space probes or other fancy applications where getting your hands on some tritium gas aren't the biggest of concerns on the budget."

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

That means something has to be done with the energy when it's not being consumed, and that means it gets emitted as heat.

As opposed to the 10+ watts of heat currently disappated by batteries today? Those suckers get hot! Nuclear batteries would be nothing new in this area. :-)

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, for every one smoke alarm in my house, I must have a dozen batteries. I would have even more battery-powered devices if the batteries were nuclear.

Yeah, those things make an annoying beeping noise when their battery is almost dead. Which is why you have more batteries than things.

With nuclear batteries you'd have exactly as many batteries as things. After all, what are you going to do with a spare nuclear battery? In fact, most things would come like the ipod: sealed with the only battery it'll ever need inside.

Still, there are problems... with America's disposable culture these things WILL end up in the trash, and while I seriously doubt that a few ounces of anything not plutonium or another ridiculously toxic heavy metal will kill anyone unless they ate the whole battery, an entire landfill peppered with these batteries would be another story. Of course, the trash people could be equipped with geiger counters and refuse to take any trash thats even slightly radioactive ;)

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[nEoN nOoDlE]

you just pinpointed why these batteries will never reach market... because they last too long. There's no profit in something that doesn't break and doesn't need to be renewed.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

im sad mommy

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[dougmc]

The market is practically screaming for a battery that doesn't run down in a short period of time.

Isn't that the entire point of the article? We want batteries that will last longer! I certainly do!

You're probably sitting on a highly unstable, very dangerous bomb right now.

My butt does occasionally emit methane gas. (At least I believe it's mostly methane -- I may be wrong.) However, I do not generally consider it to be a highly unstable, dangerous bomb.

See that Lithium-Ion battery in your phone? It just happens to be a powerful explosive

Oh, give me a break. Under the right (wrong) conditions, it can burst into flames. Yes, I know. So can my pants.

A butane lighter is a lot more likely to explode than a cell phone battery is. Cell phone batteries are generally protected against most forms of abuse that would cause it to catch fire.

(And no, you don't need to tell me about the dangers of LiPo cells. I am aware. I fly electric R/C planes, and we push our batteries far harder than cell phones ever have. And yes, LiPo cells have caught fire and burned R/C planes, houses, cars, etc. But 1) this generally only happens when they're abused or damaged, and 2) NiCd and NiMH cells can cause fires too. I've personally had more NiCd cells cause fires than LiPos ...)

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[killermookie]

But here's the catch...

If manufacturer's create a battery that lasts for years...how is that good business?

Right now, if you use items that suck up a lot of battery power, you have to buy more. That's more profit for the manufacturer.

If they produce a product that you only have to buy ever 3 years, then either the manufacturer will lose profit as less batteries are being sold or the cost of these batteries will be so enormously high that it'll be out of consumer range prices.

Imagine if the razor companies created a blade that lasts for 3 years. Fat chance! Blades are their cash cow!

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but you're wrong.

When there is no drain on the battery, it will power a small motor to use up some energy. Something this obvious will not make it out to the nuclear-hating public without many safeguards.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I read in the article, they were just able to simulate something resembling real tumours using a linear growth model. But then the article itself says in the discussion that no one has ever observed non-linear exponential growth in real tumors anyways so people (with the possible exception of other modelers) have obviously taken this into account. Not clear to me whether any of the results from their model are novel nor are their assertions about the nutrient dependence of tumor growth convincing without some real experiments.

As a computational biologist, I'm not knocking the usefulness of these types of mathematical approaches - and what they seem to have is a nice and maybe even a correct tumorigensis model, but let's keep it real - this is far from a cure for cancer...

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=34220

the blog entry that they linked to was kinda vauge on details ;) turns out the only math the used was in calculating how tumours grow, and how they prevent immune responses, so they figured out an immune system response they can trigger that will cause the cells that cause tumours to grow to become a 'target' of the patients immune system. no math equasion used to 'cure' it at all, just a little deductive reasoning and science...

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Frangible]

I don't see how that's a very relevant argument; there are a large number of commercial products already powered by tritium for illumination. For example, tritium gun sights vs. battery powered red dots, or tritium watch illumination instead of Indiglo. That didn't stop those products from going to the market, and it wouldn't make betavoltaics any less viable.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[uberdave]

If you manage to accidentally break open your pacemaker, you've got other things to worry about than slowly poisoning your neighbourhood.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some countries banned it, and I entirely agree, there should be no homework, just schoolwork. There's absolutely no rational reason why schoolwork must be done at home; children can learn just as well in school. In such countries the kids would do all their schoolwork before leaving school, or, if you must use the word "homework", they do their "homework" at school(!), and once they're out for the day, that's it, they can be kids, as they should be, free for the day, and free to enjoy their afternoons and evenings.

I still remember from my childhood the frustration of getting "homework" from 5 different teachers, each oblivious to the demands of others, and even when made aware, just simply doesn't care!

Homework belongs back to the days when corporal punishment was okay in school. Corporal punishment, and often collective punishment of an entire class, was easily abused, with no real evidence that it actually was of any benefit or necessity overall, and so is homework, a relic of a bygone era that still persists.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[hunterx11]

What the hell is going on here? Comment dupe. And I've seen other comments from the math and cancer discussion all over the place. Is this some new subtle form of trolling, meant to slightly perturb us, like in Amelie? Or is /. broken? Maybe the crapflooders in 20721 are breaking it. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why they added captchas (which already seem to be broken). Actually I'm more surprised they don't just delete Trolltalk.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[G-funk]

And if you pierce a LiIon battery, there's a fairly high chance it'll burst into flames / explode. Yet we still use them all the flamin time (pun intended).

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[FLAGGR]

The difference is the people that made the lights provided the trutium. A battery company couldn't make a profit selling a battery that lasted for lets say years, and I'm sure they'd fight very hard to stop manufacturers from preincluding them in their hardware.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

As if such small quantities of radioactive material are really dangerous in the first place. Atleast no more dangerous then any battery, only dangerous in concentration.

Think about it, spread the radioactivity over any real range and it will be so diluted, you'd have trouble detecting it against the natural radiation.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[killermookie]

Dude, what the hell article are you reading? That's like several stories ago.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[pilgrim23]

Battery? whazat? My phone has a stalk microphone, a detachable ear piece (very ergo design that), and to use you clack the lever a few times then say: "Hello Mabel? Give me Bigalow 2-1105"

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[GameMaster]

Ok, I'm not a nuclear physicist but from what I remember of my highschool and college science classes gamma radiation is the only type of nuclear emission that is strong enough to go through human skin. The batteries that are being developed right now are specifically using isotopes that only emit alpha and beta radiation and don't have gamma emitting isotopes anywhere along the line as they progress along their chain of radioactive decay. So, the only way these nuclear batteries could be harmful, even is cracked open, would be if you actually ingested some of the contents.

There are already lots of household chemicals that are outright deadly if ingested so I fail to see the problem. I can understand that we might end up with some of this stuff seeping from landfills but I still question whether it would be any worse than the stuff like automotive antifreeze and oil. Despite our best attempts to get car owners to dispose of them safely some of it inevitably ends up in landfills.

If I'm missing something, hopefully someone with a better understanding of physics/chemistry can correct me.

-Gamemaster

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[flowerp]

Except that if you burn this stuff, you will radiate a large area. Especially alpha ray emitting isotopes are very dangerous to human tissue when inhaled or ingested. Cheers. I'd prefer eating Li Ion cells instead.

Have you ever considered the fact that an RTG-style battery causes quite an amount of heat constantly? Isnt't that a potential fire hazard?

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[kouhoutek]

You are completely right...and sadly, completely wrong.

Nuclear batteries are probably as safe as internal combustion engines and natural gas pipelines.

But nuclear is a very very spooky word, especially if you are science illiterate. Nuclear power is greener, irradiated food is safer, and a nuclear rocket could get us to Mars in weeks instead of years. Use any, and so-called "environmentalist" come out of the woodwork with their comic book science education, and make the best conceived nuclear project politically untenable.

This isn't a technology issue or a safety issue. This is a science education issue.

Hell, I know people who are still afraid of microwave ovens.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[anthony_dipierro]

Heh, so in the future, we'll have to worry about how long we can go without plugging in our devices to uncharge them, rather than to charge them. At least uncharging is something that can be done without being connected to a grid.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Frangible]

Uh, so you can't make a profit on a product that lasts for years? What?

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[braindead]

When there is no drain on the battery, it will power a small motor to use up some energy.

That wouldn't work, because the energy of the spinning motor would then be dissipated into heat. Even if you had a frictionless motor, you get heat when you stop the motor.

Unless, of course, you only slow down the wheel when you need the energy, and then you slow it down in a way that gives you electric power back. That could work, but if you don't use your PDA for a week, that wheel will end up spinning very fast!

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[mriker]

you just pinpointed why these batteries will never reach market... because they last too long. There's no profit in something that doesn't break and doesn't need to be renewed.

Such as rechargable batteries?

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

Someone is trolling with a bot. The bot picks up highly rated posts from previous articles and then reposts them to places where they seem really odd.

I have something of a theory on why they are doing this. I think the purpose of the bot is to cause the moderators to use up all their points, thus ensuring that trolls get time in the limelight. The previous version of this scheme were all the "Please help me mod down this trash" posts.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[mriker]

Err, nevermind. It's very hot in my room, ok? :)

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[fearofcarpet]

2. You're probably sitting on a highly unstable, very dangerous bomb right now. See that Lithium-Ion battery in your phone? It just happens to be a powerful explosive.

Not to nit pick, but lithium ion batteries are made from inorganic metal complexes (that are not explosive), polymer/electrolyte blends (again not explosive), and graphite (I sure hope that isn't explosive). The "explosive" element comes from the heat generated from rapid discharge, much like car batteries which are made from lead and aqueous sulfuric acid (not even flammable), but will most certainly explode if shorted. The "unstable" aspect arrises from the lithium "fingers" that tend to grow between the electrodes which causes, you guessed it, rapid discharging of the battery. At any rate an equal mass of an actual "powerful explosive" (high explosive if you prefer) would make the battery look like a match flame.

I'm not knocking the nuclear battery idea, just pointing out that ALL modern batteries are explosive, so don't poo on lithium-ion batteries for being batteries - they can't help that.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

There's no profit in something that doesn't break and doesn't need to be renewed.

I've suggested a solution before. The answer lies in the very problem of making nuclear batteries affordable: lease them. i.e. I purchase a battery on a three year lease, paying something like $200 a year (~$16.50 mo) to use it. At the end of the lease, I must return the battery to the manufacturer or pay a fine (say, another $200). I can then, optionally, lease a new battery.

The brilliance in this plan is the many ways in which it solves the problems:

1. The manufacturer makes a constant income from the battery.

2. Nearly all the radioactive materials are kept out of landfills.

3. Manufacturers can refurbish the radioactive materials (which may last as long as 100 years!) thus slowly building up a stockpile of material.

4. There's less waste than with current batteries.

What's not to like? :-)

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[mikael]

And the funeral parlours also recover artificial joints, and any metal plates/bolts/screws that may have been implanted, as the health service may want them back for reuse.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know you have this wrong? The pacemakers are recovered to be refurbished and reused. Plutonium is very expensive, so Pace Maker receipients were required to sign a contract that allowed the device to be retrieved after death.

The above is just as wrong.

Plutonium doesn't power modern pacemakers.

People are buried with pacemakers, but those cremated have them removed to prevent a possible explosion during the cremation process.

I really doubt pacemakers are typically refurbished and reused...at least in humans.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

The above is just as wrong.

Not as wrong as your post.

Plutonium doesn't power modern pacemakers.

No, it doesn't. It used to, which is what the article I linked to said. That doesn't mean that Los Alamos doesn't want their Pu-238 back.

WTF? How is Pu-238 going to explode? Hint: They want their Plutonium back. Doesn't matter if they're buried or cremated. They want their Plutonium back.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you doing? NO rational though and NO common sense is allowed here. Nuclear energy is teh evil!! I had to throw away my tritium coated watch cause it cause golf ball size tumers under my fingernails. OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS ENDING BECAUSE OF NUCLEAR STUFF!!! Jeezus, we really need to make physics and chemistry a required course for everyone so people will realize that just because something releases radiation *cough*TV*cough* it's not dangerous.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[imsabbel]

Read whats written!
Yeah, they get hot... when discharging. And the discharge when the decive they power is in use. And only then.

