Canon's Fuel Cell May Drive Portable Gear 197
RX8 writes "Canon, Inc., has taken the wraps off prototype rechargeable hydrogen fuel cells, the likes of which may one day power digital cameras, media players, and printers. Canon's demonstrated fuel cells win even more points on the environmental front: while companies such as Toshiba, Sanyo, and NEC have also been working on fuel cells (and had been expected to have developed fuel cell-driven notebook computers by now), those efforts are based on DMFC technology which derives hydrogen from methanol, producing small amounts of carbon dioxide (itself a greenhouse gas) in the process. Canon's cells obtain hydrogen from a refillable cartridge with no toxic byproducts."
Mystery Cartridge! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mystery Cartridge! (Score:2, Interesting)
Either that or they're making some eco-friendly statement, kind of like "The Day After Tomorrow"'s ".. i've never seen the air look so clean!"
Re:Mystery Cartridge! (Score:3, Interesting)
PR is a wonderful thing.
Re:Mystery Cartridge! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mystery Cartridge! (Score:2, Insightful)
One year we could have the hydrogen being produced in a coal/oil fired plant, 5 years later nuclear/wind/solar, and even 50 years later with Fusion. But the end user would never notice because all you need to produce the hydrogen is electricity and water.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Mystery Cartridge! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Mystery Cartridge! (Score:2)
Re:Mystery Cartridge! (Score:2)
Methanol is readily available at your local drug store for $1.99 per bottle. That bottle will last your laptop, your iPod, and your cell phone several months.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, cannot be so easily obtained by the end-consumer, so instead of stopping off at Rite-Aid and spending $1.99 on a bottle of rubbing alcohol, you'll be stopping off at Rite-Aid t
so where (Score:3, Insightful)
fossil fuels for now (Score:4, Funny)
Re:fossil fuels for now (Score:5, Insightful)
It can be hard to hear over the clipped-signal of the marketing hype - but I think the jury is still out on the "environmentally friendly" claims.
Re:fossil fuels for now (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, you can use hydrolysis, but you can also charge a LiPo or other type of battery.
Re:fossil fuels for now (Score:4, Interesting)
The methanol fuel cell produces the same amount of CO2 (or more, per volume unit) as if it was burning normal gasoline. The beauty of fuel cell here shines in comparison with (lousy) energy density, efficiency and recharge rate of a battery.
One day we may be driving metanol-fueled cars or planes since methanol is pretty easy to make from coal. When that happens, the platinum-group metals used in fuel cells will not be cheaper than today - new industry uses of paladium and platinum are found every day but there is only very little to go around. Shortage of rhodium, palladium and platinum can be technologicaly much bigger problem than lack of fossil fuels. So my guess is that the new methanol motor will have some kind of good old internal combustion engine in it again.
Palladium (Score:2)
new industry uses of paladium and platinum are found every day but there is only very little to go around.
That's because Microsoft's hogging all the palladium for its Next Generation Secure Computing Base [microsoft.com] ;-)
Re:fossil fuels for now (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:fossil fuels for now (Score:3, Interesting)
Well you are not really recharging them you are refilling them like the gas tank in your car or the Propane tank that your grill uses. My question is just how useful this will be. Where will I get these magic cartridges and how much will they cost? It only takes a few cents of electric to recharge my notebook and I can find a plug pretty much anywhere. What about on airplanes? Can I carry these cartridges on a plane? Seems like a very expensive replacement for batte
Re:so where (Score:4, Funny)
Where do you get the dinosaurs to make your oil/coal? That's just about how stupid your question is.
I plan on getting hydrogen from windmills in my backyard. I plan on getting the copper for the windmills from a mine in Mexico. I plan on getting the magnets for the windmills from China. I plan for the water for the hydrogen to fall from the sky periodically.
You can get yours out of the little plugs in your wall for all I care.
Re:so where (Score:2, Funny)
Coal/Oil is dinosaurs!
Our fuel is made out of dinosaurs! Next thing they'll be breeding them like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!
