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Laptop Fuel Cells Coming Soon
tomsastroblog writes "Soon laptop batteries could last all day and be recharged from a cartridge. BBC News has a piece on fuel cells as laptop batteries, and what their adoption could mean for laptop usage." From the article: "At the Cebit technology fair in Hanover, Taiwanese hi-tech firm Antig said its fuel cells should be on the shelves of computer shops by early 2007. The first versions of the methanol-using units should keep a laptop going for up to nine hours. Fuel cell technology got a boost recently when international air flight regulators changed rules that banned passengers from carrying flammable methanol onto aircraft."
I swear this is a dupe, I just cant find the original!!
Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
gives a whole new meaning to "this laptop is burning my legs..." sorry could not resist...
-- Por mais que eu ande no vale das trevas e da morte, meu PowerMac G4 Não Travará!!!
I especially like the ability for them to fit into existing laptops (in the media bay), rather than only working with new, specially-designed laptops. Overall it sounds great, however expensive. It'd probably be years before they can get the price down to a reasonable level. Either way, it might not be a bad idea to go invest in fuel cell stocks now. :)
--
BMW Forum
...again...
Seriously, hasn't this appeared every few months for the last 2 years? Can't we have stories about products being 'here' - and preferably built in, rather than having a giant can of Zippo hanging off the side?
I'll get modded down as Cynical or something, but any way you view it, it's true...
Ok, So when the hell are these coming? This is like the second article about it in less than 2 weeks or so. Dupe!
Most laptop owners don't sit in a proverbial flower field and run their laptops.
Hence, what % of laptop owners would buy a new and no doubt very expensive methanol fuel cell module &, expensive methanol (prepackaged of course), and this assumes a properly package fuel cell module is available for your particular Laptop.
If it leaks and destroys your laptop is it covered by a warranty that replaces your laptop?
Lots of unanswered questions
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Laptop fuel cartrages mean new DRM and propriatary designs as well as messy (and dangerous) 3rd party refil kits.
Consumers aren't the only ones looking forward to this.
Today most laptops are just dragged between electric outlets since they wont go for more than a couple of hours without recharging. Having nine hours worth of computer time changes the way you can use a laptop in a pretty significant way. From being used as a portable desktop you can use it as a really portable computer, taking it whereever you go without running amok for a piglets nose.
For me this is something i have longed for since the dawn of laptops.
HTTP/1.1 400
IMHO, more useful than a Li-Ion replacement fuel-cell would be a fuel-cell powered universal PSU. Should be:
* No bigger than a mains PSU brick
* Easily replenishable whilst running
* Inexpensive
* Under ten dollars shipping on eBay
OK, that last was a wise crack, but let's sort out the machines that are out there first. After all, what's the point of having your Lappy 486's 41 pounds of allegedly portable dominance running for nine hours if you can't watch a DVD on the 'plane? (RTFA: Media bay, not battery slot)
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Of course there is.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
There's a several-months-old PC World article that says that fuel cells for mobile phones will be arriving (in Japan) in 2007.
flammable Audio pronunciation of "flammable" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (flm-bl)
e
adj.
Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; inflammable.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=flammabl
actually there is such a word as flammable, and it is the preferred version for fire warnings.
"inflame" comes from the same lating word as flammable (flamma), but is more often used figuratively or in non-technical contexts e.g. "imflammable issue".
Definition of inflammable:
1. Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; flammable.
2. Quickly or easily aroused to strong emotion; excitable.
Definition of flammable:
1. Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; inflammable.
From the MSDS for Methanol:
It's a neurotoxin! It casues blindness! And it's highly flammable!
Sounds like a terrorist's dream.
My blog
"Flammable" is a neologism, meant to prevent people from getting killed because they think "inflammable" means "impossible to set on fire."
Find free books.
These people start to sound just like the guys with the flying car and tabletop fusion -- it is always "just around the corner", "any day now", "start investing today!"...sheesh!
There is a German company (http://www.smartfuelcell.de/ that is already producing fuel-cell powered generators for camping. I guess it won't take too long until they are small enough to fit in a laptop bag.
where's all that Karma?