Your nukelear powered laptop would heat itself to meltdown even when not in use and tighly packed, simply because you cant turn of nuclear decay.

(plus the emitted heat is at least twice the actuall power rating of the batterie because of efficiency issues)

If you want to see what happens, just put a 80W lightbulb in you bed, apply blanket and wait some time.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Stankatz]

"The pacemakers are recovered to be refurbished and reused. Plutonium is very expensive[...]"

And here you've just stated the problem with nuclear batteries: they're so expensive that people will cut open dead people in order to reuse them. Just think about that. They don't pry gold fillings out of people's teeth after they die. They don't dig people up to retrieve expensive jewelry. But they will cut open your chest cavity to get a tiny, low-power battery out. That's the reason you don't have one of these in your laptop right now. You can blame ignorant people who are afraid of anything "nucular". You can blame the evil battery industry lobbyists. But the fact is they're just too expensive.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

irradiated food is safer

It may be safer, but it sucks from a texture point of view -- the radiation deteriorates the cell walls in the food! Irradiated apples are mushy. Perform your own taste test and see.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Saige]

Nuclear power is greener, irradiated food is safer, and a nuclear rocket could get us to Mars in weeks instead of years. Use any, and so-called "environmentalist" come out of the woodwork with their comic book science education, and make the best conceived nuclear project politically untenable.

Just to clear up the "irradiated food" point here.

Neither I, nor many people I know, have a problem with irradiated food based only on the irradiation. We know we won't get sick from it. However, the companies that want to irradiate their meat only want that to be the case so they don't have to make an effort to keep the feces out of the production lines.

I don't know about you, but irrated shit is still shit. Safe or not, it's still fucking disgusting.

Oh, BTW, 50% of all commercial ground beef tests positive for E. Coli. E. Coli in ground beef comes from cow feces. So half of all ground beef out there is beef + shit.

Enjoy those summer cookouts.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

Yeah, they get hot... when discharging.

They can get hot when charging too. i.e. Periods of inactivity. There's no real difference here except that current batteries have a theoretical advantage that's never seen in practice.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

But the fact is they're just too expensive.

Dude. So got that one covered.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Nivoset]

i wish this would work, but as soon as only one company can make em and gets enough people to use em in common things.. i see the price skyrocketing.

though i do wonder how much a year people spend on batteries.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Jeremi]

Better call them something else, though, or you'll hear a lot more screaming from the market. And not in a good way.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[MuMart]

Unbelievable.

If a radioisotope source has enough activity to match the power output of a regular cell, it has enough activity to kill several people from several metres away.

How many rusty, discarded Energizers have you seen lying around? How do you propose to design a radioisotope cell that will never break or decay during the century or more it will take to become safe?

Imagine not being able to walk down the street for fear of radiation poisoning. This sort of thing has already happened.

While I agree that nuclear technology is the future of power, putting radioactive sources in the hands of the general population is not the way to go.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Jeremi]

If manufacturer's create a battery that lasts for years...how is that good business?

It's good for business in that people will buy such a battery, and will be willing to pay a premium for it. By your logic, nobody would bother selling cars, since they last for a good ten years.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Easysolution, leave the device powered on 24/7. After all, the power is free and long lasting. My cell is already on all the time and I definately wouldn't mind leaving my notebook on all the time.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

as soon as only one company can make em and gets enough people to use em in common things.. i see the price skyrocketing.

Okaaaayyy... Economics tells us that the price should *drop*, not skyrocket. Why do you think the price would go up?

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[compm375]

One company = monopoly, which means prices would go up. But of course you have to take into account that the batteries would have to be competitively priced with other types of batteries, even if no other manufacturer makes nuclear ones.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Nivoset]

just patented and lots of stuff use em/people use them in things. people are greedy. hell. cd's should have dropped allot. they still wont ever. tapes cost less and are more expensive to make than cd's

i just see inherent evil in monopolys.

so price would go up due to the microsoft:office theory of "people pay for this upgraded sh*t?!?!?!? lets do more!"
yay, i get to bash microsoft and be in topic in a post!

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Bellona is biased, thus putting a "fear" spin on the article. However, (thankfully) they have stated only facts.

2. You're an idiot. How many people were injured in these incidents? How much environmental damage was actually done? Hint: None and none.

SR90 primarily decays into beta radiation. Beta radiation is generally completely safe. There is some Gamma release, but it's so damn minor that only a whopping pile of the crap would pose even the most minor threat. Yet that's exactly what the Russians did. They piled tens of pounds into each RTG without concern for safety. And they STILL haven't injured anyone! Gee, this stuff must be super-dangerous!

The real danger from that much SR-90 is how hot it is. You could literally burn a hole through just about anything with the temperatures that those RTGs reach. Here's a thought: How about we don't put that much into batteries?

And another thing: Talking about Double-As is disingenous. Nuclear batteries would last years, not hours. So you get ONE and you never change it! Gee, might that actually result in LESS hazardous crap in our landfills? Naaahhh.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Jeremi]

I don't know about you, but irrated shit is still shit. Safe or not, it's still fucking disgusting.

Very true. On the other hand, so is cutting up an animal and eating its flesh. Most people have a very simple method for dealing with that fact: they ignore it. And if they can ignore that, I don't think they will have any problems ignoring the presence of feces, either, as long as they can't recognize it as such, don't have to hear about it, and don't get sick from it.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

With everyone carrying around all of these nuclear batteries you'll end up with a massive magnetic radiation buildup until the Earth is blasted out of the moon's orbit.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[AKAImBatman]

The problem with your line of thinking is that you assume two things:

1. That no competitors will enter the market.
2. That people will pay anything for nuclear batteries.

The first is dubious at best. It's far more likely that such a cash cow would be embraced by multiple manufacturers, even if they have to develop different technology.

The second is just outright wrong. I seriously doubt that anyone would put up with being gouged for a nuclear battery when they can just as easily use a rechargable. Competition exists in the battery market already. Nuclear batteries would have to be competitive with that market. They can't just assume that everyone wants one enough to pay out as much as their car.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Okaaaayyy... Economics tells us that the price should *drop*, not skyrocket. Why do you think the price would go up?

One word: reality.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Twinbee]

But we have rechargeables? If the market were that bad, I'm sure we would still be buying disposables all the time...

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[digitalchinky]

I thought 50% of near everything on the planet tested positive to some amount E.Coli.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[kouhoutek]

Neither I, nor many people I know, have a problem with irradiated food based only on the irradiation. We know we won't get sick from it. However, the companies that want to irradiate their meat only want that to be the case so they don't have to make an effort to keep the feces out of the production lines.

I don't know about you, but irrated shit is still shit. Safe or not, it's still fucking disgusting.

If you breath in deeply, you are likely to get an oxygen atom Julius Caesar exhaled with his dying breath.

You have a similar chance to get once from the intestinal gasses of any cow that ever lived.

Those organic molecules that comprised your breakfast, once coursed through the blood of holy men and the veneral discharges of mad men.

Being a biological organism is pretty fucking disgusting. Get over it.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[kouhoutek]

I'm curious. On the disgusting scale, how does eating meating containing traces of fecal matter, compare to eating plants, which are grown in, and indirectly constructed out of, fecal matter?

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Jeremi]

On the disgusting scale, how does eating meating containing traces of fecal matter, compare to eating plants, which are grown in, and indirectly constructed out of, fecal matter?

To the average person, it's probably quite a bit worse, since once the plant has absorbed the nutrients from the soil, they are no longer considered to be fecal matter. The fecal matter in the meat, on the other hand, is still in its original form.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Council]

Read. The words. Think about. The words.

ALL the time. When sitting plugged in to nothing. When sitting dormant. Nothing plugged in. There is no way to make the battery not generate heat. That is totally different than any current battery.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Council]

I did some work on that. You can't store as much energy in a spinning wheel as you can in a laptop battery of similar size. Sadly.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[zippthorne]

Your razer blade would last three years if you maintained it properly. It's just that no one takes the time to run it over a leather strop a buncha times before shaving anymore.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[blackicye]

ROFL, from that link, "Vita Radium Suppositories"

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/quac kcures.htm

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[FidelCatsro]

I was joking actualy , just a tad dry

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[SPY_jmr1]

Good old sanyo 500 reds, eh?

Why/how are you wringing out LiPo's, if I might enquire... When I was involved last, 2003, they hadn't figured a way to use them except in the smallest park flyer. Might be interesting if something new had come up...

*protects his OS .40 FP's and the Saito .56* :D

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct plural form of Battery is Batteries

Excellent is spelt with two ells.

Incorrect usage of possesive "your". you meant to use you're

Also if you had RTFA you would have realized that they're using Tritium. The risk of a "small" explosion from a Li-ion based system is much larger.

Goddamn, go back to school.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

God dammed , get some manners your ingrate .
Ever heard of dry witt , no obviously you have yet to .
Anyway BTW , if your going to be doing the Grammar and spelling toll think , you may think about working on your own spelling , grammar and punctuation a little .

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just not spinning your wheel fast enough!

High-tech flywheels should be able to store more energy than batteries, in theory. They are too expensive and too fragile to be of much use currently, as well as far below the energy density they theoretically should have, but maybe someday...

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[JimDabell]

There's no profit in something that doesn't break and doesn't need to be renewed.

The manufacturers of battery-powered devices don't usually make any money selling batteries themselves, and if their devices didn't have to use batteries, it would give them a significant commercial advantage. If nuclear batteries ever become commercially viable, one of these manufacturers will do it. There's no need to wait for traditional battery manufacturers to sell them.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[kaze dcat]

Radioactive sources? like carbon 14 that is inside your body or the radioactive potassium inside a banana. Not all radioactive sources are dangerous.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Feztaa]

What's not to like? :-)

Paying $16/mo for something that I currently pay $20 for and then recharge over and over and over for years.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[FLAGGR]

Uh no, incase you haven't noticed, batteries are cheap products (well, relativly) why don't razor blades last that long? It's not like it'd be ultra expesensive for the companies to make good ones, but then everyone would have a razor and wouldn't need one for another year. Even if the company charges a premium, they could never charge you what you spend on razors for a year upfront for the lasts-one-year-razor, and even more so with batteries. Go take an economics class or something if you still don't comprehend. It wouldn't be the first time battery companies has fought better battery tech, google a bit and you can find some examples.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

"A thero-electric battery (e.g. Pielter or micro-Sterling) could easily be encased in a steel cladding that would prevent the materials from ever being released short of being heated to a molten state."

<sarcasm>Um yeah, and no one ever has a fire in their home, office, or car hot enough to damage a steel casing...</sarcasm>

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[xSauronx]

which answers the question: whats more pitiful than a computer nerd whos way too into scifi?

the person who makes a bot to get the attention of said nerd for the sole sake of making him use his moderator points on slashdot on and old comment from another story.

slashdotters rejoice! there is hope! ;)

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[BillyBlaze]

Even regular batteries alkaline batteries warn against disposing in fire. And I'd imagine that a pacemaker could explode just by virtue of having material that could vaporize under high temperatures sealed in an airtight metal container.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[GAlain]

What about making it run longhorn 24/24? wouldn't it be largely sufficient? :-)

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Jan Brunner]

I second that.

The constant heat would be one of the main disadvantages of nuclear batteries and it's why I don't think that they're useful for much else besides space probes. To power for example a notebook, the battery would have to be able to deliver about 60 W constantly, regardless of how much power's being used (I think the efficient ones go down to about 10 W when idle so there's a lot of wasted energy, even with the notebook running 24/7.).

Another problem is safety. AKAImBatman and some others really downplay this issue. I know a little bit about radioactivity (school, university) and I still have a lot of respect of it.

Comparing a nuclear battery sized to power a notebook to the tiny bit of Am241 in a smoke detector is totally stupid: I won't calculate the power dissipated by the Am in a detector but it's just enough to ionize a bit of air so I guess it's micro Watts or even less and still I wouldn't want to touch it with bare hands. Now compare this to 80 W worth of radiation... Having such a thing besides me would scare the sh*t out of me.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Jetboy01]

Ignore the parent comment, he's obviously wrong.

