Japan bets on fuel cells for tech-toy power...can cars be far behind?

TOKYO — Tetsuya Mizoguchi, president of Toshiba Corp's mobile communications company, keeps all his contact numbers, schedules and even meeting memos in a sleek personal digital assistant.

As he showed off the Toshiba-made gadget to reporters, it started flickering. The battery was low.

"I've been using this all day," he says, frowning. "You don't understand the inconvenience of recharging until you actually use them. I have no time to go back to my desk to recharge this."

He and others in Japan are betting on fuel cells, 21st century versions of the bulky batteries used to power spacecraft in the 1960s, providing the solution.

As portable electronic devices become lighter, smaller and more power hungry, calls for more powerful and longer-lasting batteries increase.

Fuel cells create electrical energy through the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen.

Japanese electronics firms have developed prototypes for fuel-cell batteries to power the smallest of electronic devices for longer — and only need refueling not recharging.

Mizoguchi says Toshiba hopes to make a fuel-cell battery that turns methanol directly into electricity and could be available to the public within two years.

Sony Corp, the world's biggest electronics group, is developing a fuel-cell battery that uses carbon molecules to allow it to function at extreme temperatures.

These days, the bulky fuel-cell batteries that once powered spacecraft, are mainly used to supply electricity in buildings.

Japan's largest maker of mobile handsets, NEC Corp, is collaborating with two Japan government research bodies to develop a fuel-cell battery that runs on methanol and uses nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology involves making or manipulating substances at minute levels of only a few nanometers — or billionths of a meter.

NEC says the invention's energy capacity will be 10 times that of a regular lithium battery, allowing people to use a current-generation mobile phone for a month without recharging, or work on a laptop computer for a full day.

Yoshimi Kubo, senior manager at NEC Laboratories, predicts high-speed third-generation (3G) mobile phones, which require a lot of power to transmit data, may be one of the biggest beneficiaries of fuel-cell technology.

"People will be spending more time on 3G phones (than standard models). They will look up restaurants or shops, and download data," he says.

Japan's largest mobile operator, NTT DoCoMo Inc, launched the world's first 3G mobile service in October, offering face-to-face communication.

But users of the service are shackled by a battery that allows only 100 minutes of continuous talk or 70 minutes of video-conferencing.

"I think telecom carriers are feeling a sense of crisis because 3G and even current-generation phones do not have enough power. So they say they want fuel-cell batteries at all cost," says Kubo, who aims to make NEC's fuel-cell products commercial by 2005.

Kubo said that because of the liquid fuel, the shape of NEC's battery could be flexible, making it easier to fit into compact devices.

Also, with methanol costing about 40 to 50 yen per liter, the cost of making the battery could be lowered to about the same price as a lithium battery, he adds. It is estimated that lithium batteries are used in 80% of all laptops and 50% of mobile phones in the world.

Tomohide Kazama, a researcher at the Nomura Research Institute, says that although fuel-cell batteries are being developed for cars and homes, they are better suited for portable devices, such as laptops and camcorders.

"Users would not have to carry around a recharger with them and fuel could be sold at convenience stores," he told a seminar held by electronics trade magazine Nikkei Micro Device.

Kazama says there are some obstacles needed to be overcome before fuel batteries will see everyday use.

For one, methanol is a regulated drug and law changes would be needed to make the substance widely available.

But NEC's Kubo remains optimistic. "Fuel cells are like lighters and there should be a way to solve these problems," he adds