Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cutting the Other Wire

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 06:53:21 -0400

Cutting the Other Wire

Scott Woolley,
09.01.03

Stephen Tang,
CEO, Millennium Cell

Tomorrow's amazing wireless technologies will be of little use if they must
rely on today's crummy batteries, warns Stephen Tang, chief executive of
Millennium Cell (See http://www.milleniumcell.com/index_noflash.html) in
Eatontown, N.J. The main thing shackling people to their desks, he says,
isn't the need for an Internet link. It's the lack of steady power.

"And that's our goal," says Tang, "to cut the other wire--the power cord."

For decades batteries have been the tortoise in the tech race. Even the best
lithium-ion batteries have advanced their energy storage capacity by 10% a
year, falling ever further behind the demands of the latest multifunction
wireless device. There are fundamental physical limits to how much energy
they can store per pound. Tang's solution is simple: Chuck the battery
entirely and replace it with a tiny hydrogen fuel cell.

His breakthrough could let cell phones last up to four times as long as
current batteries do between recharges. More important, his matchbook-size
cells could provide far more punch, enabling a new wave of powerful
energy-slurping devices.

Hydrogen hype is high, thanks in part to President Bush's State of the Union
vow to spend $1.2 billion on the technology. But most fuel-cell attention
has focused on powering cars. That was Tang's original goal, too, but the
Wharton M.B.A.--who also holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Lehigh
University--began to wonder whether fuel cells might be better suited to
powering wireless gadgets.

Fuel-cell systems, big and small alike, have always been limited by their
ability to effectively store hydrogen and release it in the necessary doses.
Millennium Cell engineers started their search for the perfect storage
material from scratch, scouring the periodic table for a material that could
provide enough energy to run a car without weighing it down or igniting a
massive explosion in a crash. They fixed on boron, a close cousin of carbon.
A gallon of a solution that is one-third sodium borohydride and two-thirds
water can store the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline.

Tang's tiny fuel cells can power a phone for 12 hours of talk time compared
with 4 hours for an equivalent-size lithium battery. They run a standard
laptop for up to 8 hours. Most now fade at 3.

Tang's fuel cell is designed to be tossed in the trash, just like today's
alkaline batteries. Their chemical reaction leaves behind small amounts of
water and borax, a nonflammable mineral used in some laundry detergents. And
the cell phone version will be contained in a package that will cost around
$1.50, Tang promises. He vows that the boron-hydrogen fuel cells will hit
the market by 2005.

Japanese and South Korean firms are also in hot pursuit of a working mini
fuel cell. In July NEC announced it would have a 5-hour battery ready by
next year. Tang hopes to double that capacity a year thereafter with a
safer, cheaper version. Tang had better hurry. Millennium Cell, which went
public in 2000 just before the market for public offerings slammed shut, has
scant revenue and is burning through $3 million in cash every quarter. But
if Tang hits his 2005 deadline, he could earn a pile--and a place in history
for freeing millions of white-collar warriors who were shackled to their
desks.

 http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0901/102.html

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