Anyone with any ounce of intelligence knows the plural of battery is Batterii.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[elrous0]

Having such a thing besides me would scare the sh*t out of me.

"The doctor said I already took a heavy dosage when I slammed the notebook down in anger and broke the battery casing open. But then, I just had to teabag it too..."

-Eric

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Considering the number of divorces in this country, you'll lose your nuclear batteries far less often than you'll lose your wedding ring.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[EnglishDude]

They wear out over time and will eventually need replacing. They have something like only a 1,000 recharge cycle life, and especially if they're abused, they will need replacing.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Council]

I took them up to the breaking strength of steel assuming closer to the mass of lead, as closely as I could work out the equations (I'm no mechanical engineer, I just had to make rough approximations based on tensile strength and a rough distribution of stress). Still no good. I really wanted this idea to work, but in the end I couldn't do it.

(Note, if you want to work it out yourself and maybe find a better answer: you would actually be using a sphere instead of a 'wheel', because the outer shell has to rotate freely (it's a massively powerful gyroscope), and thus you might as well use up the extra space in the casing)

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[Saige]

It just seems to me like asking the meat packing plants to make an effort not to get shit all over the meat isn't too much to ask.

And perhaps if enough people knew that they didn't bother trying to prevent it, and sold shitty meat, that people might put enough pressure on things to get it changed.

Yeah, it's never all going to be gone, but a little effort on their part may reduce the number of people that get sick from eating shitty meat. And then we can debate irradiation on its own merits, instead of as a means to get around reducing the shit content of beef.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[braindead]

Good point, thanks.

And this leads us to the solution to this thread's initial question, which was: "since a nuclear battery provides power all the time, even when the gizmo is not in use, wouldn't that mean that my powered-off gizmo will get very hot in my pocket?"

The trick is to connect the "nuclear battery" to a traditional battery, which will store the energy when the gizmo is turned off. Of course we can still run into heat issues when the gizmo is turned off for too long (connect it to your house, use it to warm water?).

Turns out this is similar to the idea of trickle-charge I remember reading somewhere. The point is to connect a weak kind of "nuclear battery" to a regular battery. If this is connected to a gizmo that is off most of the time (say, a cell phone) then with a bit of luck the nuclear part may charge the conventional battery during the night, enough for normal use in the day. The result: a cell phone that you never have to charge. Amazing! But the technology is not quite there yet.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[dougmc]

When I was involved last, 2003, they hadn't figured a way to use them except in the smallest park flyer.

I'm pretty sure this hasn't just happened in the last two years, but nowadays you can power any plane of any size with LiPos. It gets expensive in the 0.40 sized plane size, but it's still doable, with similar performance to the glow planes.

The glow engines aren't going away any time soon (your OS and Saito are safe) but the electrics are coming on strong.

Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough.

[SPY_jmr1]

Well, glad that they are improving things.. competition is always A Good Thing.

It's still hard to beat the sound (tone, not decibel) of a well tuned Saito. (grin)

They aren't becoming the limiting step

[SoCalChris]

They have been the limiting step ever since devices started using batteries.

Re:They aren't becoming the limiting step

[Anonymous Coward]

that's not true. when i was a kid most of my toys would break long before the batteries died.

Re:They aren't becoming the limiting step

[glenebob]

Exactly. Anybody who believes differently is smoking the crack.

Re:They aren't becoming the limiting step

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but now even more so. 10 years ago my game boy couldn't play movies...it didn't even have color so the batteries were not so much of a problem...sure they wouldn't last forever, but at least the batteries did not limit the technology that they could put into my game boy. These days technology is limited by how long the batteries last. Why can't I buy a PDA that can play movies, mp3s, take pictures, have WiFi, have GPS? I can have a couple devices that each have batteries that can do these things...the reason why I can't have 1 PDA to do this stuff is because the battery will last probably an hour before I hav to replace it.

Re:They aren't becoming the limiting step

[Mr2cents]

So you're saying that back then, people had more realistic expectations?

Re:They aren't becoming the limiting step

[TapeCutter]

Damm you beat me to it and I have no mod points to give you.

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Woot!

Recharge time is where it's at.

[johndierks]

I'd like the advancement in battery technology not to come in weight or longevity, but in recharge time.

I wouldn't care if my laptop battery only lasts 3 hours if I can recharge it in 5 minutes.

Re:Recharge time is where it's at.

[FidelCatsro]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/ 30/0050228&tid=126&tid=137
toshiba may have a souloution for you. The 1 minute recharge of 80% of the power .
and it only loses 1% over the 100 recharges , not too shabby .
ofcourse all that info is in the artical , should be with us by 2006/7

Re:Recharge time is where it's at.

[shawiiing]

Preach on brother man! That is a great point... I find current battery life acceptable but it pisses me off waiting an hour for my cell or mp3 player to charge!

Also (as someone who has worn out my share of batteries from too many charges) I would love to see max powercycles before failure numbers in the millions or higher. I think it all about a better quality product instead of better quantity.

Re:Recharge time is where it's at.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't care if my laptop battery only lasts 3 hours if I can recharge it in 5 minutes.

You might care if you were stuck on a six-hour flight (or three-hour cruise). Then again, perhaps there would be other things of interest to do on that three-hour cruise...

Re:Recharge time is where it's at.

[StratoChief66]

alright, but there are applications where charge time is not as important as longevity or weight. True there are applications for a battery with a short recharge time but there are just as many applications for a lighter of longer lifed battery.

Re:Recharge time is where it's at.

[Nivoset]

i dunno.. giligan was on a 3 hour cruise when BAM! stuck on a desert island... hows that luck for ya.
But at least the professor can make a nuklear reactor from coconuts.

Re:Recharge time is where it's at.

[Anonymous Coward]

Often battery recharge times are limited by the DC power generated by the transformer (you can buy "travel chargers" for cell phones, etc. In the case of laptops, the transformer already puts out 90W of power for modern laptops! Do you notice the power cord is quite a bit thicker than for a 30W transformer? That's because transfering that much power will get hot and dangerous. You want to recharge your laptop in 5 minutes? How are you going to draw 3hrs/5min more current without flipping a circuit breaker and starting a fire?

Re:Recharge time is where it's at.

[lb746]

I don't mind waiting for it to recharge if say I'm working on it and it's plugged in charging very slowly. What upsets me is when I unplug it and continue working on it, the battery dies in 30mins. A 2 year old battery shouldn't die this fast. I still have some of those really old radio shack neon yellow rechargable batterys from back in like 1990 and they still hold charges in comparison much longer.

Re:Recharge time is where it's at.

[ZOmegaZ]

You might care when your house burns down becuase you tried to draw thirty amps from a wall socket...

What about things getting TOO small?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I don't care about my Treo's battery life so much as it's combersome tiny keyboard.

As laptops get smaller, the technology in way of proccessors and such may get smaller as well but I the keyboards and touchpads remain the limiting factor, for me at least.

On the other hand

[fembots]

PDAs and mobile phones is expected to pressure battery manufacturers to improve their products

Battery manufacturers are expected to pressure PDAs and mobile phones fanboys to stop producing inefficient and power-hungry products.

Re:On the other hand

[periol]

Battery manufacturers are expected to pressure PDAs and mobile phones fanboys to stop producing inefficient and power-hungry products.

Right before they stop being battery manufacturers, that is...

Re:On the other hand

[Anonymous Coward]

How could you prove it any which way?

Well I know that's supposed to be rhetorical. But, really, it's not an unsolveable problem.

First of all, you can suggest it through correllational research - which is what these guys did. They grabbed and analyzed data from 41 nations, plotted test performance against homework given, and found corellations.

Of course, that's not proof. To prove it, you'd have to run two essentially identical classes side-by-side: one that gets a normal amount of homework (the control group) and one that gets significantly more (the experimental group).

But since we don't generally approve of experimenting with kids' educations like that - the corellational research is enough, at least for me.

He said "Becoming"

[yotto]

Seriously, Batteries have been the limiting factor in toys since I was a kid, and that's a /long time/. Remote control cars were and still are a joke, and handhelds are just as bad. "Good" mp3 players measure their battery life in hours, not days and even my cell phone can't hold a charge for the entire weekend, and all it is is a battery with a phone attached.

"Becoming?"

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Elwood P Dowd]

No kidding. This is a press hit.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a flash memory based mp3 player, my iriver lasts for days (not on all the time, of course). Way better than a spinning hard disk sucking power.

Having said that, you're right about batteries..

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Anonymous Coward]

you fail it...

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah sure batteries have been a problem in the past but when sony releases the play station portable that lasts for 2 hours when playing movies...then that's a problem. The nintendo game boy could last for longer than 2 hours because they couldn't figure out how to even put in a color screen and so batteries are more of a problem now that we have the technology to stuff pretty much anything into a box the size of an ipod but can't because of the batteries.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Anonymous Coward]

What I think is so ludicrous is the fact that things have actually been getting BETTER. Anyone remember the days before Alkaline batteries? I remember getting some stupid battery powered toy when I was a kid and having about 10 minutes of play time on it till I Had to go plunk more money down for batteries.

Now, I feel totally spoiled with NiMH rechargeables. The charge seems to outlast Alkalines substantially and you can recharge them a thousand times or so. And the cost has come way down.

Things have definetly been getting better. Not sure what measure people are using to determine that this problem is growing.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Some of it is bad design. I have a cell phone that lasts nearly two weeks, and I never turn it off. And it isn't a battery with a phone attached, the battery only comprises 1/5 of the size and weight.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Anonymous Coward]

How much talk time do you get?

Re:He said "Becoming"

[muntjac]

RC cars are a joke? http://www.swami-rc.com/swami-speedrun.htm I have actually been happy with what current high capacity NiMH's can do in RC cars. My brushless motor system for my traxxas stampede monster truck can go about 20 minutes with a good 3300mAh pack. with 3800mAh NiMHs becoming available we're nearly doubling the capacity of the old NiCd packs.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Anonymous Coward]

I go days at time without recharing my SE T637 phone. And, when I DO charge it, I can talk on it at the same time, and the battery will still have a net increase in charge. SE phones are the only ones I know of that have this property.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[woztheproblem]

My Nokia 3585i has this property.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Fly Swatter]

with 3800mAh NiMHs becoming available we're nearly doubling the capacity of the old NiCd packs

This depends on how long you have been in the hobby, when I started 1200mah NiCds were the norm, I am seeing battery capacity triple :)

But cars will not run three times longer, wanna know why? We install faster more power hungry motors so that we can use the higher capacity to go faster - not longer.

You can apply this same 'problem' to most modern devices - people buy what has bright blinky lights and completely ignore the 'boring' devices that may last much longer on the same battery.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[frn123]

My 5 years old nokia 5110 can hold a charge for 8-9 days. And new nokias are supposed to be twice as good (400+ hours).

Not sure if they sell these beast in US tho.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[kaze dcat]

wow!!! Nokia 5110 if it's the original model not the 5110i then you beter keep that phone in mint condition. Soon it will be collector's item.

That phone never break's the hardcore in robust design.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[glesga_kiss]

And, when I DO charge it, I can talk on it at the same time, and the battery will still have a net increase in charge.

I've never had a phone that didn't do this, and I've had a lot of phones. Oh, one exception, the first phone I had you had to remove the battery to charge it.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Real talk time, they claim 90 minutes a charge.

When I use the phone, a few 1-2 min calls a day, I can go a week between charges. On a slow month, I charge twice a month.

It is a Sanyo SCP-4900. It's not even available anymore, I'm not even sure what the successor model is.

Re:He said "Becoming"

[Maltheus]

You might want to check out the new NiMH batteries out there. They're incredible.

Every lithium battery I've gotten has been a piece of shit and, within a couple of months, fails to recharge to an acceptable capacity. And since a lot of lithium devices don't let you replace the battery easily, those devices tend to become useless to me shortly after purchasing them.

Now, I always try to get devices that take AA or AAA batteries. My digital camera can easily take a month of heavy use before having to recharge. I'll never go back to Lithium if I can help it. My new MP3 player uses a single AAA (1000mah) battery and I've yet to recharge it since I got it a week ago. And since the NiMH batteries are so cheap, I have extras laying around so that my devices can always be used. I even leave my MP3 player's backlight on all the time because, well, why not. There's no longer a downside. It's better than letting my spare rechargables sit on the shelf for months.

