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CES: Tiny Fuel Cell is Supposed to Charge a Cell Phone for Two Weeks (Video)
Many of us have plug-in external batteries of one sort to recharge our smart phones when we're away from power outlets. Or we have gigantic aftermarket batteries that make our phones so fat they barely fit in our pockets. So there is this company, Lilliputian Power Systems, that is just starting to market a tiny, butane-powered fuel cell they call the Nectar that plugs into your cell phone (or whatever) through a USB port and supposedly charges it for up to two weeks. That's a lot better than an add-on battery. It looks expensive, although the power "pods" aren't too pricey at $19.99 for two. But wait a minute: Why aren't fuel cells, not internal combustion engines, the "range extenders" in plug-in hybrid cars? A decade back, fuel cells were going to revolutionize our power delivery and consumption systems. A cell phone charger is cute, but is that really all we can get fuel cells to do?
*Only applicable to phones powered by Atom Chip.
These would be great for all portable electronics!
chemical -> kinetic has less loss than
chemical -> electrical -> kinetic
I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
We'll all eventually have cheap fuel cell chargers, but not for about another 20 years or so when the developers are sure they wont get patent-trolled for releasing a product.
Two weeks is a long time for charging a cell phone *rimshot*
Good power source for one that's going to be doing some automated junk out in the wild for a few days?
Sometimes it's a heat issue, sometimes it's weight, sometimes its some other physics law.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
just wow! I want to buy it just to give him money for beard products.
To answer the question of "Why aren't fuel cells, not internal combustion engines, the "range extenders" in plug-in hybrid cars?" posed in the TFS...
In this case, the fuel cell is powered by butane. Butane is not readily available, in pure form, in large, easily transferable quantities all over the world. Gasoline, however, is. I understand that butane itself isn't rare, but the ability to get a fair quantity of it safely into my vehicle in a few minutes is.
Why didn't I think of that?
Ok, so the butane cartridges are available, but the pre-order page isn't up yet at the main site (despite promising to be up over a month ago) and I see nothing on the other link about the actual device to plug the butane cartridges into to convert the butane to electricity.
Looks like Vaporware to me.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"Many of us have plug-in external batteries of one sort to recharge our smart phones when we're away from power outlets."
You mean your iPhones not Smartphones.
We with real Smartphones just switch the internal battery with one of our dozen full ones.
Why aren't fuel cells, not internal combustion engines, the "range extenders" in plug-in hybrid cars?
Because they are a battery substitute.. not an engine substitute.
Hybrid cars can charge from their gas engine.. but that engine also drives the wheels directly via a conventional gearbox when needed. it is the use of TWO different drive systems that makes them a Hybrid..
Any questions?
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
When developing a new technology, such as fuel cells with a high power yield, it's much more economical to start out in a small application like cellphones, to see how consumers would accept the idea and build the economies of scale it would take to crank out big-application (automotive, industrial) fuel cells cheaply.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Depending on the cost, this might make a nifty power supply for Raspberry Pi or Arduino based robots.
"A dead battery means important missed calls and emails, no GPS when you’re lost, no e-reader on your train ride, no communication in an emergency, and an overall feeling of dread and anxiety."
Yes, they actually say that. May I be the first to recommend spending less on fancing charging gadgets and more on anxiolytic lifestyle aids, like benzodiazepines or heavy drinking?
Actually, a better question is why BLOOM energy's fuel cells, which are supposedly revolutionary, isn't a backup power source for an electric car? And whatever happened to those ultracapacitors? And Solar Cells? It's surprising to me that NO ONE has combined all the available technologies into one usable vehicle -- as the guys who go 'off grid' are able to glean from many energy sources to power their trailer homes.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Raises the question: which has a better blast radius: a tiny fuel cell or a Li-Ion battery?
They are not in common use because most of them require platinum or palladium. Also they require very pure fuel to prevent fouling the cell, this means most commercial fuels simply cannot be used.
So, that means I should be able to go down to the tobacco shop, get a can of compressed lighter fluid, and refill the charger on the cheap, right?
No? You're telling me I have to go buy proprietary cartridges that will, without doubt, cost far more than a can of commercial butane?
Yea, you can shove that over-priced, over-hyped bullshit right where the sun don't shine, Bucko.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Why do I need Flash to play this video? We are in 2013!