Re:so where (Score:2)
Re:so where (Score:5, Insightful)
So anything that helps products run on electricity more effectively is a good thing. Of course, Canon's stuff wasn't running on gasoline to begin with
I haven't been able to access TFA though.
Re:so where (Score:5, Insightful)
Infact, wind power should be better suited to hydrogen generation than generation of grid electricity. Generating electricity for the grid has problems since wind is unpredictable so you can't have your wind farms match the current demand on the grid. For hydrogen generation this doesn't matter since you can just adjust the amount of hydrogen you generate depending on how much electricity your wind farm is generating and then _store_ the excess hydrogen, which you can then use during the periods when you don't have enough wind to meet demand directly. Storing hydrogen is much less of a problem than storing electricity.
Maybe this is what the future holds for us - use predictable power generation systems (fisson, hydro, tide, fusion and orbital solar arrays) for electricity generation and less predictable (e.g. wind) for hydrogen generation, where the hydrogen can be used in cars and most things that currently contain high capacity batteries such as laptops.
Why hydrogen? Use it for heat.. (Score:4, Interesting)
There's another use of windmill power that requires no fancy conversion electronics, or fancy electrolysis setups. Run whatever horrible waveform you get out of your alternator on a stick into a big old resistor that gets hot. This is cost-effective for me (in a rural setting) to heat my home with now, versus using diesel (heating oil). Nicely enough, periods that use more heat often are much more windy.
More interesting would be an engineering comparison on the efficiencies if using windmill-heated steam versus direct hydrogen combustion. Both would be mobile, but the steam could easily drive a turbine.
Either way, you'd need millions of windmills to replace the energy consumed daily in the form of oil. It's important to keep that in perspective. There is NO good mass volume alternative to oil in the near future, people should be planning accordingly. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely to happen.
Re:Why hydrogen? Use it for heat.. (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but it's still easier than storing electricity.
There's another use of windmill power that requires no fancy conversion electronics, or fancy electrolysis setups. Run whatever horrible waveform you get out of your alternator on a stick into a big old resistor that gets hot. This is cost-effective for me (in a rural setting) to heat my home with now, versus using diesel (heating oil)
But that suggestion is only useful for less than half of the year (depending where you live) when you actually need to heat your home. During the summer there's still quite a lot of wind which would be going to waste.
Either way, you'd need millions of windmills to replace the energy consumed daily in the form of oil.
Indeed, and I don't think anyone (apart from a few nutty greens) would suggest otherwise.
There is NO good mass volume alternative to oil in the near future, people should be planning accordingly. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely to happen.
Fission is a good alternative to fossil fuels, produces energy in a large quantity and is in many respects less polluting (if only because you seal up the waste and store it instead of pumping it into the atmosphere). Modern fission reactors are also very safe.
In the long run, fusion looks promising (especially since the politicians have now stopped arguing about where to build ITER) but still a way off
Orbital solar arrays also have a lot of potential - even more so if we get our finger out and set up a moon base since much of the structure of the satellites could be manufactured on the moon and then launched relatively inexpensively with mass drivers. This stuff isn't science fiction - it _can_ be done if the investment is made. Sadly the people in power seem to be happy to blindly burn fossil fuels until we have completely run out. I guess today's politicians are safe in the knowledge that they won't be in power when the shit hits the fan.
Re:Why hydrogen? Use it for heat.. (Score:3, Interesting)
But fission works. Right now.
And it's cost efficient.
And it pollutes, but _much_ less than any other means of energy generation.
It even generates less radioactive waste than some. And the waste it generates is manageably containable. Plus, you could always get rid of your waste once you had a fusion reactor working. With that kind of amount of energy, someone would come up with some so
Re:Why hydrogen? Use it for heat.. (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the windmills. Currently the problems listed usually deal with birds and bats flying into them or getting hit by them. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,69 0 3,1130672,00.html [guardian.co.uk]
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/17/news-lewis.php [laweekly.com]
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16383 [heartland.org]
Ignoring the eminent domain portions, the main problem seems to be that all the best spots for wind power are on bird migratio
Re:Why hydrogen? Use it for heat.. (Score:2)
That would be nice, but breeder reactors are prohibited by some nuclear weapons treaty we (the US) signed, along with uh, some other nations. So things would have to change a bit in order for that to ever happen. This is because breeder reactors are capable of producing weapons-grade materials. We can't even manage to build nuclear fission plants anywhere (esp. in California) due to NIMBYism.