Now, if only Tapwave would release a Zodiac that runs off AAs...

Organic batteries

[Virtual Karma]

Solid State Rechargeable Organic Batteries Based on Polymer Composites are the only solution

A few days back i remember reading on /. something about a panasonic organic battery now available. It lasts 10 times more than duracell

Re:Organic batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

"only solution"? That sounds a tad unscientific to me. There's always room for improvement.

Super Toys

[thunderbass]

So, my Supertoys -will not- Last All Summer Long?

damn.

Re:Super Toys

[Anonymous Coward]

Your Super Toys aren't going to last through the week if you don't get yourself a girlfriend!

Re:Super Toys

[Anonymous Coward]

why not? theres a cool clock at thinkgeek.com that runs on water!!!

Err....

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

We're already having problems with enough PE being stored in batteries for them to explode occasionally... Is everyone certain that MORE energy being stuffed into chemically based batteries for toys that children play with is a good idea? I mean, there comes a point where selling something 'new' increases its danger level a bit higher than we're willing to go, right?

Re:Err....

[shawiiing]

Boom :) I totaly agree!!!! I really don't want to be carying around a battery with enough PE to take out a city block or two

Re:Err....

[Trailwalker]

I mean, there comes a point where selling something 'new' increases its danger level a bit higher than we're willing to go, right?

Doesn't stop sales of autos, propane grills, pesticides, and other "dangerous" items.

Sales are reduced only when the item is declared dangerous on a TV "view_with_alarm" news segment.

Re:Err....

[onkelonkel]

I guess I must be in extra-dense mode today. I read your sig three times befor I "got" it. "Coffee exits through nostrils onto keyboard" Of course RS is the wookie.

Re:Err....

[nxtw]

I have a large box with enough PE to cause quite an explosion, yet I get in it and move around with the box at high speeds every day.

Most of the problems with exploding batteries has to do with improper charging or shutoff circuits (often crappy non-OEM hardware) or poorly manufactured cells (also usually crappy non-OEM).

Re:Err....

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

:>

I was bored with my sig, I'd had it for a full week or two.

Is it just me?

[Hrodvitnir]

It seems to me that most of the devices we have nowadays would have a pretty good power life with current batteries if they didn't have a plethora of "extras." When you combine a phone, PDA, and mp3 player together and then connect it to the internet, you're taking 4 different devices and trying to run them all on the same battery.

IMO, consolidation of devices and extra features that most people can do without are what's causing the energy crunch in small electronics.

Re:Is it just me?

[hobbesx]

Hmm? Device consolidation should conserve power.

Are you saying you'd rather have 4 LCD's glowing in your pockets? When everything is in one device, you only have one screen lit/one speaker(or headphone jack)/one network connection being used at one time.
If you were to connect to the internet using a PDA that didn't include the phone, you'd be forced to use another device that would also be using power.

Sure the batteries may last longer when you have separate devices, but if you're willing to hulk around all that stuff, why not pack around the second device's size in battery and use a combination device that's more efficient?

Re:Is it just me?

[SomeOtherGuy]

"When you combine a phone, PDA, and mp3 player together and then connect it to the internet, you're taking 4 different devices and trying to run them all on the same battery."

Partially correct. I think the key is when you take any of those devices together or seperate and connect them to the internet, then the battery gives up the ghost after about 45 minutes. I have tried all types of PDA's, Phones, etc -- and each one of them puke when it comes to a constant network connection. Hell, even my laptop with a brand new fully charged power house of a battery is lucky to last an hour and a half on the WLAN.

Re:Is it just me?

[cowscows]

Over all, having four devices would take more power, because I'd have four batteries to charge, but I'd expect each one to last longer than a device combining all four.

None of my gadgets have screens that glow when it's sitting in my pocket. My ipod screen doesn't light up unless I'm navigating the menus. Same with my cell phone. Or my digital camera.

If they're all on one device, however, then that battery is going to have to supply four times as much power, because any time I need to do anything, the same screen will light up. Not to mention all the other random stuff that those devices need power for.

Basically, I like the fact that I can use my mp3 player as much as I want, and if the battery runs out, I just can't listen to music anymore. If running down my iPod also meant that my phone would die as well, then I'd be a lot more cautious with my music listening, and needing to do that is not compelling to me.

Re:Is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because no cell phone manufacturer in the world ever writes power management software to turn off the parts you are not using. Sheesh.

Nuclear batteries won't work

[Frangible]

Betavoltaics and plutonium thermopiles are both too expensive and don't provide enough power to be useful, and the latter is quite bulky. The only nuclear battery that is capable of supplying enough power is a Polonium-based battery, which is extremely expensive, highly toxic, and only has a half-life of a month. Due to the cost and short half-life, these were used mostly to demonstrate the power and promise of nuclear energy in a compact form, but were never commercially viable. I love my tritium for illumination, but I'm afraid nuclear batteries are best suited for other applications in their current form and limitations. What I think has the most promise is a conventional Li-Polymer cell augmented by solar cells or betavoltaics to increase the standby time, and maybe, if the current is enough to fulfill the stnadby requirements, even slowly recharge the battery when the device is off. But using nuclear batteries as the main power source just isn't an option with the current technology available, I'm afraid.

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I love my tritium for illumination

Did you notice that third hand growing on your arm under your wristwatch?

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[AKAImBatman]

What I think has the most promise is a conventional Li-Polymer cell augmented by solar cells or betavoltaics to increase the standby time

This is more or less what I said. Nuclear technology can be used *now* to extend the life of cell phones, PDAs, and potentially even devices like Laptops. What would then happen, is that this would create a market for nuclear materials. Once this market existed, it would continue to drive down prices until nuclear-only batteries become affordable.

The only nuclear battery that is capable of supplying enough power is a Polonium-based battery, which is extremely expensive, highly toxic, and only has a half-life of a month.

Strictly speaking, that depends on the application. My cell phone needs a bit more than 1 watt of power to charge. On standby it needs far less than that for regular operation. Nuclear technology could make charging unnecessary today.

As for the toxicity, it's a problem I'm afraid we have today. Most batteries are HORRIBLE for the environment. Alpha/Beta nuclear batteries with short half-lives are hardly worse.

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[Frangible]

Hell yes, now I don't have to type one handed while looking at porn.

Seriously though, it's this kind of silly hysteria about radioactive material that prevents it from being more widely adopted. In reality the weak beta radiation from tritium cannot escape the illumination vial, nevermind the watch, and even if it could, it could not penetrate your skin. And even if you ate the entire thing, it is quickly flushed from your body, and even if it wasn't, it's still less the natural radioactivity you recieve in a month anyway.

Now contrast that with drinking the contents of a lead-acid battery, I'll let you guess which is the greater danger to human health. :)

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[Frangible]

I'd be really interested to see how much power per volume/weight the new betavoltaics are capable of generating. I think there's already a fairly large market for tritium products; exit signs, watches, comapsses, the ever-popular glowrings, and gun sights. But yes, there's certainly more economy in greater scale.

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[Jeremi]

What would then happen, is that this would create a market for nuclear materials. Once this market existed, it would continue to drive down prices until nuclear-only batteries become affordable.

Thereby making it trivial for anyone with Wal-Mart access to put together a "dirty bomb"? Sounds exciting!

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[AKAImBatman]

Thereby making it trivial for anyone with Wal-Mart access to put together a "dirty bomb"?

Repeat after me: Dirty bombs don't work. They are a media scare and nothing else. Campaigns of FUD are designed to fool idiots into believing that everything they read in comic books is true.

Good. Now go here, read, and understand.

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[Jeremi]

Repeat after me: Dirty bombs don't work. They are a media scare and nothing else. Campaigns of FUD are designed to fool idiots into believing that everything they read in comic books is true.

Now repeat after me: What is the objective of terrorism? To make people afraid. Do "dirty bombs" make people afraid? Yes. Therefore, they work just fine.

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[AKAImBatman]

Let me put it this way: People won't be very afraid after the terrorists fail to kill anyone after the second or third attempt. People will actually be laughing at the stupidity of the terrorists. And the media will, of course, blame the entire scare mongering on the government instead of their own inability to check the facts.

Terrorists aren't always the brightest (e.g. the attack on the USS Sullivans), but they aren't that stupid. If they have anyone with enough knowledge to make a dirty bomb, they have someone with enough knowledge to tell them why it won't work. (And trust me, countless governments from Hitler on up have explored the idea.)

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[Jeremi]

Let me put it this way: People won't be very afraid after the terrorists fail to kill anyone after the second or third attempt.

Perhaps... but even with no casualties, the ability to cause a panic-evacuation and week-long shutdown/"decontamination" of all businesses in a major metropolitan area is nothing to sneeze at. Between the psychological effects, the economic effects, and the long-term effect on property values, even a "placebo" dirty bomb is a pretty good deal for your up-and-coming terrorist.

On the plus side, maybe some actual experience with the harmful effects (or lack thereof) of low-level radiation will make people more reasonable on the subject, at which point dirty-bombs will no longer be so useful to terrorists. In the meantime, the public's irrational fear of radiation is quite exploitable as a means of sowing havoc.

Re:Nuclear batteries won't work

[kaze dcat]

Dude what about the cosmic radiation that's raining down on everybody isnt it a low-level radiation that we experience every day. And last time I check I'm still alive (Hurray!!!!) Will unless you tell me im undead (yay)

I got it.

[Kaisum]

Cold fusion batteries are the way of the future.

Re:I got it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ingredients:
- Cold fusion
- Infinium Labs' Phantom console
- Duke Nukem Forever

Directions:
Construct a typical Slashdot vaporware joke using
the above.

Re:I got it.

[Alberic]

Of the far future, then.

Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeable)

[lkcl]

i keep repeating this time and time again at every opportunity on slashdot.

EUROPOSITRON.COM already HAVE a rechargeable battery that is FIVE TIMES more powerful than Li-Ion.

they're sealed.

they're rechargeable.

they don't turn to sludge because Mr Rainer Partenan has reversed the anode and cathode that would otherwise make the battery turn to sludge (in other aluminium cells) - instead, the liquid turns crystalline.

it's a 1.5V cell.

it means that a D-Type cell could deliver something stupid like 20Ah.

it means that a battery array of around 60kg could propel a family-sized electric car a distance of FIVE HUNDRED MILES on one charge.

and is there anything in the news about mr partenan's technology? is there xxxx. ... why are people being so THICK!!!! maaaaagh!

No Batteries Required

[Anonymous Coward]

My bike, legos, baseball bat and glove, model airplanes and my Tonkas don't need batteries.

Oh wait. I'm old. Nevermind.

LiPolys

[caseih]

I've been using Lithium Polymer batteries for quite some time on my electric remote control airplanes. They are amazingly light weight, pack a lot of energy and can handle enormous current loads. My airplanes draw up to 10 Amps of steady current from my 7.4V 1500 mAh batteries, although typical flights use much less, about 12 to 14 minutes per charge of constant flying.

The downsides to LiPoly are the same as LiIon. They are expensive and don't have an operational lifetime that is very long. They wear out just sitting on the shelf. I anticipate having to replace my airplane batteries every year or so. LiPoly batteries also take a long time to completely charge. Filling an empty 1500 mAh battery takes almost one and a half hours at 1.5 A charging current. Also if a LiPoly is every discharged below a certain voltage, the cells are ruined.

Re:LiPolys

[Kris_J]

if a LiPoly is every discharged below a certain voltage, the cells are ruined.

So, is that 1500mAh capacity only if you ruin the battery?

I had some rechargable alkaline AAs like this, only the pack didn't tell me that if I let the totally discharge I'd only get half a dozen cycles out of them. This did make their quoted capacity a bit of a lie.

Re:LiPolys

[Anonymous Coward]

Im very Impressed Im sure. But its not really fighting cancer with math, just creating a good model on how to repond with the treatments we have.

Re:LiPolys

[Rorschach1]

"A lot of energy" is a relative term. They've got an energy density of what, about 160 watt/hours per kilogram? Compare that to more than 13,000 for gasoline.

Batteries just suck. When is someone going to invent Heinlein's Shipstone?

Re:LiPolys

[ballpoint]

All true.

Latest versions can be drawn down at 20C. This means you can draw 30A from a 1500mAh cell.