The car companies put most of their research dollars into batteries. Really that exactly what the should have done because the batteries are the workhorse. As a range extender the gasoline engine is readily available, cheap and fuel is available everywhere.
Now that Hybrids are common they can start working on alternate options for range extension. Hydrogen engines are probably next, followed by fuel cells.
I have a 1500mAh battery pack module with a full-sized USB port and a power-pin-only 5-pin USB micro cable, 4" long, in my jacket pocket at all times. So it's a reserve battery for any device and it'll charge 1 phone or 1/4 of 1 tablet or some portion of a GPS unit but so what? On the other side, it has a solar panel and a charging indicator, that's what! Take that, pocket full of unstable, flammable gas. So solar panel vs butane....yeah, I'll stick with my solution, thanks. In direct sunlight, it doesn't take real long to recharge the entire battery pack either. Yeah, I'm out of luck at night but considering I can get 21 days of idle runtime on my Samsung R640 on one charge from this reserve battery, I think I can find some sunlight after depleting it.
I believe I heard this Nectar device exceeds $300, or so they stated at CES. Mine cost $17 and it's from Scosche, which makes decent products.
$20 for a combined 110Watt-hours of power is actually very expensive compared to the cost of charging LiIon battery pack 3 1/2 times. Meanwhile, a wall outlet is a hell of a lot easier to come by than one of those 'pods'.
If you think the high capacity batteries make a phone bulky, try an extra device dangling from it's USB port for awkwardness.
...that with current technology fuel cells may be able to trickle charge a phone for a couple of weeks, but we are no where near replacing good old fossil fuels with any kind of fuel cell, battery cell, or other technology. The closest thing we have is the Tesla electric cars which do a more than reasonable job, but they are expensive. Not to mention that a lot of electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, like coal and oil, which still doesn't help the environment. So, if everyone were to convert to electric cars we would still have an issue with supply and demand. More electricity would be used, more coal would be burned, and as a result the cost of electricity would go up because demand would be high. Not to mention that burning coal isn't exactly clean. Of course there is the argument that we could switch to more nuclear power, but then there is the increased chance of nuclear disaster with each power plant that is added. It costs a ton to maintain a nuclear power plant safely, and we just don't have the kind of money to maintain that many nuclear power plants. So, the truth is that with current technology there is no answer to replacing fossil fuels with anything. We need innovation and lots of it to come close to replacing fossil fuels, and we just don't have enough innovators left in this country.
Would be great for camping trips if the main unit with one pod wasn't $300.
This presentation is driving me nuts with this guy's intonation going up at the end of each sentence.
THIS IS NOT NEWS
Might be worth it if you could mod a filling nipple onto the thing.
Butane isn't bad, but water is more plentiful on Earth and ultimately regardless of the PATH to get it into hydrogen. solar panel 10 amp - container of water with steel plates, phenolic covers, plastic screws, threaded inlet, outlet connections, and screw top. (your swimming pool filter) also regulate to charge batteries and invert to AC as well. Also, why does a phone need to come with a battery?
Listen... why are we going backwards in reusability? I saw that this product was highlighed at CES a short time ago, and laughed at it. Why spend $300 for a product in order to buy $10 ONE-TIME-USE cartridges over a 11000mah portable battery pack for $40 that has the same power output but can be re-used? How is this an advancement in technology?
And over there we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask t
It's using the same class of tech you'd need to use for the EV's, but the problem has been that solid-oxide systems aren't as durable as they could be and they've been pretty prohibitively expensive and the "green" crowd's down on the whole Idea (I'm actually surprised that this got out the door...) because it produces CO2 emissions from the power it produces. They're thinking they can make a zero emissions vehicle and have been wasting vast amounts of precious time and resources trying to do that.
Chemical -> Mechanical is by combustion in a heat engine. That's limited by the Carnot cycle.
Fuel cells are not so limited. They do have their own unavoidable losses, but they are substantially below those of the Carnot cycle - and even farther below a heat engine light and small enough to be built into a car. Electric motors can be very efficient (if you're willing to make the wire thick enough), so a fuel cell in an electric car could beat a hybrid.
