Toshiba plans to launch fuel cell chargers in next two months, may be lying
By Paul Miller 
posted August 5th 2009 10:46AM
posted August 5th 2009 10:46AM
posted August 5th 2009 10:46AM
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er, where is TFA? link is bad
I'm wondering which teenager is going to figure out how to run this in reverse and get ethanol as an output so they can get drunk on the weekends.
Sounds stupid for the fact that if your injecting liquid fuel into these things, doesnt that make them technically a musical bomb?
It has to be injected. That is just too easy to add impurities to.
What's the cost efficiency of this. Say as opposed to using a USB recharable external battery pack, or a AA external battery adapater since the Toshiba is probably meant for on the go.
And whats the density like. How much power in how little of a space?
I thought someone else already had something similar on the market and it was crazy expensive.
Even if you buy methanol in 50 gallon drums, it'll still be cheaper to recharge a battery from wall/grid power than to load a fuel cell with a liquid. The potential advantage is that runtime is limited only by how much methanol you carry around. For the military, or people in developing nations, operating far away from grid power, fuel cells are a great idea. For anyone living in a modern urban area, they are a ridiculous and unnecessary expense. The cost of packaging alone, let alone the cost/effort of driving to the store or having Amazon deliver to you, makes fuel cells of any type impractical for most consumer purposes.
too bad the amount of energy to produce methanol is almost double the amount it yields. But some hipster hippie will still buy into it because he/she will be "reducing those damn carbon emissions"
your better off cutting down a tree.
Letting you off with a citation.
*you're
yeah but energy efficiency isn't the objective of this product. the idea is that you never need to plug your ipod/phone/netbook/etc into the wall again...when it runs low you just dribble in a bit of juice and it's "fully charged".
the energy density of methanol is many times that of a li-poly battery, and more than makes up for the inefficiencies of the fuel cell itself. 25ml of meth would be 138WHrs... take 50% efficiency of the cell and 25ml of meth should power a netbook for approx 10 hours.
the best way to think about this is comparing wholly electric cars (i.e. not hybrids) to those with petrol i/c engines... how much more useful is a petrol car than an electric one?? what characteristics makes it more useful? translates that same thinking to gadgets.
anyway, it won't happen... i've seen this same story trotted out many times over the last 10 or so years and no product is ever seen.
it'd be a smelly world if you could power your gadgets with farts.
methanol =/= methane...
Methanol and methane are not the same thing, but thanks for playing.
Oh, and methane is odorless. Its all the sulfur compounds that you're smelling.
The TSA will make sure this dies. They already prohibit lighters. Would you buy a methanol powered device knowing you couldn't fly with it? Maybe a few special cases, but not enough to build momentum among the masses and lower prices. Toshiba will eventually come to this conclusion and terminate development.
They did prohibit. Now they're allowed again. One per flyer. Go read TSA site again~~
The author sounds bitter. Come and sit on my lap, I'll make it better with promises of lollipops and candy if you go back to my apartment where i may feel compelled to take diabolical liberties with your knees.
They'd be in bad shape when they get methanol out of it instead of ethanol.
and the comment system strikes again!
30 day count down starts today
Have fun trying to bring your PMP with _LIQUID_ fuel through airport security. Also, your refueling cartridge is likely to be out of the question! maybe carrying this on a plane will label you a terrorist!
as long as the bottles of juice don't cost 5 arms and a leg it would be pretty cool to use as emergency power or whatever.
can just imagine your laptop lazing around with empty methanol bottles everywhere. you have to admit you have a problem, that's the first step
This is great ! This will reduce some amount of burden on the environment.
Not if nobody buys it... which they wont...
cause it's stupid
too bad your a eco-hype person. Let me repeat my previous statement
"the amount of energy to produce methanol is almost double the amount it yields."
so if using twice as much resources to produce the same amount of energy of current batteries is saving the environment, please explain.
In other news...
Apple plans to launch a larger touchscreen device in the next two months, may be lying.
Can someone explain the appeal to me?
No waiting to charge, just fill it up and go!
If you're a reporter or business man in the back country making a deal or a report this may be a handy thing to carry. Just not as sensible to the rest of us.
Man even if this is true it is just way behind were we should be right now.
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