As to the lifetime, I rarely get more than 100 cycles out of them (due to the high current draw ); this means about $0.5 per flight. Not cheap, but there's no practical alternative for electric helis if you want a decent performance and flight time.

And don't forget the fire hazard. If they're abused (crash), shorted (exposed wires) or improperly charged, the Li will burn fiercely. Not for the faint of heart.

Re:LiPolys

[Anonymous Coward]

After I graduated from college I decided to take a year off and went to Taiwan to teach young kids. Most of them were about 8 years old and went to school from 7AM until 6 PM and then went home and did 3-4 hours of homework. Weekends were made up of bushibans of math, science and english.

Does repetition work? Yes mostly. Learning to write Chinese is best taught by repetition. Any sport is best learned by repetition.

Being a brilliant scientist is that learned by repetition? No. The important thing seems to me is to leave some time for creativity and that is one thing Asian schools (assuming Korea/Singapore/Japan are similar) don't seem to get.

Understanding patterns, applying information from another part of your brain and another field to the task at hand etc. This is where creativity comes from. I don't think it can 100% be taught - but I think it can be inspired by good teachers.

Where are the Asian Nobel prize winners? How come Taiwan can take 60% of the US Electrical Engineering Phds (90s stat) but not produce top line physics research? That is probabably a question for another day.

Re:LiPolys

[dj245]

The problem is after LiPoly, there is no better battery chemistry. Future polymers and manufacturing improvements will give maybe 10% improvement per year at best. Lithium is the lightest, and one of the most reactive metals on the activity series. We've run out of periodic table to climb. Thats why methanol and fuel cells are the next big thing. We've gone from battery chemistry to chemistry, but the periodic table only goes so far. At some point electrochemical cells aren't sufficicient to fill portable power needs.

Re:LiPolys

[DustMagnet]

I had some rechargable alkaline AAs like this, only the pack didn't tell me that if I let the totally discharge I'd only get half a dozen cycles out of them.

I purchased Renewals when they first came out and had the same problem. However, it turned out it was a problem with the charger, not the battery. The charger detected the volage of a battery before charging. If the battery was too low, it wasn't detected. Quickly running another battery in parallel was enough to get the charger started and the batteries were fine. Still, renewals only have 50% power after 20 cycles, so they are best for applications that require alkalines. I still use them, but use about twice as many NiMH.

Re:LiPolys

[StikyPad]

I think I speak for all of us when I say:

What?!?

Re:LiPolys

[caseih]

The 1500 mAh is the amount of current you can draw from the battery before the low-voltage threshold is reached. Almost all R/C electronic speed controls have a cut-off to kill your prop motor before the voltage drops too low which keeps you from ruining your batteries and insures you have enough power to control the servos to get you down. Judging by the computer's readout on my charger, I typically drain about 1300 mAh of power on each cycle.

NiMH batteries are also rated similarly. In other words, 1800 mAh of power before the cell drops below 1 V or something. Batteries are elastic, so really these numbers are estimations of usable voltage.

Re:LiPolys

[caseih]

Well, seeing as I can't fly gas airplanes at my local city park, LiPolys are as good as I can get right now. I don't see children's toys burning gasoline yet. Maybe safe fuel cells in the future...

Compared to a few years ago, performance is pretty cool. In fact before the widespread adoption in RC of NiMH and LiPoly, electric-powered RC planes just didn't exist like they do now. Many RC fliers can get their electrics up over 1000' altitudes and some planes fly up over 50 mph.

Re:LiPolys

[Johnno74]

Yeah, is /. fucking up, or are asshats posting random posts from other threads here?

My money is on /. screwing the pooch.

Re:LiPolys

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed too. /. is wigged.

Re:LiPolys

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd bet it has something to do with mysql not being a real database...

Cornering the market

[Woogiemonger]

Now I see why the US doesn't want Iran and North Korea developing nuclear power. The Bush administration is using the A-bomb as an excuse for the US to corner the market on plutonium laptop batteries. Unfortunately, this will be self-defeating, because the US population will consequently go sterile.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

[ranson]

And I thought this whole issue was settled with the 1-minute rechargable battery that's on its way.

And we also recently saw an article on Nuclear-powered batteries.

Get a fat kid and a treadmill...

[GillBates0]

The race is on to find battery technologies that are lighter and have increased life

Place said kit in motion on said device and harness generated energy.

The added advantages of this apparatus are it's rapidly diminishing weight and exponentially increasing life with regular use.

Not the battery

[dmf415]

Or its the Power Consumption of the device that is the single limiting factor of portable devices.

We could try combustion

[suitepotato]

If we went over to small butane powered gas turbine generators on beltpacks, I'm sure the PSP6 could be power adequately for at least ten or fifteen minutes.

Re:We could try combustion

[Anonymous Coward]

you fail it

NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if it recharges in 5 minutes if you're nowhere near a power source? Heck, if I was near power so I could recharge that often I wouldn't need a battery now would I?

Think about it this way, you often sleep somewhere where there's power. So, would an 8 hour recharge time really be that bad if your device would stay powered the rest of the 16 hours in the day?

One other gripe I have is the lifespan.
DEVICE MANUFACTURES LISTEN UP: STOP USING IRREPLACABLE BATTERIES IN YOUR DEVICES! I WILL NOT BUY ANOTHER!

Yesterday the Li-Ion in my Palm Vx died. Dead. I mean I can't turn it on if it's not in the cradle. And it lost all the power such that everything on it was erased anyway. Garbage.

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Muerte23]

lol! this site is such a scam it's ridiculous. all these vague "timelines" and talking about "feynman". he might as well be talking about the "color of energy" and "the uncertainty principle is untenable!"

it kind of gives your plan away when the whole front page of the site screams (in red) "buy special shares of stock!"

i hope that you are Mr. Rainer Partenan himself. if not, i have some *great* technologies for you to invest in.

m

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Anonymous Coward]

And they don't exist yet. Their web site is so focused on getting funding that they don't even describe the technology. Their timeline for future work won't even have this to market for four years. So really, there's nothing about europositron that's more than fluffy pleas for money to chase an untested technology.

ok yes I have gas, ....

[Brigadier]

you don't have to blurt it out you insensitive bastard

Re:ok yes I have gas, ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Clod. Not bastard.

Re:ok yes I have gas, ....

[Anonymous Coward]

While that may be true, if you're going to disagree with an article that mentions not only one, but two studies disagreeing with you, why don't you back that up with a little fact?

Re:ok yes I have gas, ....

[Feztaa]

CLOD... the word is clod, you insensitive clod!

In Soviet Russia, clods desensitize you!

Battery technology...

[satguy]

...has swallowed large amounts of R&D money since batteries were first invented/discovered. Yes, improvements are most often incremental, and differing technologies offer different qualities (Li-On maintains voltage 'til almost complete discharge; GNB (now Exide) Absolite batteries work down to at least -60 C. with a normal 20-year service life), NiMH avoids NiCd's memory effect, but stop working at 0 C./32 F.).

Demand for tiny, high-capacity stored power sources has never been greater than today, and the R&D budgets are ever rising, but forecasting when the next serendiptuous discovery of a new technology will occur is not easy...

Re:Battery technology...

[Anonymous Coward]

They were just doing their homework.

(and no, there isn't a '-1, Corny' moderation option :D sorry)

Re:Battery technology...

[fearofcarpet]

Demand for tiny, high-capacity stored power sources has never been greater than today, and the R&D budgets are ever rising, but forecasting when the next serendiptuous discovery of a new technology will occur is not easy...

All the belly aching around here... Sheesh. We're working on it, ok? The DOE, DARPA, Office of Naval Research, Air Force, etc etc etc are handing out money for battery projects and I assure you that the next new battery technology will NOT be serendipitous, rather it will be the result of years of (frustrating) research building on discoveries dating all the way back to wet towels and copper discs.

Battery technology is slow to develope because it is not easy to pack a bunch of electrons in a tiny space wedged up against a huge electron sync and then ask them to not only sit there and like it, but to merrily hop back up the hill after being discharged, then sit around on the electrode until we ask for them again. You can't just stuff them in a box - they repel each other. They are happiest when they can delocalize over a network of big positively charged nuclei, but the problem with electrons is happy = low potential = low half cell potential = the need for many cells = big form factors... You get the idea.

Now take all that and add to it Nature's silly idea of charge balancing. When electrons flow they create a chrage imbalance that must be exactly balanced by positive charges. Now positive charges don't grow on trees like electrons, they tend to be HUGE by comparison and they like to swim. Now batteries with liquid electrolytes just aren't pratical so we have to use various glassy polymers and "gels" (or dry cell or whatever) that are fabulous ion conductors, but crappy electron conductors. It took years of research to find a medium that lithium ions could flow through without getting stuck right away and what we ended up with isn't even that great...

Battery technology will have to move in one of two directions and be coupled with dramatic cuts in power consumption by portable devices. First, fuel cells. These are great because you harvest electrons from REDOX reactions rather than stuffing them into lithium intercalated graphite or whatever hideously unstable electrode configuration is demanded by the charged state. Of course they can't be recharged and right now they suck because, and where have I heard this before, the best ion conductors (which you still need for fuel cell batteries) only perform well at a balmy 80% humidity and (and I'm not 100% sure on this) about 50 deg. C... The other option is "nanotechnology" (hang on, have to smack myself for using a buzzword) which could allow us to tuck thin films or tiny spheres or scrolls or whatever into very small spaces. This is important because it allows us to use very small half cell potentials to produce large open circuit voltages by wiring up thousands of teeny-tiny cells in our "nanobattery" (smack, smack) arrays.

So either go out and invent safe nuclear batteries or tiny hamsters that can fit on tiny hampster wheels that can fit inside my iPod and go weeks without hamster food, or accept the fact that battery technology is a real bugger... I mean we (scientists) aren't that lazy; some problems are just harder than others to solve. Why can't we get all over the electrical engineers to make lower power consumption devices? Can we harp on Taiwan for not trying hard enough to bring OLEDs to market? Maybe we should just build robots that turn us into batteries...

Re:Battery technology...

[Synbiosis]

"..has swallowed large amounts of R&D money since batteries were first invented/discovered. Yes, improvements are most often incremental, and differing technologies offer different qualities"

Your statement is nothing but FUD. You've been spoiled by microchips. The vast majority of technology doesn't evolve as rapidly as CPU speeds. We aren't seeing horsepower, safety ratings, or gas mileage 'doubling' every 18 months, but automotive technology is definitely advancing.

Re:Battery technology...

[satguy]

> and I assure you that the next new battery technology will NOT be serendipitous, rather it will be the result of years of (frustrating) research building on discoveries dating all the way back to wet towels and copper discs.

Thank you for your illuminating post - I'm aware of some of the challenges in battery design, and the huge expenses incurred in battery R&D, and tried to impart that concept to the reader in my simple way.

I'm only a user of stored ergs - your "note from the trenches" of battery design made my point with eloquence!

Re:Battery technology...

[ta ma de]

Thanks for saving me the typing. Coaxing chemicals to make electricity is tricky business. And something I don't think many readers realize is that there are physical bounders to the voltage potential that can be achieved through chemical cells. There is a very good reason why AAA through DD are all 1.5v. To bad know one is smart enough to come up with a way to generate electricity from vacuum energy.

Re:Battery technology...

[lkcl]

12 years ago, why did the DoE's requirements for funding specify that the cells must be above 1.5 volts?

that made DAMN sure that aluminium cells (see http://europositron.com/ would not be researched.

aluminium comprises EIGHT PERCENT of the earth's crust - it is one of the most abundant metals on the planet, and one that can be used to store the most energy. ... i _can_ think of a reason why the DoE would not want aluminium cells to be developed: a small cell weighing a few ounces would be capable of delivering well over 1,000 amps. with the right kind of shorting out, i feel reasonably confident in speculating that the cell itself would make a very effective bomb.

and how is this news?

[t35t0r]

like we didn't know this already?

Re:and how is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean grad students, don't you?

That's like the fox guarding the henhouse.

There is a great amount of discipline that can be learned from doing homework. There is almost a direct one-to-one correlation between doing homework and excelling in classes. Having the ability to trudge through what sometimes seems to be busywork leads to stronger self-control and greater self-confidence when the grade reports come out and all that work has paid off.

If you believe that school is not in the business of molding the characters of students into strong, self-confident, law-abiding citizens, then I could see how you'd rather they did nothing but play.

