Future MacBooks, Other Apple Hardware, May Run On Fuel Cells Soon

Tweet

I think we all enjoy portable devices in one flavor or another. Whether it’s your MP3 player of choice, your tablet of choice, your smartphone of a whole bunch of choices (me personally, I’ve been working pretty much exclusively on a laptop for the last four years now), portable devices are often every bit as good as their larger equivalents. I say often, of course, because there are some differences involved, not least of which is battery life. However, the folks at Apple, based on a couple recently-unearthed patents, may be looking to fix that.

The patents in question are entitled “Fuel Cell System to Power a Portable Computing Device” and “Fuel Cell System Coupled to a Portable Computing Device”, each providing an idea of how Apple looks to use fuel cells instead of batteries to power portable devices. See, Apple’s come to the realization, reportedly, that if they were to use hydrogen-based fuel cells to power devices, they could get those same devices to run for days, possibly even weeks, of continuous operations without needing to stop to refuel, and all without use of electricity or battery acid or the like.

The problem, of course, is building a fuel cell that’s both small enough to be used in portable devices and sufficiently inexpensive to not drive the price of Apple hardware up even farther than it already is. Thus, Apple’s patents look to using a fuel cell in concert with a rechargeable battery, so that the fuel cell can recharge the battery, and then shut down to let the battery take over, thus requiring the fuel cell overall to be very small and low-powered, and thus, inexpensive.

Apple, meanwhile, is interested in this technology as a way to reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy, which is smart if somewhat unexpected to hear from Apple. Still, whether you’re green or not, saving money on electricity is always a welcome development, especially if nothing changes in device functionality.

But what do you guys think of this one? Think that Apple’s got a good idea going in fuel cells for their portable gear? Or are you having a hard time getting the image of the Hindenburg out of your head? Whatever your stance on this one, we want to hear from you down in the comments section below.