Re:Why hydrogen? Use it for heat.. (Score:2)
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does NOT prohibit breader reactors. Nor does any other treaty the US has signed. What does prohibit breader reactors in the US is an execuitive order signed by Jimmy Carter. In fact, France uses breeder reactors. The only reason Carter banned them is that they produce plutonium. This plutonium can still be used in power plan
Nuclear waste is a resource (Score:2)
If oil runs out, helium will too. It's non-reactive and so light that our planet's atmosphere can't hold it.
One alternative to this is to get the helium from decaying nuclear waste. I have no clue why people aren't doing this. Are they?
Re:so where (Score:3, Informative)
And the faster the price of oil goes up, the sooner those alternative energy sources will mature. Seriously, they've been plenty mature for quite a while now, even though the technology is always being improved. However, on price alone (and not counting the cost of the environmental consequences), they're always going to be more expensive than cheap oil. That's always been the problem with alternati
Re:so where (Score:2)
Re:so where (Score:2)
It actually takes much less energy to extract it from hydrocarbons.
Cleaner? (Score:5, Funny)
As long as we're considering small quantities of C02 a 'toxic byproduct' as a greenhouse gas, I would like to point out that that all hydrogen fuel cells generate dihydrogen monoxide as their principle biproduct, which is an even worse greenhouse gas.
Re:Cleaner? (Score:4, Funny)
Won't somebody please think of the children?
Other effects (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Cleaner? (Score:2, Funny)
Anyone who takes DHMO is 100% guaranteed to keep taking it until they die.
Re:Cleaner? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd also like to point out that furry cute little rabbits emit both C02 and dihydrogen monoxide... simultaneously!
Re:Cleaner? (Score:2)
Really?
Re:Cleaner? (Score:2)
Mods are on crack. (Score:2, Informative)
He has made a joke, not written an informative statement...
Re:Mods are on crack. (Score:3, Funny)
*goes back to getting some work done*
Re:Mods are on crack. (Score:2)
Re:Mods are on crack - but the parent is right (Score:4, Informative)
He has made a joke, not written an informative statement...''
Regardless of how he meant it, water does have a much stronger greenhouse effect than CO2. See the entry in the WikiPedia article [wikipedia.org].
Re:Mods are on crack - but the parent is right (Score:3, Informative)
In a lab, not in the troposphere. Net effect of H2O is very low. Read a little further down in the Wikipedia entry: "Water vapor in the troposphere, unlike the better-known greenhouse gases such as CO2, is essentially passive in terms of climate: the residence time for water vapor in the atmosphere is short (about a week) so perturbations to water vapor rapidly re-equilibriate. In contrast, the lifetimes of CO
Re:Mods are on crack - but the parent is right (Score:2)
Even if CO2 were to "trap" radiation at only 5% the efficiency of H2O, the extended duration of the CO2 being free in the troposphere would m
Re:Cleaner? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes... this really happened.
For those interested in this very nasty chemical, I suggest you visit http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html [dhmo.org]
Re:Cleaner? (Score:2)
We kept it in reserve in case we ever needed to blackmail one of them
Re:Cleaner? (Score:2)
[google.co.uk]"Alisa Viejo" dhmo
Re:Cleaner? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Alisa Viejo" dhmo [google.com]
Re:Cleaner? (Score:2, Insightful)
(wince)
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdotted? (Score:2)
Re:Slashdotted? (Score:2)
Correct Links (Score:2)
The above links are incorrect—the "&cid=" part should be removed. As a service, here they are as clickable links:
www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/26/canon_fuelcell/ [tgdaily.com]
www.itworld.com/Comp/1774/051026canonfuelcell/ [itworld.com]
aHA! TFA is a blank page. (Score:3, Informative)
Really, wake me up when it's actually in a shipping product. I'll be excited then. Until it's working in the real world, it's just vaporware.