Re:and how is this news?

[t35t0r]

uhh.. you're looking for the "too much homework is bad for you" column ...you posted in the "batteries are limiting factors in mobile toys" column

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[cortana]

So why aren't they in my (figurative) PSP?

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

and is there anything in the news about mr partenan's technology? is there xxxx. ... why are people being so THICK!!!! maaaaagh!

Link please, before I classify your post as the troll it appears to be?

Mod parent up!

[rmayor]

This coward has it spot on. Apple has even gone to the extent of telling you how many recharge cycles they expect on the iPods until you have to buy a new one.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

... so instead of treating the tumor by trying to kill the cells via radio or chemical therapy, they attack the factors that (in a mathematical model) determine the growth of the tumor, turning them into negative variables and therefore extinguishing the mass.

Unfortunately some of the most promising drugs that work to shrink tumors are not improving survival rates whatsoever. They are, in fact, shrinking the tumors "like they're supposed to", but this isn't doing anything to stop progression of the cancer./p

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[DigiShaman]

If this technology is for real, then they need to start pumping out AAs and sell them on Thinkgeek. If it become profitable, they can expand into other sizes. But for now, AA is a common size and a safe bet to sell.

llecleuf?

[Doc Ruby]

Fuelcells combine stored hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen, harvesting the extra energy in moving electrons, and discarding H20 and other byproducts. They are typically replenished by adding more hydrogen carrier, like methanol. Is there a small (smaller than a playingcard deck) fuelcell that's rechargeable? Plug it into power, and it cracks water back into (storeable) hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen?

Re:llecleuf?

[Anonymous Coward]

A fire breaks out in the mathematician's room. The mathematician wakes up and sees the fire, does some lengthy calculations on paper, lights a match and drops it in a glass of water, says "It can be done", and goes back to bed.

A mathematician doing an experiment? Never! (And yes, I am one.) The mathematician sees the fire, notices a glass of water on his nightstand, proclaims, "A solution exists!" and goes back to bed.

Cheers,
IT

Re:llecleuf?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such chemical as H20.

Re:llecleuf?

[Elder Entropist]

Problem with cracking water for recharging is that hydrogen and oxygen take up much more space alone than when combined into water. Therefore making a container for the gas(es) would be either not small or not lightweight. One reason hydrocarbons are used so much is because they have a much higher energy density than hydrogen alone and are easier to store/contain. Recombining hydrocarbons would be difficult, plus the reverse happens. After burning, you get nice low-density (and hot) gases like carbon dioxide that we usually just let escape. Trying to contain these byproducts would again require large of very strong containers.

Re:llecleuf?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about an ethanol based fuel cell? Whenever you run down, just pour a bit of your vodka into it...

Re:llecleuf?

[Doc Ruby]

Or a chemical reaction that combined carbon from atmospheric C02 with hydrogen from cracked water, releasing some of the oxygen back into the atmosphere, and keeping the ethanol, methanol, propanol, etc. It might take more energy to drive the fuelcell catalyzed reaction backwards than it releases forwards, but that just eats into the overall efficiency of the fuelcell, which will become quite high within a few years.

Re:llecleuf?

[Doc Ruby]

The whole point is to use something readily available anywhere to recharge, like water and an electric socket. Not just put in more fuel, which has to be made elsewhere.

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone comment on this?

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[telyio]

Calm down. . .It's OKAY.

LiPoly's are Dangerous.

[Phoenix-IT]

Lithium polymer batteries are also very dangerous if not handled properly and/or are not charged and discharged with the proper protection circuitry in place. http://www.runryder.com/helicopter/t90077p1/

Re:LiPoly's are Dangerous.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Confuse the tumours with complex calculus.
2. When they're not expecting it, nab 'em!

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[kfg]

Ah yes. Yet another one those outfits whose "timeline" is:

Sell shares --> "Invent" the thing --> spend all the money on "red tape" --> go back to investors --> rinse and repeat until investors are broke --> retire to the Riviera.

There is no news on Mr. Partnan's "technology" for the simple reason that he doesn't have any; and more or less admits it.

KFG

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[imsabbel]

Care to elaborate how this wonder capacity should come from?
My basic chemistry (and (molecular physics)) just kinda fails me when trying to justify that kind of capacity.

And the way you write you posting complete with CAPITALS because its SO IMPORTANT!!!!!11111, bullshit statements of pseudoscience, ect, i think i dont have to visit that site to know thats in the same real as those perpetuum mobile fans from japan, the antigravity over superconucting discs, ect.
Just bullshit.

Get rid of the bloatware

[G4from128k]

My Psion 5mx PDA gets more than 30 hours battery life (on store-bought alkaline batteries) and its 5 year-old technology. I'm sure that a few carefully designed chips and software would enable a high level of functionality and low level of power consumption.

The same people that insist they need a 100 watt, multi-GHz processor are the same people that insist they need a hulking V8 SUV for their around-town driving.

To the people that claim that games can't work without the utmost in computer power, I say get a chess set because a good toy doesn't necessarily need electricity

Re:Get rid of the bloatware

[Tx]

What you're saying is "any game more advanced than tetris is bloatware, and who wants to watch movies on the move anyway, read a book."

I can't decide if you're a troll or just a luddite.

Re:Get rid of the bloatware

[jhoger]

I say the same thing about my favorite "true portable" laptops... model 100, 102, 200.

I think what we need are two things:

Standardization on batteries: either use off-the-shelf batteries, or highly standardize li-ion batteries. 3 or 4 AA batteries, or a couple of 9V should be enough for most things.

Right-size the firmware to what actually needs to be done. Neither Linux nor Windows really belong in instant-on commodity embedded systems (yet).

No moving parts. You'll get better reliability that way too.

-- John.

Re:Get rid of the bloatware

[Fred Ferrigno]

... I'm sure that a few carefully designed chips and software would enable a high level of functionality and low level of power consumption.

The only reason battery power hasn't become more of an issue is because that sort of thing has already happened. Scores of technical advances in the last few decades have dramatically reduced the power consumption of common hardware features. Unfortunately, marketing continues to demand that the design incorporate more features to compensate and smaller size. Laptops, cell phones, PDAs, etc. now get about the same battery life as they did years ago because every advance in efficiency is complemented by a smaller battery and more features.

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=34220

the blog entry that they linked to was kinda vauge on details ;) turns out the only math the used was in calculating how tumours grow, and how they prevent immune responses, so they figured out an immune system response they can trigger that will cause the cells that cause tumours to grow to become a 'target' of the patients immune system. no math equasion used to 'cure' it at all, just a little deductive reasoning and science...

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but my faith does not allow for medical/mathematical intervention. You must allow my child to die to fulfill god's glorious plan.

You can stuff all your "evolution" and "math" voodoo. Fucking heathens!

Firefox security problems!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is offtopic, but I just had to... check this out, these guys are trying to say that Firefox is full of security holes, and "they are there to assist you"... GO GET EM!

http://www.craigslist.org/nby/cps/75811290.html

Zero /point Energy

[brickballs]

Forget Batterys, I want to cee a cell phone running off Zero Point Energy

Re:Zero /point Energy

[kakos]

This may surprise you, but we don't live in the Star Gate universe. ZPE is utterly useless for powering anything. The best demonstrations of ZPE is the Casimir effect and the force between the two plates is so insignificant that you couldn't light a light bulb with it.

Yet more evidence that

[Anonymous Coward]

they will not keep going and going and going...

Really?

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Captain Obvious to the rescue...

Don't put them in toys...

[mconeone]

...adults have a much higher 'danger level' than children.

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Anonymous Coward]

While we are at it I want a lightsaber and a blaster please

Not from Duracell

[scrotch]

You're not going to see anything but small, incremental improvements from the battery companies. Nokia or Toshiba might produce a breakthrough, but Duracell and Energizer have absolutely no incentive to do it first. They have a great market right now, and to keep it, batteries will need to be replaced - often.

Re:Not from Duracell

[ggpauly]

Gillette (maker of Duracell batteries) has an agreement with Mechanical Technologies to manufacture and market methanol fuel cells.

Contrary to the implied assertion in the original post, Mechanical Technologies continues to pursue fuel cells. Their initial market is the US military, to replace personal and logistical batteries.

It's clear to Bush...

[808paulson]

It's time to go "nuCUlar"

batteries schmatteries

[Anonymous Coward]

I want nanobots to crawl around inside the gizmo; it won't need batteries, you just drop a banana pellet inside and the bots will convert it and run off it.

just think of a beowlll.. uh, large dog.

Vampire Toys

[Greyfox]

Didn't someone recently figure out how to use blood to power stuff? When are we going to see a PDA that has 2 little fangs on it that you can just stab into your (or someone else's) skin for a quick charge? The office has an endless supply of slow-moving cattle who could be preyed upon for PDA-juice...

Oh yeah... that's a future I could get in to!

Re:Vampire Toys

[the eric conspiracy]

All we need is to plug some humans into the power collection systems that were used on the Matrix. One guy for your trunk, another for the basement etc.

With the wages they get in China it would be very cost-effective.

Re:Vampire Toys

[Elder Entropist]

They're already here:
Long-Life Biothermal Battery
The technology is based on a patented innovation in the utilization of thermoelectric materials, using nanoscale-based, thin-film materials to convert thermal energy produced naturally by the human body into electrical energy. The resulting power can be used to "trickle charge" batteries for medium-power devices such as defibrillators, or directly power low-energy devices like pacemakers.

or:
Researchers building biologically fueled microfuel cells
But unlike a hydrogen fuel cell, which has to be refueled with hydrogen periodically, the bio-microfuel cell will continue to produce electricity as long as the plant or other biological host remains alive.

GWB

[110010001000]

The REAL question is how can we blame this on George Bush somehow? Anyone?

Re:GWB

[Anonymous Coward]

See this

Re:GWB

[Anonymous Coward]

It wouldn't any good.

He would just tell us that the batteries are working great, the press never reports the stories of successful batteries, and that the reports of short battery life are exagerrated.

Then the right wing radio hosts would let us know how unamerican it is to talk about failing batteries.

Re:GWB

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans have continually cut back alternative energy research funding in favor of military options and political kickbacks to keep oil products as America's major portable energy source.

GWB has followed in all previous Republican president's footsteps (of the last half century) and favoured oil economy supporting policies over alternative energy research.

So, yes, in fact you can blame it on GWB.

Slashdot bug?

[uberdave]

A cure for cancer? By using math? Astounding!

This shouldn't be so astounding. After all, for many it's already cured insomnia.

Is there a Slashdot bug that cross-links stories? Here we are talking about nuclear batteries, and days old comments about math and cancer come up. I also recall irrelevant/untraceable references to Cuba coming up in another story.

Re:Slashdot bug?

[FLAGGR]

What do you mean Sony has to increase production of PSPs to meet demand? They should just take spare ones off of north american shelves!

Just kidding. Maybe its some n00b with too many tabs in Firefox?

Re:Slashdot bug?

[mikiN]

Don't think so. Just minutes ago, I saw a Slashdot story on an experiment with swarming Linux powered tiny helicopters. I was waiting to reply, calmly hitting refresh for the Obi-Wan clone drone to stop spitting out "Nothing to see here, ..." when the story just vanished into thin air. Checked many topics, searched, nada. Ruined my first "First Post" in years, too, darn Slashcode.

Re:Slashdot bug?

[mikiN]

For those who think that I made this all up (and for those who want to study "the mystery of the disappearing article", here's a link to TFA to go with that story. Linux Powers Airborne Bots.

Re:Slashdot bug?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice that they are all anonymous cowards, even the repeats of posts originally posted with a registered user name. It is the same massive troll campaign that the image check, for all of its problems, temporarily eliminated while in effect. The only problem then was that the 2-minute post interval timeout was somehow changed to multiple hours or minutes by seeming random chance.

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Anonymous Coward]

Therefore your gender has nothing to do with your contracting aviary cancer.

Very astute observation. It's most likely your species that dictates your ability to develop aviary cancer.

Petrol

[Anonymous Coward]

Petrol is the preferred solution by wacky kids everywhere (or at least in Hemel Hempstead). Long lasting effect, to be sure!

Lithium Polymer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lithium Polymer batteries on the horizon? Huh? They've been in phones and PDAs for years now.

