You're viewing an article in iPO's historic archive vault. Here, we've preserved the comments and how the site looked along with the article. Use this link to view the article on our current site: Alternative Power For Portable Devices Could Take a Decade

News

Alternative Power For Portable Devices Could Take a Decade

Thursday, September 14th, 2006 at 1:25 PM - by

With Apple and Dell recalling millions of batteries over concerns of overheating, the push is on to develop alternative power sources for laptops, cell phones, MP3 players, and similar devices. Unfortunately, such technology could be up to a decade away.

According to a Reuters article, Sony, Matsushita, Hitachi, Toshiba and MTI Micro Fuel Cells are among the companies working on alternative power technology, but NPD Group analyst Stephen Baker said: "There is nothing in the near term that can satisfy all the requirements that have to come from a battery. It has to be light, small, last a long time and relatively safe. They haven't come up with a chemical combination yet that can satisfy all those requirements."

Of fuel cell technology, Gartner research chief Jim Tully commented: "In five to 10 years, fuels cells will become an integrated replacement for conventional batteries." MTI Micro Fuel Cells CEO Peng Lim added: "Battery technology is energy technology (and) it is not growing as fast as compared to microprocessors or hard drives. It is created by chemical reaction (and) we extract energy. Every time you get a breakthrough next generation technology, it takes some time."

5 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

+ show options

Your current settings, click to change: Sort Oldest First, Show Guest Posts, Hide Community Stats

Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Sep 14, 2006 2:01 pm

In the meantime, cannot be that impossible to integrate solar energy chargers that supplement the chemical reaction in batteries to extend their life? The sunlight is free, we've used it on calculators for several decades. Obviously, they can't replace batteries in portable devices such as iPods and game devices completely, but if they could be integrated to help recharge them and provide some of the energy needed, we wouldn't need to create as many batteries and thus volatile hazardous waste as we are doing now.

Quote this post ↓

gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Sep 14, 2006 7:54 pm

Tiger wrote:
In the meantime, cannot be that impossible to integrate solar energy chargers that supplement the chemical reaction in batteries to extend their life? The sunlight is free, we've used it on calculators for several decades. Obviously, they can't replace batteries in portable devices such as iPods and game devices completely, but if they could be integrated to help recharge them and provide some of the energy needed, we wouldn't need to create as many batteries and thus volatile hazardous waste as we are doing now.

There already are solar chargers for iPods and other devices. The problem is that these devices use a helluva lot more energy than a calculator with a small b&w screen, so tiny solar cells won't hack it. (Consider that you can run a calculator for weeks on one or two small button batteries.) There are two problems: photovoltaic cells aren't all that efficient (they do have a heat dissipation problem, as well) and sunlight isn't intense enough (watts per unit area) to run an iPod, say, with an array the size of an iPod. Typically, solar charers are much larger than an iPod and take 8-14 hours in bright sun to charge.

Check the Solio site and the Solar Style site if you're interested.

Quote this post ↓

Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:00 am

Biomass is the way to go. Think about how much biomass we flush down the toilet every day. If it could be converted to electricity and stored in our iPods without using toxic batteries, the world would be a better place.

Quote this post ↓

apex said:

member since 23 Jun 2001 with 63 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:54 am

Great new product idea! The iPooper! It would come in Nano matching colors and have an integrated dock. Your computer resides in the tank where it would be water cooled, thus requiring less engery. Now you can sync you ipod, charge it, and relieve yourself at the same time!

Bosco wrote:
Biomass is the way to go. Think about how much biomass we flush down the toilet every day. If it could be converted to electricity and stored in our iPods without using toxic batteries, the world would be a better place.

Quote this post ↓

Intruder said:

member since 07 Jul 2004 with 3149 posts, TMO Mac Specialist, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:27 pm

Maybe that explains the color of the new Zune?

Quote this post ↓

Post Your Comments

  Remember Me

Not a member? Register now. You can post comments without logging in, but they'll show up as a "guest" post.


Please enter the word exactly as you see it in the image above. Registered users aren't prompted for this. Having trouble reading the image get a new one.