Low temperature performance (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lifetime is an issue (Score:2)
Yes, and there's also the little issue that a leak in a hydrogen tank rarely results in anything horrible happening, while a leak in an oxygen tank can make your device catch on fire and/or explode spontaneously.
Energy Density (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Energy Density (Score:4, Funny)
You mean, like the old fashioned manual-wind, shutter-and-film variety that have no electronics at all?? I think they first came out in the 1800s...
Re:Energy Density (Score:2)
broken link (Score:5, Informative)
Canon develops fuel cell prototypes [engadget.com]
Canon shows prototype hydrogen fuel cell [infoworld.com]
Canon to develop fuel cells for printers, cameras [boston.com]
Not again (Score:4, Insightful)
Here we go again. Someone will say that hydrogen is a power source and then a bunch of pedants will jump on him / her claiming that it's not a power sources it's a power store as it uses more energy to create it. Then there will be an argument over what constitutes a power source. Does that about sum up the discussion?
Re:Not again (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not again (Score:2)
Re:Not again (Score:2)
It's pedantic because most people would consider a bottle of hydrogen an energy source. This is just like most people thinking a battery (rechargable or otherwise) is an energy source even though it has taken far more energy to charge or produce the battery. The point is that in certain situations it pays to think of the bottle of hydrogen as an energy source even though over all it is an energy sink. Supprisingly, studies show that most people aren't scientists.
Re:Not again (Score:2)
Re:Not again (Score:2)
A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, some people have their own hydrogen-generating machines. Of course, these run on electricity; see, the generation of hydrogen costs more energy than the hydrogen contains - that is, it has an EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) less than one. Whatever you're processing to make hydrogen, you have to use up energy to get the reaction happening. Even if you wanted to do this, every home in the industrialised world would need a hydrogen-generating machine that ran on electricity - the manufacturing of which would cost enormous amounts of energy and materials, even if it worked at generating energy.
In some places, hydrogen is generated in big power plants and delivered "on tap" to your home or office. This might sound dangerous, but then again, people had gas stoves once, until natural gas production peaked and the price tripled overnight. Again, you'd need to retro-fit an enormous amount of infrastructure in which to deliver the hydrogen - the laying of which would cost enormous amounts of energy and materials, even if it worked at generating energy.
In any case, we need to do something. I mean, we've got all these gadgets - the manufacturing of which cost us enormous amounts of energy and materials - and they're all powered by billions of hydrogen fuel cells - the manufacturing of which cost us enormous amounts of energy and materials. Even though the average electronic device consumes ten times its weight in fossil fuels during its manufacture [un.org], and even though the generation of hydrogen costs twice as much energy as the resulting hydrogen contains [culturechange.org], people still bought into this sham in droves, believing that it's better for the environment.
In reality, it's made the problem more widespread because we demand more energy than ever before, and it hasn't solved anything because we haven't really found a new source of energy with which to replace fossil fuels. Made me think twice about buying that hybrid car, too [lifeaftertheoilcrash.net].
You try telling people this was a bad idea, though. They'll look up from their plates of raw vegetables and mugs of rain water, and tell you to keep your big mouth shut.
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:2)
There's lots of existing infrastructure and tech for transporting and using hydrocarbons.
It's still a net zero CO2 generation if you take CO2 from the air to make the hydrocarbons.
What we'd need are decent hydrocarbon fuel cells.
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:2)
I hear these [northerntool.com] work pretty well...
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:2)
Hydrogen is really an energy storage and transportation medium. It's a way of getting energy from a power plant to where you want the work to be done (or close to it). The advantage, as I understand it, comes from the economy of scale at the power plant.
Suppose just for the sake of argument that you have a car that runs on petroleum and a power plant that also uses petroleum. Putting asi
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:2)
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:3, Insightful)
PS. Methanol would be best for portable electronics unless we find a good solid state hydrogen
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:2)
Why does that make hybrid cars bad (yes, I drive one)? Hybrid cars are environmentally friendly because they use smaller, more efficient gasoline engines and revover energy from the brakes that would otherwise be completely lost as heat. C
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:2)
Your caveat - "if you have to drive" - would make sense for, well,
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:2)
Re:A letter from the hydrogen-powered future (Score:2)
You're forgetting two things.
