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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."
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
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)
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http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/ 03/0134241
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.
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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.
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There's a several-months-old PC World article that says that fuel cells for mobile phones will be arriving (in Japan) in 2007.
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.
As for the "giant can of Zippo," yes, we would all like to have a fuel cell battery that lasts for a week and fits right into the old battery slot, but cut them a little slack. It's a new thing and it's bound to improve and the fact that there may be a laptop fuel cell at all in the near future is pretty interesting.
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From the MSDS for Methanol:
It's a neurotoxin! It casues blindness! And it's highly flammable!
Sounds like a terrorist's dream.
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"Flammable" is a neologism, meant to prevent people from getting killed because they think "inflammable" means "impossible to set on fire."
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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?
Even better, what about several of these running in a closed environment, like a plane in a 4 hour flight! re-cycled smog!
What does methanhol burn to? probably CO2 and water vapor?
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.
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
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The big question (for males) is obviously, would fuel cells increase or decrease the risks of burning the scrotum and penis? :-o
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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
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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?