The big advantage of them is that you can shape the battery to fit unlike other types. The usual configuration that everybody uses is a very thin slab.

Neither troll nor luddite

[G4from128k]

What you're saying is "any game more advanced than tetris is bloatware, and who wants to watch movies on the move anyway, read a book."

I can't decide if you're a troll or just a luddite.

I did not intend to be either a troll or a luddite. I'm saying that 1) a very large number of CPU cycles are wasted 2) smarter game design means more fun while using less of the limited battery power.

The bigger issue is vast gulf in the relative performance improvements for various technologies. The price-performance curve for batteries is far flatter than the price-performance curve for either silicon or clever programming. Chip performance advances more in one month than battery performance changes in a year. If one wants to watch movies on the move, then a silicon decoder would probably be far more efficient than a general purpose CPU running a bloated OS. At some point, adding another few million transistors becomes much cheaper than adding a bigger battery.

Don't forget cars...

[anthony_dipierro]

Don't forget the most popular portable device of all - the automobile. Just a tenfold increase in battery life (without a corresponding increase in cost) would probably make electric cars a viable option, as well as increase the viability of a plug-in hybrid. In fact, the electric car would probably have a greater range between "refills" than the gasoline car.

In a story I read just today on Forbes.com, three major U.S. auto manufacturers have already created cars powered by fuel cells. Apparently the House of Representatives has passed a bill to "subsidize 15% of the price of fuel cell technology bought by private entities." I'm not sure how easily this technology can be adapted to smaller portable devices, but surely there will be at least some parts of the research which can be reused.

Maybe one improvement which is needed is the electric car batteries need to be more easily removable. Those of us who live in apartments or houses without garages would have quite a bit of trouble with an electric or even a plug-in hybrid without some major infrastructure changes. If the battery were light enough for me to take inside every night, then the only thing stopping me from using an electric is the cost and the range (both battery limitations). As for the plug-in hybrid, the cost of the batteries would be the only problem remaining. And hey, hydrogen is light, so maybe fuel cells is the answer to that :).

Feature creep is their problem, not batteries.

[melted]

Why do I need a cellphone with two dozen non-phone related features that I don't need? Why can't I buy a lower-clocked PDA with longer battery life? Blaming battery manufacturers for power requirements is like suing McDonalds for making people fat. Doesn't make any sense.

Re:Feature creep is their problem, not batteries.

[tomstdenis]

Dunno bout you but I get 12 hours with my iPaq rx3100 with the light on and 7 with wifi on [in powersave mode]. 7 hours ain't that bad...

Though I agree with the sentiment. No reason why my laptop idles at 530Mhz when 0Hz would work fine ;-) [though you have a constant amount of leak even at DC]

Tom

Re:Feature creep is their problem, not batteries.

[TrekCycling]

Mod Up!!!!

This is so so true. My current PDA is a Palm M130 (dragonball 33mhz). I have an iPod. I have a 4 year old model monochrome cell phone I bought off the Internet for $15. All of these devices do one thing really well and do it with a minimum of unneeded features. The iPod will go days between charges. The Palm weeks. My Gameboy Advance SP will go weeks. My cell phone lasts a couple days if I make few calls.

The problem I've run into is that they're starting to run out of replacement batteries for these specific devices and even worse if I wanted to walk into the store and buy a regular cell phone (you know, one that makes calls and doesn't have an annoying ass ring tone that people pay for along with a camera phone that has no discernable purpose) I couldn't. Thus the reason why I'm on my second Palm M130, a used model that I "modded" with a new battery. Thus the reason I bought a new version of my same old phone off of eBay. If the iPod battery dies at some point I guess I'd stop listening to music if nothing similar were on the market.

The bottom line is that some of us out here want devices that do EXACTLY what they're supposed to do and do it well. Low-color, monochrome, simple, well thought-out. We're out here. Please sell to us.

Re:Feature creep is their problem, not batteries.

[Anonymous Coward]

7 *hours*? For a PDA? Are you kidding me? I want 7 *weeks*, dammit! This was supposed to be the future!

Re:Feature creep is their problem, not batteries.

[tomstdenis]

It'll work in standby for a week or so...

I don't think you understand current... It's a 900mAh battery. Assuming linear drain it takes ~128mAh to run the full device. 7 weeks would require 21504mA of capacity. That's 21 amps. That's with a linear drain which is not how they work anyways. I'm not an EE but I imagine the actual required voltage/capacity is much higher.

First off... that's a shitload of current. Second it's hazardous I'd say. Short that sucker out and it's got a lot of potential energy. Third, assuming a quadratic growth, that means my ~50g battery [guessing] would weigh 62 pounds [28.5Kg] or so.

128mAh is not that much current drain to run the device. By comparison... my laptop takes ~1050mAh to run with the screen dimmed, cpu at low speed, etc. The average flourescent lightbulb takes about 18Wh which is 163mAh on 110v circuits, etc....

In fact I can't point to anything in my house that runs off less than 128mAh. Perhaps my cell phone [which by rough estimate takes ~100mAh when in standby].

However, that's not a fair comparison since my PDA had the screen light on the whole time. I imagine if I turned it off I could get >11 hours of runtime.

I also think you're just not comparing things from "the past". It used to be a Palm3 with a 20Mhz DragonBall processor [68000] with a black and white non-lit LCD would last a few hours per charge. In my case this is an iPaq with a 300Mhz [obviously clocked down but there] ARM processor with a 16-bit colour backlit display, SD card slot, wifi and bluetooth transceivers and way more memory, etc...

Tom

Tom

What happen to the NanoTube Batteries

[aka_big_wurm]

Like a year ago I rember reading a /. story about NanoTube batteries they were suppose to go in cell phones first and then move to other things.

What happen to those.

Lithium Cells.

[Beardo the Bearded]

Electrochem makes the following:

CSC93D: 15Ah, 2A continuous current.

BCX85D: 15Ah, 1A continuous current.

Both are 3.6V cells.

Nuclear Batteries

[nurb432]

Using nuclear waste we could be powering all these devices, and our cars.

Would it be 100% efficient? No, but since its *waste* so what? We still come out ahead.

Would put out of business the entire oil industry. And battery...

Re:Nuclear Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't *that* much nuclear waste laying around.

Don't they need a constant source?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, if I remember right, they need a continuous flow of blood because of the way they draw charge from it. So basically, instead of people stabbing eachother every once in a while with their cel phones, the boss would come into the main office space to find a bunch of dead bodies and one guy with a fully charged PDA.

MOD PARENT FUNNY!

[CptNerd]

"Offtopic?" Obviously someone needs to check the charge on their "Sensayuma" device...

Lithium-Sulphur

[inflex]

Can't believe no one appears to have bought this up, there is a new generation of Li batteries, the LiS battery, coming out.

The LiS chemistry offers up to 3x the energy density of the current LiPoly and an extremely favorable charge rate.

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Article19790.htm contains some basic information, google for some more.

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Tim Browse]

My basic chemistry (and (molecular physics)) just kinda fails me when trying to justify that kind of capacity

But to be fair, that is only because you are educated singularity stupid by academic bastards

Fuel Cells & Alchol

[mrs dogbreath]

Some Anglo-Saxon THING where if you feel pleasure it must be wrong
So lets wack a big tax on it
cf Opiates as painkillers, last thing before you DIE is morphine, in case you become addicted (i.e. enjoy it)
Hey pleasure might be an evolved reaction, telling you to keep it real!

SIG:-

No, just to keep the streets safe, lets restrict it all, yes if god exsisted I would think like him yeah big old grey fucks 14 year olds, thats me all over therefore i must be god these hands can do no wrong don't worry angie dad will be back in a minute: THE DEVIL TOOK HER SHE WAS A WITCH!

Re:Fuel Cells & Alchol

[Anonymous Coward]

Um.

Kids, that brings me to my next point:

Don't smoke crack.

voyager

[mrs dogbreath]

Im sure someone else must have noticed

What is in it?

Re: voyager

[tcgroat]

RTGs: a whole bunch of thermocouples in series, with "odd" junctions heated up by radioactive decay (plutonium), and "even" pairs cooled by black-body radiation (heat sink fins). Efficiency: not very good. Reliability:fantastic (no moving parts bigger than a neutron). Cost: astronomical!

Image check?

[uberdave]

Image check? What image check?

Re:Image check?

[Anonymous Coward]

the capatcha... since you're behind on the times...
Troll talk (most of the crapflooding is going on there...)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=20721&threshol d=-1&commentsort=1
Themadposter's journal has several entries including where he 'broke' the capatcha even after they modified it to be human illegible. ie: legitimate posters couldn't post, but bots could crap flood.

but people with 'excelent' karma are immune, if the capatcha hadn't been broken, you could just log out and try to post ac, but since it was broken they just turned it off. (it was blocking weaker, more pathetic bots than the ones designed by the really mad, really ingenious people.)
http://hardware.slashdot.org/~the_mad_poster/journ al/

Re:Image check?

[Anonymous Coward]

I never heard of it either. It might be a thing for people with bad kharma, to make sure that they're actually people, and not machines.

Math?

[Anonymous Coward]

for a 6 Amp hour Battery to charge in 5 minutes.

6 * 60 = 360 amp minute
And 360 /5 minutes = 75 amp charging current.
Better get out the jumper cables.
A Scotty once said "Captian I can't break the laws of Physics".

Apostrophe powered battery

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we should use all the extra apostrophes people put in its and use for plurals. We should put a piezo-element under the ' key and charge up a mega-farad cap with that.

erm

[Thaelon]

Why did I immediately think vibrators when I saw this?

Re:erm

[Anonymous Coward]

Get help.

DiLithium Cells.

[srh2o]

To hell with lithium cells I say we jump right to dilithium crystals. They last a long time and only fail during some sort of crisis.

Re:DiLithium Cells.

[Achromus]

Dilithium crystals channel energy through the matter and anti-matter warp drive engines. They are not actually a power source themselves, but without them the ships wouldn't have power. The power source is from a matter-antimatter reaction. Now a matter-antimatter battery would have long-lasting power. If it doesn't blow up.

Slightly offtopic...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always thought it would be cool to set up a "lightning farm", which, using a bunch of lightning rods, would attempt to harness and store the energy of lightning. It would need huge capacitors, of course.

I have a solution.

[Pantero Blanco]

Give your kid a book. I don't think I've ever had one of those go dead on me, though I had to do a quick repair job when the mountings on the case on The Dragonbone Chair started to get loose.

Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

More news from the well duh front. Batteries limiting portable electronics.

Only for battery manufacturers

[Solandri]

If manufacturer's create a battery that lasts for years...how is that good business?

A company that produces a laptop that can go for weeks to years without recharging will clean up in the marketplace. The battery manufacturers may not have direct incentive to produce such a battery, but there is plenty of incentive for other companies to produce such a power source. If/when that happens, that company will put the battery manufacturers out of business. So it's good business for the battery manufacturers to be at the forefront of research in any technology that could potentially put them out of business.

That's what Kodak did (and Polaroid failed to do) with digital photography. Kodak owns patents on a large chunk of the technology used in modern digital cameras and is managing to stay competetive despite their film business drying up. Polaroid went bankrupt.

Right now, if you use items that suck up a lot of battery power, you have to buy more. That's more profit for the manufacturer.

Capitalism works in a free market because (without a cartel/monopoly stifling the market) the more effective product sells better than the less effective one. The introduction of a long-duration battery would reduce demand for short-duration batteries, greatly reducing the profit you're saying will keep manufacturers using the short-duration batteries. Furthermore, the company producing the long-duration battery would steal a huge chunk of the market from companies producing short-duration batteries. With enough competition, every company wants to be the one that owns a huge chunk of the market, and the doomsday scenario you outline will not happen.

Imagine if the razor companies created a blade that lasts for 3 years. Fat chance! Blades are their cash cow!

Those razor companies would go out of business when they lost their marketshare to the company who manufactured a razoe with a blade that lasts for 3 years. Yes those razor companies would fight tooth and nail to retain their marketshare, as the RIAA and MPAA are currently doing and as the horse buggywhip manufacturers once did, but the proverbial writing would be on the wall.

Mod Parent Up +5 Funny

[slyborg]

Mr Rainer Partenan has crossed the streams and added dilithium crystals for MAD HOT power density!

(NO MSG available upon request)

No battery breakthroughs? pft.

