In this case, the fuel mentioned is methanol, which is quite different from the much more oft-used gasoline/petrol used in your car. This is a fuel used in top of the line racing circuits, but otherwise, remains out of vehicles. But the point here is not the idea that it is using fuel, but rather, the fact that fuel cells are reported to have far longer energy outputs compared to that of battery counterparts. Instead of a 5 hour battery charge on your iPhone, now you've got a 4-week long charge on your Razr.
Fuel cells are basically batteries, that can be recharged by adding more fuel, in this case methanol, instead of completely replacing the battery or plugging it in to the wall, which is very inefficient.
Most batteries for small devices are 3 to 5 volts. If you ever felt that transformer plugged into the wall that you recharge your cell phone with, for example, its usually warm. That heat is wasted energy. American electricity supply is 120 volts, in most residential situations. Fuel cells are much more energy efficient, thats why they are being pursued.
@Barbaric I think Kevin's answer is more accurate. Fuel cells are being chosen because they have much higher energy density than batteries. This means they can run for a much longer time on the same size cell. You can figure this out just by looking at electric cars, which have horrible range b/c of the low energy density of batteries compared to fuel. Methanol is a good candidate because it is liquid at room temp and has a better energy density order of magnitude greater than highly compressed hydrogen.
In terms of efficiency, direct-methanol fuel cells, the same type MTI Micro is using, has an efficiency of only 20-30% for the cell and 10-20% for the system; that's horrible compared to the minimum average efficiency of a transformer has to be greater than 84% to get energystar qualification for >49W devices and >49% for 1W devices. So the reason is not efficiency.
Earth is actally being raped much more with batteries, which contain various acids, hazardeous chemicals and if you use the alcaline ones (not accus) you have to throw them away after being used. That's much more polluting than just using some harmless alcohol :)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ysleiro @ Apr 7th 2008 9:25AM
Somebody please explain why anybody would want to engage in more "fuel" consumption?
Or maybe I'm not getting something here.
Isn't the Earth being raped enough already?
Kevin @ Apr 7th 2008 2:08PM
In this case, the fuel mentioned is methanol, which is quite different from the much more oft-used gasoline/petrol used in your car. This is a fuel used in top of the line racing circuits, but otherwise, remains out of vehicles. But the point here is not the idea that it is using fuel, but rather, the fact that fuel cells are reported to have far longer energy outputs compared to that of battery counterparts. Instead of a 5 hour battery charge on your iPhone, now you've got a 4-week long charge on your Razr.
Barbaric @ Apr 7th 2008 10:25AM
Fuel cells are basically batteries, that can be recharged by adding more fuel, in this case methanol, instead of completely replacing the battery or plugging it in to the wall, which is very inefficient.
Most batteries for small devices are 3 to 5 volts. If you ever felt that transformer plugged into the wall that you recharge your cell phone with, for example, its usually warm. That heat is wasted energy. American electricity supply is 120 volts, in most residential situations.
Fuel cells are much more energy efficient, thats why they are being pursued.
jake @ Apr 7th 2008 1:33PM
@Barbaric
I think Kevin's answer is more accurate. Fuel cells are being chosen because they have much higher energy density than batteries. This means they can run for a much longer time on the same size cell. You can figure this out just by looking at electric cars, which have horrible range b/c of the low energy density of batteries compared to fuel. Methanol is a good candidate because it is liquid at room temp and has a better energy density order of magnitude greater than highly compressed hydrogen.
In terms of efficiency, direct-methanol fuel cells, the same type MTI Micro is using, has an efficiency of only 20-30% for the cell and 10-20% for the system; that's horrible compared to the minimum average efficiency of a transformer has to be greater than 84% to get energystar qualification for >49W devices and >49% for 1W devices. So the reason is not efficiency.
Wilsone @ Apr 7th 2008 11:00PM
Earth is actally being raped much more with batteries, which contain various acids, hazardeous chemicals and if you use the alcaline ones (not accus) you have to throw them away after being used. That's much more polluting than just using some harmless alcohol :)