Battery,Wars,This,the,New,Wire business, insurance Battery Wars - This 'IS' the New Wireless Frontier

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Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE I can picture it now. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader face off for an epiclight-saber battle to the death! The fate of the world hangs in the balance!Then their light-saber batteries run out of juice so they're left holdingonto a couple of limp licorice sticks, resulting in a leg-wrestlingextravaganza. Yoda wouldn't stand a chance. Not quite what George Lucas had inmind for the ultimate Star Wars battle scene. With all of the tremendous advances that are taking place in our world ofinternet and wireless existence, a person may never consider that the 'holygrail' is in the field of battery life. You might have thought that it would bethe next generation of wireless devices that allow you to project holographicimages of the Google screen so that you can do web searches in mid-air in theairport. Yep, it's true - it's in the works! The restricting problem is thatlittle-considered power source we simply take for granted. The simple battery.It has been confounding for a century now.Thomas Edison said, "I don't think that nature would be so unkind as towithhold the secret of a good storage battery if a real earnest hunt for it ismade. I'm going to hunt." That was more than a hundred years ago and thefoxes are still out. In fact the hunt is getting very intense.In a recent article in 'Wired', John Hockenberry states that, "In thelast 150 years battery performance has improved only about eightfold. The speedand capacity of silicon chips, of course, improves that much every sixyears."In curious irony, as I write this article on my laptop, on an airplane, onmy way to Charlotte, my battery has declared bankruptcy and I now have toresort to my back up power source - pen and paper. How Neanderthal! My hand isactually aching because my fingers are apparently out of shape for thesecallisthenic demands. I thought that my two-fingered typing was just as good asa Gold's membership for these types of events but I am woefully wrong. It'sjust another reason that better batteries are required - we can't writeanymore, opposable thumbs or not, - it's just an evolutionary thing.It seems that our insatiable demand for self-powered consumer electronics isdriving the battery wars to new heights. Suffice it to say that the spoils ofthis war will far exceed the wampum that Edison received for that light bulbthing.As devices miniaturize in size, yet enrich in features, the hapless batteryis forced to produce more power in less space. If battery capability stagnates,as history has dictated so far, then portable device capability will followsuit. Yet our demand, and the ability of manufacturers to supply, indicates aburgeoning market for wireless devices to make our lunch, tie our shoes,entertain us, and generally make our lives dependent on such units.The problem is that all that functionality is dependent on the developmentof more efficient, more powerful, and smaller power sources. Oh yeah, andsafety seems to matter as well, as evidenced by the recent spate ofspontaneously combusting laptops caused by the fire-starter known as the Li-ionbattery. Thermal runaway is the name of the culprit, and it means that thechemicals in the battery break out of their metal casing, which causes thelithium to ignite when it makes contact with moisture in the air. Without getting technical, voltage and current are created chemically togenerate power through the movement of electrons from pole to pole in thebattery. As we have progressed through lead acid for car starters, to alkalineand mercury for transistor radios, to nickel and cadmium for the first laptopsand video cameras, to lithium rechargeables for current electronics, includingMP3 players, camcorders, and Blackberries, the digital demands keepmultiplying. In fact digital calculations themselves require steady voltage tomaintain memory, and power fluctuations can be catastrophic for the devicefunctionality. Backlit screens, hard drive demands, and graphics needs are mounting thepressure on the development of power sources. At the same time, the thermalrunaway risk must be managed which tends to create wasted resources within thebattery, and batteries that destroy themselves before they ignite. The war rages for alternatives. The venture capitalists are betting big in anumber of areas. They are driven by the demand for laptops with dual processorsand eight-hour run times. They are driven by our consumer demands that we havewireless devices on our hip that store and play music - 1000 songs at a time,guide us over highways, and send attachments via email. Actually, the deviceshould be in your pocket and not on your hip unless you're a nerd according toinsinuations by Kevin Sintumuang, associate editor for GQ. Among the warring factions for battery supremacy are:1) Lithium batteries with their own chip to manage power resources2) Fuel cells, which have always been challenged with practical design.Proponent Rick Cooper feels that notebooks will have both a fuel cell and alithium battery engineered into the next generation.3) Silver & zinc chemistry is also on the horizon. Backer, Ross Dueber,makes the point about current lithium alternatives; "It's the onlyrechargeable battery technology that uses flammable liquid."4) Lithium polymer uses an advanced gel to create a power source as thin aspaper. Prototypes have been designed to power a new breed of smart card.5) Then there's Nanograss. It's not a Robin Williams football field, but it isa radical approach to power supply. It allows cells to carry their own powerand to turn on and off chemically. It provides for a solution where there arefields of tiny batteries as opposed to a single power source. This one usescharges to effect the surface tension of fluids by basically making them appearand disappear (into the Nanograss, which is actually metal) depending onconductive requirements. Regardless of who wins this war, the riches will be great. And regardless ofwho wins this war, it seems that re-design of electronic devices will berequired to allow for the new optimum power delivery system. That means itwon't be overnight.Now let's take the battery war to another level beyond electronic deviceswith a 'what if' scenario. What if battery technology advanced to the levelwhere a reliable, safe, and powerful field of such tiny units became the sourceof power for our furnaces, air conditioners, and cars? Not just cars that looklike you're driving a phone booth, but real cars - and SUVs. Wouldn't that justchange the environment, both figuratively and literally?Let's just hope there is a winner in the battery war as opposed tocontinuing stagnation. Let's hope that the hunt that began in earnest withEdison is rewarded with success. Let's hope that new technologies, dependant onbattery capability, can continue to develop so we can sate our desire forelectronic nirvana. Otherwise we may be stuck in this backward time wherebattery capability restricts our Columbus-like voyage of discovery of theelectronic universe. Article Tags: Battery Wars, Wireless Devices, Power Source, Battery Capability