The problem with using this particular design to power a car is that it only puts out 2.5 watts. A horsepower is about 750 watts (assuming perfectly efficient motors and control electronics). So you're talking 300 of them PER HORSEPOWER. A car needs maybe 18 HP for cruising - call it 20. That's 6,000 of 'em. Double it (12,000 units or equivalent) to even START to make up for inefficiencies in regenerative breaking. Now you've got something that could cruise on a dead-flat plain and occasionally stop and start - but don't even think of driving through a mountain pass. (Don't forget having enough spacing between the slices to allow cooling air to circulate.)
This appears to be a MEMS device built on a silicon chip - which would limit it to the area of the silicon wafer technology used and probably a single layer - at least in the current iteration. So it's not likely to scale up real soon.
A competing technology - solid oxide fuel cells - is being manufactured by Bloom Energy. This has elements that can be stacked densely and run on gas-main quality gas (mainly methane and butyl mercaptain, but solid oxide is hard to poison). So far they're only building building-sized stationary systems so there may be issues porting it to the extreme vibration and thermal environment of an automobile that would need more engineering to solve.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I already have a 16000mah secondary battery to recharge my Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 two times in a day if I need to and a 15 watt fold out solar panel that can charge the phone, tablet or the battery as fast as the wall charger would. Both together cost much less than this device will cost and will run for ~5 years without additional costs. After 5 years I can only charge when the sun it up as the solar panels will last 50 years (doubt the wires will being folded up daily) at the claimed 55 Watt Hours, my 15 watt solar panel already exceeds it's capacity.15 Watts per hour * 5 hours of sunlight = 75 Watt Hours on the shortest day, most days it can charge far longer. If just draped on your backpack or bag in the sun it is closer to 10Watts and 5 hours is still close to this things capacity. And what I own is a cheap panel. Better ones with triple the capacity that are for real backpacking are available out there. I was a cheapskate and did not want to pay more than $80.00
So unless you are travelling underground or backpacking in the antarctic during the winter, I really dont see a use for this. I am certain the fuel cell cant charge my phone at it's full 1 AMP rate or my Nexus 7 tablet at it's full 2 AMP rate... (My solar panel can. It's 3 amps in full sun, and I have measured 2 amps on a bright but lightly overcast day)
I understand new tech, but at $19.99 a recharge it's awfully expensive to own and I cant see any benefits over existing solutions. This fuel cell is very light in details. what is it's max Draw capability for how long? If it cant sustain a 2 amp constant draw on it for 6 hours it's useless for most tablets.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm trying to figure out where the get this number. If the specs say the Nectar can put out around 2.5w max, and the capacity is 55 W-hr... then can't this thing be drained in less than a day?
They have a PDF stating that high power users need around 16 w-hr (per day? It doesn't really say). So even by that metric, the thing will only last around 3-4 days.
http://www.nectarpower.com/assets/Uploads/Powering-the-Wireless-World.pdf
In other news: same company to release a nuclear powered flying car Real Soon Now.
I'm surprised that no-one knows this car already existis. the hoda Clarity uses a hydrogen fuel cell to produce elctricity fot eh electric motors. Only emissions are Water.
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/
BlueGen Fuel Cell uses Natural Gas to generate 1.5Kw electric power and 0.5Kw heat as 25 gallons/day of hot water. The fuel cell is designed to run 24/7/365 and works with power company net metering. Think of it as an infinite duration UPS. http://www.bluegen.info/
The guy scratching his ass in the background is grand!
Why do we insist on batteries and Rube Goldberg-ish gizmos to keep them charged when Perrelet solved te problem of outputing constant energy for small portable devices in 1770? I know is not solid state, but automatic watches have to be reapired once half a decade or so (much longer than the average lifespan of the halfbaked, sabotaged by designers and vendors general purpose computers we need to carry in our pockets for receiving and sending e-mail and playing angry birds while commuting). I don't know how much is the difference in energy needed between a simple feature phone and a very complicated watch (you know, double axis tourbillon, moonphase, equation of time, perpetual calendar, chornograph) but even if it is much different, what keeps us from getting several or bigger mainsprings? I think the tech to power small electronic devices from the residual energy that escapes from us while walking is right there, I don't see a good reason not to use it. Besides having to wind your cellphone would be the coolest thing ever.
Why is it that when I read that it was powered by butane I immediately thought of King of the Hill???
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)