Firstly, science class doesn't really generate much hydrogen, certainly not enough to run any kind of device even so energy-intensive as a pinwheel. The sort of machines that are commercially available for this are large and energy-intensive to manufacture, and aren't available in large quantities.
Secondly, you have to get these machines into the homes of billions of people. you would need billio
clean and safe? (Score:2, Interesting)
New fuel source eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Our first batch of these things will look like a grey brick with wires.
Methenol isn't that green or new (Score:2)
The article is also wrong. Methanol fuel cells [wikipedia.org] do not reform into hydrogen. If it did, the fuel cell would suffer from all of the cost of materials problems as conventional fuel cells.
Again all of this is old news, as Toshiba has already done a press release [toshiba-europe.com] about a 100mw direct methanol fuel cell.
C02 is not really a issue... (Score:4, Interesting)
Methanol is a good choice for fuelling cars too, since it generates more power than gasoline, less CO2 and it's cheaper to produce. The only problem is the oxidation it produces, but this will not be a issue when we switch over to eletric cars, powered by fuel cells!
The problem with fossil combustibles, like gasoline and diesel, is the oil they come from. Since it was trapped under the ground for millions of years, the CO2 contained on it is no longer part of the planet ecosystem. When we burn it, were injecting new CO2 to the atmosphere, and that's the main cause of the greenhouse effect.
Re:C02 is not really a issue... (Score:2)
It is now!
Re:C02 is not really a issue... (Score:2)
Bzzzzt! Methanol contains only about half as much energy per liter as gasoline. Here's [xtronics.com] a summary table of several fuels. Maintaining the same driving range requires a tank that's twice as big. Obtaining the same power output from a fuel-injected ICE will require injecting twice as much each cycle. It is potentially useful in a fuel-cell to power an electric car, which can overall be more efficient at extracti
Not exactly (Score:2)
While it is true that methanol contains about half as much energy as gasoline by volume, that does not mean you need twice as much to go the same distance. Methanol burns much better in a standard engine (high octane), and in an engine designed for it can get nearly the same range per volume of fuel even though there is less energy in that fuel.
SAAB has a car that gets the same gas milage on ethanol (not methanol which is the subject of this message, but ethanol is similar to methanol so this example is
Re:C02 is not really a issue... (Score:2)
Re:C02 is not really a issue... (Score:2)
Re:C02 is not really a issue... (Score:2)
Now, let me guess about fuel cell cartidges (Score:3, Funny)
Jolyon
Re:Now, let me guess about fuel cell cartidges (Score:3, Informative)
Arf... actually, I was going to get the same joke in myself, but about the tiny tankfuls, not the chipping. The reason I use a (low-end) Canon printer is that (unlike their rivals) they *don't* play silly buggers with chips, refills and so on; you can get third-party ink tanks with no hassle.
I've never had to consider a refill kit, as I can get new
Hydrogen Vs the Dinosaurs...again (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hydrogen Vs the Dinosaurs...again (Score:2)
Gads. People are worried over the CO2 (Score:4, Funny)
OK, folks - if you are going to obsess over CO2 emissions, here are some other CO2 producing items you should be worried about:
And not the least of all:
Another "brilliant" move by Canon. (Score:2, Funny)
It's the same as their current strategy of selling ink for $10,000 a liter.
If they're REALLY good, they'll make the screen that transfers the energy clog irrecoverably from time to time
humans produce CO2, too (Score:3, Insightful)
Greenhouse emissions may kill us all, but I think we have to worry a lot more about the Chinese burning coal than these fuel cells.
We need to keep some perspective here. Afterall humans generate CO2, too.
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So now what? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think we disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:genital safety? (Score:2)
Once you've seen a lithium cell burn, having a few ounces of methanol on your lap seems like a sane and reasonable idea.
Actually given the number of people who carry around compressed-butane canisters in their pockets already (cigarette lighters) I don't think you'd really have a hard time selling the public on fuel-cell laptops.