[not-enough-info]

How about 1min recharge li-nano batteries by Toshiba?

I believe this was featured here on /.
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_03/pr290 1.htm

Ummm....

[khellendros1984]

Haven't there been several recent /. articles (last couple of months) talking about massive improvements in Li-Ion technology?

BECOMING?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bbatteries have always been the limiting factor for mobile devices. It would be foolish for anyone to think otherwise.

Supertoys Last All Summer Long

[infonography]

I remember reading about robots powered by fly carcases. I guess we could just update the program and let them feed on undesireable organics like compost and dog droppings. In the case of dog doo we need to make sure that kids of a certain age don't see and copy that part.

Re:Supertoys Last All Summer Long

[Maxite]

"robots powered by flying carcases"

Pardon me, but I read that as flying carcasses. It took me 3 times to read it over to realize that it said car cases.
Most hilarious misread I've had in quite a while though.

The Futurama Fuel Cell

[cybergremlin]

My ideal fuel cell would be able to run off of a solution of alcohol and water, and be able to cope with a few impurities. That way if I wanted to use my device in flight I could simply tell the flight attendant "I'll have a Coke, and my laptop will have a vodka." The down side to this would be that if you saw empty bottles of everclear around someone's desk you wouldn't be able to tell if they were a lush, or were just overclocking their machine.
That, and everyone would name their computer "Bender."

Hydrino Hydride batteries

[MyNymWasTaken]

Hydrino Hydride batteries

Hydrino Hydride
Energy Density (Volumetric): Up to 182 Wh/cc
Energy Density (Gravimetric): Up to 222 Wh/g
Capacity: Up to 4 Ah/g
Voltage Range: Up to 75V

Lithium-Ion
Energy Density (Volumetric): Up to 0.3 Wh/cc
Energy Density (Gravimetric): 0.12 Wh/g
Capacity: 0.032 Ah/g
Voltage Range: 2.5 to 4.2 V

Over 600x as much usage based on volume & 125x as much based on weight.

Re:Hydrino Hydride batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing a little research... the guy who came up with this stuff, as well as the work itself, seems to not be taken as credible by the scientific community.

Am I mistaken in my analysis? Who, besides that website, have supportive evidence or prototypes?

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was this modded down? I just looked up
"partenan cell" on google and found a lot of interesting info on this..

Mine have run out

[bluGill]

My books run out of batteries once in a while. The flashlight I used to use as a kid under the covers didn't last too long. Once in a while my local utility supplied power (a large coal battery several hundred miles away) has gone down. Either way, my book is now dead.

Mendeleev

[epine]

Face it, the guy goofed up. There should have been at least another full row of light elements in the periodic table with lesser atomic density and greater electronegativity. Really, the guy set back portable technology by several centuries. Those Russians, they never did understand capitalism.

The limiting factor is modularity

[ArmorFiend]

When I was growing up, all devices used one of four types of batteries. If you were going to take your portable music streaming device camping with you, you might go to one of roughly 100,000,000 battery retailers and buy some extras. This, with 1980s level technology!

Then, they decided to make a different, wonky-sized battery for every device. So the game boy, Palm, cell, and iPod all need different wall warts to charge their different batteries, and making these 'portable' devices portable on the road is a major PITA.

We should take a clue from the past and use standarized sized batteries. Whenever I can I buy devices that use standardized batteries, and I charge them, and whoa, it works. I don't have to pay for millions of chargers. If I need high performance batteries for my camera, I shell the $ for them, but if I'm going for a long bike trip, I put the good batteries in my bike light.

Apperantly Joe-sixpack-2005 is not smart enough to read the 'batteries included' label that Joe-sixpack-1980 had no problems with.

Re:The limiting factor is modularity

[glesga_kiss]

So the game boy, Palm, cell, and iPod all need different wall warts to charge their different batteries, and making these 'portable' devices portable on the road is a major PITA.

Whatever happened to inductive charging? The idea was you'd have a coil you'd place the device near, so the coil in the device generates current from that to charge whatever cell it had. Would work with any other device that used it. Looked promising, but only ever seen a few devices use it.

Re:The limiting factor is modularity

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to inductive charging?

There are some places that still use it (UPS uses it to charge their electronic delivery boards).

But I think the issue with inductive charging is efficiency. I'm sure the electrical engineers will correct me, but you get a very low efficiency through inductive charging as compared to hooking up direct via a metal-metal contact.

Re:The limiting factor is modularity

[wunderhorn1]

http://www.afrotechmods.com/cheap/arnoldpad/arnold pad.htm

Re:The limiting factor is modularity

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope - the answer is the wall wart - I could care less if that battery itself is removable from the device, but don't make me buy a special plug for $30~$40 each. My cell has an annoying dongle plug, with at least 16-32 pins for data, which only charges through 2 pins!! Why not separate the data pins from the power, and offer a standard coax type plug that laptops use?

Re:The limiting factor is modularity

[ArmorFiend]

Laptops use standard coax plugs? That's news to every laptop I've used!

Re:The limiting factor is modularity

[glesga_kiss]

http://www.afrotechmods.com/cheap/arnoldpad/arnold pad.htm

Best how-to ever, I really liked the style of it. Now I am off to "fahk some beautiful vimen.".

Beta-particle! HAHA!

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Hee-hee!

There is a magic battery that..

[Michael_Munks]

Recharges to 80% in 1 minute.

Magic:
http://www.physorg.com/news3539.html

Nukes

[Timberwolf0122]

What ever happened to nuclear batteries that used Strongtium 90 decay (Alpha) to generate power.

Last I heard they were being tested in some millitary laptops and could run full tilt for around 2 years befor they need replacement, with a life span like that they could charge quite abit for a 9V battery and would be quite re-cylcable as only the radioactive isotope would need replacing to re-activate them. As I recall the only issue was that no matter how much or little they were used they would only last aslong as the isotope did so they would neot be of anyuse in TV remotes but then they are really aimed at hi-ampage apps.

On a safty note alpha radiation can be effectivelty blocked by paper so a thin steal/aluminium case wouldd provide sufficient protection and the quantity of radioactive material is not enough to cause an insident.

About Europositron in general

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'm really not a chemist of physicist so I can't tell if Europositrons technology really works or not.

But I have some ties to Europositron and I can tell you that not seeing the technology touted on all the news is not a proof of that the technology is faulted. The whole business is run by an old scientist who has devoted all of his elderly age to developing this technology with his own fundings. He isn't practically a business wizard but likes to keep things under his control.

An example of the business management: One time he called for advice because he needed a new printer. I said that modern printers are all just plug and play so he can just shop for one, find a hole in the back that fits the printer, click some buttons and start printing. Well I didn't hear from him for a day and then got a call from his brother. It turned out that he had brought a printer with USB connection and couldn't find a slot to put it in because the computer was so old that it had no USB controllers. Well.. I should have guessed.. But given the fact that he had sold stakes for something like 10Meur to a car manufacturer some months before that, you might have thought he would have a new computer?

Given this background, you can expect that just about nobody believes in the technology and it is pretty hard to get investors. Given this background, you can also expect that no scientist is willing will put their career at stake to verify this technology from the ground based on some fairny non-informative patents.

But as I said I have no clue if the technology really delivers what it promises in the real world use, but based on what I have heard the prototypes really do work. Given the Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation Of The Year and some millions of euros from issues, I think this might some day, with it's own sluggish pace, become something :)

No, it is *also* because they explode!

[aug24]

"Heart pacemakers extend the lives of countless patients but can be surprisingly hazardous to others after death," says Christopher Gale, a research fellow at The General Infirmary at Leeds in England. The implants, which are typically hidden under layers of tissue, contain combustible chemicals that can suddenly explode if a body is cremated, injuring unsuspecting workers. Gale surveyed 241 British crematoriums; more than half reported pacemaker explosions, including blasts powerful enough to blow off oven doors and cause hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of damage. For safety's sake, Gale suggests that crematoriums should install metal detectors.

http://www.poynter.org/dg.lts/id.2/aid.8039/column .htm

Justin.

They will *always* be the limiting step

[Colin Smith]

People will always find ways of adding more widgets and wasting more power as long as they don't have constraints on the amount of power available. Let's call it Colin's rule of battery power... "Power requirements always expand to fill the power available".

That means that as long as you don't have the device plugged into the mains constantly we will always be saying, damn these batteries/fuel cells don't last very long.

As an aside, the next generation of batteries will be based on Lithium Sulphur technology which approximately triple the performance of current Li-ion batteries and surpass highly compressed hydrogen gas in terms of volumetric energy density. And I predict that within 2 years of them becoming widely available, we'll be saying "damn these batteries are crap and don't last very long".

We need to look at the other side of the problem

[smartalix]

This is not only a battery problem, it is a power consumption issue. You can have the best battery in the world in your device, but if it is inefficient you are wasting your time (literally).

Devices are getting more efficient every day, but there is still room for improvement. Blaming the battery only addresses half of the problem.

Easy solution

[TuringTest]

If the device does not generate too much heat while it's active, have it always active.

Now that I thought, the ammount of heat generated while it's active should be the same ammount generated while it's sitting dormant, isn't it?

Re:Easy solution

[Mr. McGibby]

Mod parent up.

We've become used to the idea that we have to turn battery powered devices off because of a deficiency in batteries, they run down fast. Why in the world should you have to turn the thing off if the battery is going to produce the electricity anyway?

Tell an device designer that instead of being careful about using too much electricity, they have to worry about not using enough, and I don't think you'll hear many complaints.

How about... COAL

[Anonymous Coward]

At least, that's what the commercials are telling us to use... Stupid Government...

Carter told him...

[CptNerd]

Carter has been advising Presidents to go "nookier", but only Clinton listened...

Better products exist, but nobody wants them

[Random Walk]

I own a Philips 650 mobile phone. It lasts about three weeks on standby, far longer than any offering from competing companies.

However, it was extremely difficult to buy it - almost no shop offers it, because there is no demand. Obviously people want inefficient and power-hungry toys ...

Alternate idea

[Benjamin Shniper]

Solar/ Motion powerred jackets. Charge the devices from your incoming light and motion. The only problems with this are the expense of the jackets and the need for a universal power jack that the jacket would have to output.

-Ben

Debunking myths.

[NoImNotNineVolt]

"The pacemakers are recovered to be refurbished and reused."

No they're not. The pacemaker manufacturing process isn't completed until after an order is placed even, as each one is heavilty customized before being shipped to its new host. In fact, the FDA prohibits used pacemakers from being implanted for a second time. If a pacemaker is "refurbished" or "reused", it is through the black market in a third world country, rarely "refurbished" in any way, and consequently far from the effectiveness of a properly obtained one.

Betavolaic battery

[rsynnott]

Why not try one of http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/18/battery_de cade/these ? ;)

Re:Betavolaic battery

[rsynnott]

Sorry, that's http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/18/battery_de cade/

Solar

[Shotgun]

Why not just cover every one of the little devices with little solar panels that charge the batteries? Not expecting it to run solely off of what can be gained from light energy, but just wanting it to extend the battery life. Add a port to plug in a wall wart for a real charge.

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[lkcl]

http://europositron.com./

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[lkcl]

:)

pops another one...

Re:Europositron - Aluminium batteries (rechargeabl

[lkcl]

i've spoken to them, and i've been tracking the company for some time (nearly two years).

they have a prototype cell already working.

they are presently being funded by toyota and a few other companies to produce prototype "large" cells sufficient to power electric vehicles.

they are paranoid as hell because the potential for this product is for it to become a BILLION dollar industry.

they ALSO don't want to get ripped off (the patent is in swedish).

the production process requires nanotechnology

[usually, because nanotech is in such an early stage of development, that means they need a supply of materials in the form of somewhere from 10 to 40nm equally sized diameter balls of compound "X", "Y" or "Z"]

hope this helps explain why their site looks like it's nothing more than "give me money".

shit - if i had had £10,000, **I** would have given them money, before the jan 1 2005 deadline for personal investors ran out.

then i would have been able to receive a license for the manufacture of their technology once they had the mass-production factory blueprints worked out.

whats wrong with windup power?

[wcanevari]

whats wrong with a Baygin generator instead of a battery? a few minutes of winding, and you are good to go..... this is used in many countries when batteries are either expensive, or hard to get. Excuse me, while I windup my phaser.