I hate batteries, but I love fuel cells. At some point in the near future the technology will do as promised, giving us hours of clean energy for our portable gear. Sadly, they’re still too big to be practical, but Sony’s working on the problem, and has this nifty palm-sized fuel cell to show for it.
It’s a methanol-based unit, and can provide up to 14 hours of charge for a portable device. Now, it’s unclear if that’s “standby” or “active” use, but it’s still pretty impressive.
Fuel cells should start hitting gear around 2010 if the technology keeps progressing at this rate, with affordable and practical uses about a year later.
Another fuel cell developer i know has developed an ethanol fuelled fuel cell for consumer electronics. The benefit of this alternative over methanol fuelled fuel cells is that it does not have precious metal catalysts within it which will dramatically reduce the eventual cost of the product. Ethanol is also a more pleasant fuel to work with than methanol. For example it does not make you blind and potentially kill you!
Here is a link for those intrested:
http://www.fuelcellmarkets.com/ndc_nanomaterials_discovery_corporation/products_and_services/3,1,6899,17,27105.html