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0 3/03/0134241
Although the promise of running an entire day on these batteries sounds nice, given how many days there are in a year, how many laptops there are and the cost of the resupply network, I belive it will lead into the same problem that we have with the use of fossile fuels.
So if they can make fuel cells for ficken *laptops* why can't they do the same thing for cars??
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
international air flight regulators changed rules that banned passengers from carrying flammable methanol onto aircraft
Yes, but what about the rules which ban passengers from carrying inflammable methanol onto aircraft?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
So why would I want to pay to recharge my laptop on an almost daily basis when I can simply plug it in for free with a rechargable battery instead?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Before it even make it out to market, I propose beer, vodka, whiskey or gin based batteries. At least when you get sick of work, you can have some fun!!!
When they start shipping fuel cells that can use Ethyl Alcohol, then I'd have a use for them thar corn squeezings.
Fuel cell technology got a boost recently when international air flight regulators changed rules that banned passengers from carrying flammable methanol onto aircraft.
So now when the guy sitting next to you's computer bombs, it means something entirely different.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
Can ethanol burning robots be far behind?
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
Microsoft recently announced Origami, which has been criticized for it's short battery life of about three hours (among other things). If the fuel cells will actually double or triple the life to six or nine hours, it would certainly be a lot more attractive as a product. Will it last as a commercial product until Microsoft can convert it to fuel cell? Perhaps by that time we'll have a good Linux distribution or two for it as well.
The reason fuel cells are much hyped, and preferred over batteries is that they use liquids to produce the electricity. This means that the size of the reaction interface is decoupled from the energy storage medium (whereas in a battery, they are intimately linked [normally]).
So, the size of the reaction interface determines the power that you can get out of the fuel cell, and the size of the energy reservoir determines how long it will last.
A laptop draws, what, 100 watts peak? A car with an 80 hp engine is at 60 kW - 600 times more. A fuel cell big enough to power that would be prohibitive in cost. Not to mention, the fuel cell will degrade with time - impurities in the fuel, and (if it's a polymer cell), degradation in the polymer itself.
Next point is the fuel medium. The energy density of methanol is less than gasoline, at about 22MJ/kg vs 45MJ/kg for gasoline. So, assuming comparable fuel efficency with the internal combustion + mechanical drive vs fuel cell + motors, you'd need twice as much fuel.
There are no good fuel cells that operate on gasoline - the more complex the hydrocarbon, the harder it is to build a fuel cell. Couple that with the way the sulpher tends to kill fuel cells, and it's not feasable (low sulpher gasoline is available - have you ever seen guarenteed no sulpher gasoline?)
So, it would cost more, and you'd only get half the distance on a single tank of methanol. Assuming that you can get the methanol. The whole fuel distribution problem is a seperate case.
All the numbers here are conservative - I'm sure my powerbook draws significantly less than 100W, 80 hp is at the low end for a car - I believe 100hp is more typical. The laptop fuel cells don't use pure methanol, it's methanol and water, further reducing the energy density.
I was thinking before that I'd really love to be able to have a laptop with 9 hours of battery life - something I could use in the departure lounge waiting for my transatlantic flight (someone else always gets the seats near the power sockets before me) and then use on a 7hr flight without worrying about battery life.
That's why I got the IBM X41 - I have a 7 cell extra-life battery plugged into the back, and a second slim battery that plugs onto the base of the laptop. The two together give me between 7 and 10 hours of battery life, depending on what I'm doing (usually programming, so I'm not a 'power' user).
Buying the IBM was one of the best decisions I've ever made (no connection to the company, or to Levono who now own their PC business). After my recent flight from London Heathrow to Toronto I had 1.5hrs of battery life left on the machine when I shut it down as we were preparing to land.
So... this wasn't that expensive - the laptop and all batteries were less than 1000GBP including tax... is there really a genuine need for fuel cells?
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Regulations that oddly do not ban the taking of flammable liter bottles of 120+ proof cask strength whiskey aboard. Theres about 1.5 tons of alcohol aboard a passenger 747
I recall there was a post on this somewhere recently, else see this:
o ject.htm
...
http://lees.mit.edu/lees/projects/cnt_ultracap_pr
Ultra capacitors now can hols 6Wh/kg which is only a fraction of conventional Li-Ion batteries but according to MIT this can be boosed to 1000 battery capasity by using nanotubes.
