Lengthen Battery Life [WSJ 11.17.03]
By GARY MCWILLIAMS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
If you've ever scrambled to save a Word file as the battery alert beeped on a laptop computer, or missed capturing a four-year-old's birthday celebration because the camcorder ran out of juice, you'll understand why an eight-hour battery is the Holy Grail for consumers and portable-device makers.
It wasn't long ago that a two-hour lithium-ion battery on a laptop was sufficient to finish creating a document, review the day's e-mail and update a spreadsheet. But that was before 17-inch color screens, high-fidelity audio, and DVD players began colliding with battery makers' ability to add power to ever-smaller devices. Cellphone customers face their own frequent brownouts with camera-equipped, PDA-equipped and wireless-e-mail-accepting devices. And the growing use of wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, networking has put an even greater strain on battery life.
"Basically, the battery has become the weakest link," says Atakan Ozbek, director of energy research at Allied Business Intelligence Inc., a market-research firm in Oyster Bay, N.Y. While rechargeable batteries have made great strides in power output in the past two decades, the technology is reaching its theoretical limit. "There's maybe another 25% to 30% [increase in power] to go before they max out," says Mr. Ozbek.
To break the power logjam, companies are starting to look beyond lithium-ion batteries and are embracing fuel cells -- tiny versions of power plants -- as the best hope to satisfy consumers' desire for long-lived electronics. A host of companies are developing portable fuel cells that promise to deliver at least eight hours of power to run laptops, camcorders, cellphones and other portable electronics.
For now, though, fuel cells are still too bulky and expensive to completely replace the lithium-ion batteries that power most portable electronic devices -- although the military is interested in early use of the technology. The smallest is still the size of a hardcover book, and experts say initial prices are likely to start at about $250, although prices haven't yet been set. In contrast, a laptop replacement battery costs about $130. And there are some other technological glitches that need to be worked out.
Still, "none [of those hurdles] are insurmountable," says Mr. Ozbek. He forecasts fuel-cell sales of 200 million units by 2011, but says that if remaining development hurdles are quickly overcome, sales then could be as high as one billion units.
Getting Started
While Asian electronics giants such as Japan's NEC Corp. and Toshiba Corp. have well-developed research programs, much of the development in the U.S. until recently has taken place in small start-ups -- including the MTI MicroFuel Cells unit of Mechanical Technology Inc., Albany, N.Y.; PolyFuel Inc., Mountain View, Calif.; and Medis Technologies Ltd., New York. Lately, though, there have been signs that bigger companies here are getting involved, too.
In September, for instance, Boston-based Gillette Co., owner of battery maker Duracell, acquired a minority stake in and began joint development on fuel cells with MTI MicroFuel Cells.
William Acker, president of MTI MicroFuel, says his firm is preparing to release fuel cells next year for industrial automation and military products, then move to consumer-electronics markets. While the cost and size of today's fuel-cell technology won't allow it to soon replace batteries in consumer electronics, "We believe we're on track to get to the size needed for PDAs and digital cameras, etc." within a few years, says Mr. Acker.
Meanwhile, chip maker Intel Corp. is working on technology to get notebook PCs to average eight hours of operation, double the operating life today. The Santa Clara, Calif., company is revamping its systems designs to incorporate components and software that use up less power, and is investing in new technologies, such as fuel cells. In fact, Intel is one of the venture investors in PolyFuel.
The earliest adopter of the fuel-cell technology is expected to be the military.
U.S. special-operations soldiers currently carry 35 pounds of disposable batteries, says David Stephenson, a vice president at Harris Corp.'s RF Communications Division, Rochester, N.Y., which develops radio systems primarily for the military. Harrris is looking to provide the military with fuel-cell-based rechargers and rechargable batteries that would replace the disposable batteries.
The company also is helping design a fuel cell to operate a global positioning system, or GPS, for soldiers. It has produced a demonstration unit with power density equal to lithium batteries. "Our challenge is to take it to 1.5 times to two times" the power density, he says. Mr. Stephenson estimates the military will begin replacing batteries with fuel cells in 36 to 48 months.
Military planners also see fuel cells one day powering remote sensors that will be able to operate unattended for six months, and powering unmanned vehicles, applications that can't be powered by batteries, says Mr. Stephenson.
Several other companies, including Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo., and General Dynamics Corp., Falls Church, Va., are looking to produce fuel cells for military and space uses.
"The military is enormously interested," says Chris Marzilli, vice president and general manager of commercial hardware systems at General Dynamics' C4 Systems unit, which is developing fuel-cell technology to recharge a voice-equipped PDA. Unlike a consumer who wants to purchase a $999 notebook PC, military demands for performance can bootstrap the technology. "They are willing to pay a premium up front during these early-adopter stages," says Mr. Marzilli.
Not Any Time Soon
Still, some say the technological hurdles that are still being worked through will stall widespread commercial use for years.
"Everyone is saying by 2004, 2005," says Barry Huret, president of Huret Associates Inc., Yardley, Pa., which consults with battery companies and distributors on markets and products. But Mr. Huret believes that time frame is wishful thinking. "I call it the rolling 18 months. Many experts believe even by 2010 fuel cells would hold perhaps just 5% to 10% of the battery market."
A key issue is fuel cells' use of a flammable fuel, such as methanol, that hasn't been approved to carry on an airplane, he says.
What's more, like their larger counterparts found in experimental automobiles, fuel cells generate power through an electrochemical reaction, stripping out the hydrogen in alcohol mixtures, and using exotic catalysts to produce electricity, heat and water in the process. Because the chemical reaction generates heat and water as a byproduct, there are very complex design considerations. For instance, a water leak could have devastating effects on electronic circuits.
Toshiba last year had predicted it would offer fuel cells for laptops and other portable electronics as early as next year. But it recently delayed availability of the products until 2005 without citing a cause.
Fuel-cell technology "looks promising but it is still very immature," says Michael Stinson, vice president and general manager of mobile products for PC maker Gateway Inc., Poway, Calif., who has tracked the technology. Unlike in the early 1990s, when lithium-ion batteries were embraced first by camcorder makers, then laptop makers, fuel cells haven't found a champion in any segment of the electronics market, he says. "I was more bullish a year ago," he says, "than I am now."
Some developers hope to bypass the cost and size problems and accelerate commercial adoption of the technology by going directly to consumers, rather than electronic-device makers. For instance, Medis Technologies is building a fuel-cell recharger that can rapidly recharge existing cellphone batteries. By designing a recharger, which is about the size of the phone itself, instead of a battery replacement, it avoids the head-on competition with lower-cost and smaller batteries.
"The tiny phone we can't service," says Medis Chairman and Chief Executive Robert K. Lifton. Medis's recharger can accept fuel cartridges able to deliver nine hours of operating time to a phone.
The company recently began talks with electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. about marketing the recharger in its 7,100 stores nationwide.
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