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Toshiba to Demo New Fuel Cell MP3 Players
virgil_disgr4ce tells us The Register is reporting that Toshiba recently unveiled a fuel cell based mp3 player. The pump-less fuel cell technology was first discussed about a year ago but Toshiba said not to expect the fuel cell players to hit the market any time soon. Toshiba, however, does hope that the players running off the fuel cell prototypes, and their methanol cartridges, will get their public debut at CEATEC JAPAN 2005.
Has anyone else here ever had exposure to 99.5% methanol? Nasty stuff. Toxic, and readily absorbed through the skin. I really can't imagine this being approved by any governmental agency. How about flying on an airplane with 150 or 200 methanol powered fuel cells? No thanks.
"The batteries double as a stinkbomb"
Maybe it's just a throwaway remark, but there is still a widespread perception that methane stinks.
Of course, it don't. The vile odour present in the domestic natural gas supply is due to the deliberate addition of a stenching agent such as an ethyl mercaptan. Of course, the purpose of the stenching agent is to alert people to the presence of uncombusted gas.
T&K.
Political language
I have held off on buying an MP3 player because I can't find one that supports OGG, has a radio in it, and gets good battery life. Assuming Toshiba puts one out that meets the first two specifications and has generous amounts of storage, I think I would look into this one.
Right now, I have a Sony ATRAC3 MP3/CD player. It gets 50 hour battery life on 2 AA batteries, and has virtually unlimited storage (as many 700MB CDs as I feel like carrying), plus it only cost $100 or so when it was purchased. Granted, it doesn't support OGG, but when I got it I didn't know about OGG.
In addition, I bought my laptop that I'm on right now from Toshiba Labor Day weekend 2003, and I've already decided I'm not buying a new one until Toshiba releases their new laptops that (according to the article I read a while back) charge 80% in 15 minutes with little discharge.
I also recall an article about a fuel-cell based laptop, lasted something like 15 hours on one fueling. Don't remember if it was Toshiba or another company.
Where are all these things? I've heard so much about them and I'm sure I'm not the only one anxiously awaiting them. Toshiba and any other companies need to hurry up and get these things out the door, as they will solve many of the biggest battery-related problems.
>>" ...but the cost of electricity is relatively cheap to the point of being free.
>Take an intro Economics course, really, you need it.
LOL! If someone needs an econ course it's you!
A Duracell Ultra AA alkaline battery can be bought for about $1. It delivers 2.3 watt-hours. The power company charges something like 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. For $1 you get 10 kilowatt-hours from an outlet- as much as you get from 4300 Duracell Ultras. From an outlet, 2.3 watt hours costs about 1/50 of a cent. On the scale that we're talking about, that certainly is "cheap to the point of being free." We're not talking about recharging a Prius. Even considering recharge inefficiencies, you'll be lucky if you manage to use a penny's worth of electricity over the lifetime of an AA rechargeable battery. Just leaving the recharger's wall-wart plugged in wastes more electricity than the rechargeable gets.
Per watt-hour, the energy costs associated with batteries- rechargeable or not- are several orders of magnitude greater than those of the cost of a comparable amount of electricity considered purely as a commodity. You're not really paying for the electricity with batteries so much as the portability and convenience. And with rechargeables, most of the cost of operation comes from degradation to the battery structure over repeated charge/discharge cycles. (Plus the environmental load from the cadmium when people don't recycle NiCads.) The cost of the recharge current itself is the most negligible factor as the GP correctly pointed out.