And ultra capacitors have a large number of advantages: no dangerous components, recharge in a matter of minutes, better temperature tolerance, longer durability
I don't know why people bother to talk about fuelcells...
..."it's dinner time soon" or 'soon' as in "we expect our fusion reactor to achieve a positive return very soon".
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
"Don't worry, It's Inflammable."
(After the explosion) "Inflammable means flammable? What a country!"
Dr. Nick
The big question (for males) is obviously, would fuel cells increase or decrease the risks of burning the scrotum and penis? :-o
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I can't wait to play Duke Nukem Forever on my Fuel Cell Laptop... coming sooon...
For example, Sony VAIO TX Series. If you can afford them, check them out:
* Intel® Centrino(TM) Mobile Technology.
* Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
* Ultra-light 2.76 pounds
* Up to 7.5 hours of battery life
Did you know that "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?
Judging by the response, that doesn't work on the Internet though... :-)
Just about every year since the mid-90s Internet boom we hear that fuel cells will be available Real Soon Now. They're a really cool idea, you obviously want them, and I hear that they're packaging them with a free copy of Duke Nukem Forever....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You run out of fuel? DO you just plug it in to recharge? Must you run off to the nearest filling station?
Oh please. No thanks.
Is a gasoline powered laptop. Now there's something I can play quake on!
How much energy can we pack into a small package before we need to start treating it like thermite? If we're putting many watt-hours into a cartridge and it malfunctions, could it, for example, end up melting its way through the cabin floor and skin (and the fuel lines) of an aircraft?
Is why isn't this being announced by an American company?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Maybe I'm missing the point here, but my HP laptop with the extra capacity battery can go for four hours (not gaming of course) on a charge (many of the low voltage laptops do much better than that). A fuel cell, which is disposable would get me 9. Why do I not care?
"air flight regulators changed rules that banned passengers from carrying flammable methanol onto aircraft"
So, aside from the fact that you can easily pack some c4 into your laptop and set the charge with your modem, I am still supposed to feel safe flying? Would I be scrutinized if I brought a case of lighters onboard?
Sounds dangerous. Anyone have a good link to the technology behind these fuel cells? There is something about having a few fuel cells kicking around the plane that sketches me out.
DISCLAIMER:
I don't believe what I write, and neither should you.
*argh* It's mutually recursive! Now I'll have to read the definition of flammable/inflammable till the end of my days.. (unless I manage to exit the loop via "excitable")
Georg
Just curious, which auction is yours?
/proc/acpi/battery stuff in Linux even confirmed that it was a new battery)
I recently got a **new** LiION battery for my laptop. Total cost was about $50. (I found the
Also you can get a 12V car adapter and an external 12V battery pack really cheap ~$100. [External LiION batteries for laptops are much more expensive and less flexible].
If you can run your CPU at half/lower speed and turn down the LCD brightness, it helps a lot.
My laptop draws ~4amps at full load/speed with a bright screen.
It draws about 2 amps at half speed and and dimmer screen [full load]. And about 1amp with a dimmer screen, half cpu speed, and idling.
http://news.com.com/2300-1044_3-5884639-1.html
http://laptop.org/
You are kidding right; no way in US airspace, I hope.
Too many restrictions on what can be carried aboard; gee, if I can carry on methanol, then why can't my wife carry on her private (approved hardware for flight) medical oxygen?
Many airlines will not permit oxygen at all and only few will (with many hurdles) rent you their O2 supply.
In short, I can now have a laptop in my lap, but not my wife?... ok, I promise to buy her a seat too but only if I have to!
What about direct hydrogen fuel cells? Those could technically be run in reverse to, in essence, recharge the cell. No point in having to put more fuel in - have a container for the waste steam from the reaction, condense it to water, then electrolyze it when AC power is available. No point in letting the steam vent, anyway - it would just condense in/on the machine and rust or corrode the electronics
For me, I would rather have something like a fuel-cell inverter type thing, which has an outlet on it so that I can plug in my laptop on the go. Having fuel cells replace rechargables as the main power source is not really practical with such a small increase in battery life at such a high cost compared to AC power from an outlet. A inverter sort of thing would give the best of both worlds, and would allow laptops to keep the nice form factor we are used to today.
