Wednesday, April 20, 2005
IBM's Prototype Hybrid Fuel Cell: Recharge & Refuel?
Posted by Jonathon Watkins in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 11:00 AM
"IBM and Sanyo said Monday that the two companies had developed a prototype external fuel-cell booster that has helped power a current ThinkPad for a total of sixteen hours. . . . Until a fuel cell technology can power a ThinkPad for 80 to 90 hours, or about ten times the battery life of today's ThinkPads, designing in the fuel cell technology within the ThinkPad's innards won't be viable, according to Locker. "That's second-generation technology," he said. "I think that in the second generation, infrastructure needs to be there. Convenience stores needs to sell these things at a reasonable price to make this worthwhile."
The current fuel cell prototype weighs 2.2 kilograms, which is obviously too heavy to be practical for portables. However, the idea that fuel cells should complement rather than replace notebook batteries is an interesting one. Up to now it's been presented as an either/or situation and this appears to be the first time that a hybrid power source will be commercialised for portable devices. PDAs obviously don't require 75 watts of power like laptops do, so the 20 watts output of the fuel cell would go much further when paired with say, the newly developed fast charging Toshiba battery.
Still, the interesting part about this announcement isn't the current hardware details; it's the direction that IBM is predicting (and preparing) for the future of fuel cells. Note the 'second generation' statement. Eighty or ninety hours battery life for a laptop (and goodness knows how long for PDAs) with fuel and fuel cells widely available sounds pretty good. It would be even better if we had the choice of whether to just use battery power, or 'top up' with methanol/hydrogen etc. I still think it's going to be odd getting into the mindset of paying for fuel to run our portables when recharging them is practically free. What do you guys think?
The current fuel cell prototype weighs 2.2 kilograms, which is obviously too heavy to be practical for portables. However, the idea that fuel cells should complement rather than replace notebook batteries is an interesting one. Up to now it's been presented as an either/or situation and this appears to be the first time that a hybrid power source will be commercialised for portable devices. PDAs obviously don't require 75 watts of power like laptops do, so the 20 watts output of the fuel cell would go much further when paired with say, the newly developed fast charging Toshiba battery.
Still, the interesting part about this announcement isn't the current hardware details; it's the direction that IBM is predicting (and preparing) for the future of fuel cells. Note the 'second generation' statement. Eighty or ninety hours battery life for a laptop (and goodness knows how long for PDAs) with fuel and fuel cells widely available sounds pretty good. It would be even better if we had the choice of whether to just use battery power, or 'top up' with methanol/hydrogen etc. I still think it's going to be odd getting into the mindset of paying for fuel to run our portables when recharging them is practically free. What do you guys think?