Just a thought.
Anyway - I'm just tired of hearing this tired, recycled bull about "laptop fuel cells" - I was on board with it until the 2nd story came out around the time cells hyped in the first article were supposed to see market...
It seems like the "this will be on the shelves by" date has getting incremented by 12 to 18 months each time the story sees daylight since the I first started seeing it in - what, 2003? 2004?
The point about it that disrupts the "willfull suspension of disbelief" that I typically rely on when trying to grasp most other "news" is the ongoing emphasis on form factor: If "they" realy can make a methanol fuel cell with sufficient current to e.g. power a laptop computer, why don't they just put it on the market with a cord that will plug in as the present-day power supply brick does?
Such a device would be generic to the point that it could be used with a wide variety of models, as well as with devices that are not computers - but just try asking for a "19-volt 200W methane fuel cell" in Best Buy or Radio Shack and see what you get...
"The Internet is made of cats."
too costly. its something for special niche applications like military where costs don't matter. recharging laptop batteries is dirt cheap and buying an extra battery pack like those valence n charge or whatever slab batteries that add 5-9 horus to your laptop for 2-3lb cost about 250 dollars withotu the fuss of playing with fuel. i'm sure they'd love to sell em to us like they do with inkjet carts, but its not going to happen, the cost per fuel cell cart isn't going to be low enough to ever be acceptable to mainstream, its hype. unless they sell huge 5 gallon refill bottles for home refills, i don't see the point of the hype.
That said, I would definitely prefer it in the battery bay.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
I've actually been involved in the preliminary designs of a small very powerful wearable computer, and we looked really hard at a fuel-cell solution - from Antig, no less. The real turn-off was not risk of fire or anything (this can be handled), but the fact that for every 10W of electrical power they generate 12-15W of heat. It's already difficult to get rid of ~25W from the electronics in a lunchbox sized device to be worn on the body. Now imagine adding ~35W of heat to generate the 25W - no thanks. I hope they've improved that ratio since we last checked, but I'm not expecting a miracle here...
Hydrogen fuel-cells are better in this respect, but still nowhere near the ratio for rechargable batteries, where the ratio is something like 1W of heat for 10W of electrical power. But hydrogen is more difficult to handle than the watered-down methanol most fuel-cells use (the limit was something like 28% for airplane approval last I checked, but that was admittedly about a year ago).
Black holes are where God divided by zero
Note to editors - new category required:
[+] power, fuelcell, laptops, dupe (tagging beta)
The developers should arrange that once a new article is tagged, up pops a list of references to all other articles with a similar tags match (arranged in reverse chronological order) so they can check for dupes - or would that be too sensible - or does it happen but the editors are just sloppy?
AT&ROFLMAO
It strikes me (and most /. users it would seem) that fuel cell laptops are a total joke for countless reasons. Everyone knows that battery technology needs to take a quantum leap forward...
well, it has - http://www.a123systems.com/
Sapere Aude - Homer
From Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage: "Flammable, inflammable: These two words are synonymous. Flammable is a much newer word, apparently coined in 1813 to serve in a translation from Latin".
Ah yes, one of those (almost) two centuries old neologisms!
Oh yeah? Well how many cycles per gallon are you getting?
This fuel cell thing sounds nice on the surface, but do you think for one minute you'll be able to buy any old can of fuel at the store and plug it in? Not a chance. Every company wants recurring revenue, and the idea that Dell will be able to sell you fuel for the lifetime of the laptop is too good to pass up (for them).
Mark my words, we will see Staples full of fuel tanks for every different laptop, right next to all the ink tanks for printers.
This kind of worries me, did it just say that you have to use it where your CD Drive is supposed to be? Surely one of the big uses of extent power would be to finally use CDs/DVDs on the go? Not good.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
[insert joke]
I've got a friend whose wife has IBS. That's how I know.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I claimed a few years ago we'd see an OLED + fuel cell Powerbook from Apple before anyone else, but it looks like OLED dev has slowed down, and they didn't make the right alliances in Japan to make the fuel cell thing happen. Apple really could have benefited from having fuel cells in laptops or at least iPods before anyone else. They need to keep on the technology cutting edge to keep their geek street cred up.