30 year battery life? Yeah, right. (and engage!)

Wow! It's Wednesday's IT Blogwatch: in which we're really, really excited about a laptop battery that lasts 30 years. Not to mention  an awful, awful performance from Commander Riker hawking enterprise IT automation software...

A breathless Next Energy News reports:

Your next laptop could have a continuous power battery that lasts for 30 years without a single recharge thanks to work being funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. The breakthrough betavoltaic power cells are constructed from semiconductors and use radioisotopes as the energy source. As the radioactive material decays it emits beta particles that transform into electric power capable of fueling an electrical device like a laptop for years.
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Betavoltaics generate power when an electron strikes a particular interface between two layers of material. The Process uses beta electron emissions that occur when a neutron decays into a proton which causes a forward bias in the semiconductor. This makes the betavoltaic cell a forward bias diode of sorts, similar in some respects to a photovoltaic (solar) cell. Electrons scatter out of their normal orbits in the semiconductor and into the circuit creating a usable electric current.

The reason the battery lasts so long is that neutron beta-decay into protons is the world's most concentrated source of electricity, truly demonstrating Einstein’s theory E=MC2 ... If all goes well plans are for these cells to reach store shelves in about 2 to 3 years.. [more]

Addy Dugdale digs it:

Made from radioactive material ... the batteries end their life being completely inert and non-toxic, so they're not as scary-bad as they sound ... Before you all run for the tinfoil, the batteries don't use fission or fusion, nor are there any chemical processes to produce energy, which means no radioactive or hazardous waste ... Small and thin, the batteries use a porous silicon material to collect the hydrogen isotope tritium that is generated in the process. And as it's a non-thermal reaction, your laptop will stay cooler than if its juice came from traditional lithium-ion batteries.
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These batteries [are] an eco warrior's wet dream due to their non-toxicity ... We hope it works out because we can't wait to have every electronic gadget we have running forever without any bloody chargers and cable spaghetti balls around. [more]

Adam Frucci isn't the bleeding-edge sort:

Although radioisotopes are radioactive, it doesn't emit any radioactive or hazardous waste. When these batteries reach store shelves in the next 2 to 3 years, feel free to be the first person to test that out by using it in a laptop you keep on your lap. Let us know how that works out for ya. [more]

Rupert Goodwins, the first ever blogger scoffs:

Sadly, no. As with the best techno-rubbish, there is a story in there, but you'll be pootling around the skies in jetpacks before you're powering your Dell from neutron decay.
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Tritium's half-life is around twelve years, so every decade or so your battery will halve in power ... the sort of atomic structures that generate power when bombarded with high energy electrons are the sort that tend to fall apart when bombarded with high energy electrons ... there's the small problem that if you break the battery during its life the nasties come out ... they don't have a great conversion efficiency. Around 25 percent is the best you can get - which is pretty good, but leaves 75 percent sloshing around as heat. That means a 25 watt battery will get plenty warm ... Even the latest devices, which are very clever in the way they saturate a porous structure with the gas and thus usefully capture quite a large number of the energetic electrons, have an energy density of the order of twenty five watts per kilo. Lithium ion batteries, the sort you have in your laptop, manage 1.8 kilowatts per kilo.
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Do you fancy carrying a battery 72 times heavier than the one you have at the moment, especially if it's hotter than a sixty watt light bulb? ... there's nothing wrong with the betavoltaic principle; it's been known about for at least half a century, and as such things go it's very well understood. But ... it's no good for the sort of things the original article was talking about. [more]

Here's lawpoop, pooping over the story with a law:

Anytime you see a reference to Einstein, or the e=mc^2 equation, there's a good chance that the exciting new technology is bunk. [more]

Tim Holman, too:

The betavoltaic battery is nothing more than pseudoscience. It's higher quality pseudoscience than junk such as zero-point free energy generators or gravity wheel generators, but it is pseudoscience nonetheless. Every few years you see these sorts of claims about betavoltaic devices pop up again, then fade away.

Despite years of claims, no one has ever come close to demonstrating a device with the sort of power densities claimed in the article. Furthermore, the biggest proponent of betavoltaic technology is Ruggero Santilli, an infamous pseudoscientist with a litany of nutty claims and bizarre theories of physics.

If you look at the web pages of the companies that are involved in betavoltaics (e.g. betavoltaic.com or nuclearsolutions.com), you'll find that they have no physical facilities outside of a rented post office box or the home of one of the principals. None of them have any product to sell or even demo. I don't expect that will ever change. [more]

But AWeishaupt defends:

Betavoltaics are real, workable technology; not science fiction or junk science. [more]

John Biggs is dismissive:

I had a moment to mull over this “30-year laptop battery story” and I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that it’s a pump and dump scheme of nefarious proportions. Penny stock companies that promise “unlimited energy” and “cures for cancer” often try to build a case for their stock by getting a piece in the legitimate media. As this is getting harder — there’s so little legitimate media anymore! — they may have found a receptive and gullible audience, us bloggers.

Searching for Betavoltaic, I found lots of companies in the space that are trading in the pennies. This means it’s in someone’s best interest to raise that price by a few cents, dump, and watch as it settles into oblivion. I want to believe this is possible as well, but I there is little corroborating evidence. [more]

Zixinus fingers the alleged perp:

People, nextenergynews ... [is] as credible as the guy in the padded cell in the asylum. [more]

Buffer overflow:

Around the Net

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• The Converging Network: Do you IPv6?
• Pushing String: DIDW impressions
• Stephanie Overby: IBM Tries to Patent Offshoring
• Mark Rogers:The Importance of Information Technology Training from a Management Perspective
• IEET: Andy’s Prolixity
• The Old New Thing : Don't assume the first person to run your program is an administrator
• Tim Faulkner: CEO Pay: Larry Ellison is overpaid, while Steve Ballmer is unmotivated
• Owen Thomas: Geography Lesson: China is where Skype really failed eBay

Around Computerworld

• Douglas Schweitzer: RAM chip manufacturing venture
• Frank Hayes: Conventional IT wisdom
• Preston Gralla: Congress: We'll grill telecoms about illegal wiretapping
• Ryan Faas: Boot Camp to require Mac OS X Leopard?
• Mitch Betts: A user-generated dictionary for SAPanese, the unique language of SAPsters
• Robert L. Mitchell: In search of the perfect wireless VOIP headset
• Preston Gralla: Skype: eBay's never-ending $2.6 billion blunder
• Shark Tank: Name game
• Michael R. Farnum: ID theft education should be a higher priority for everyone
• Douglas Schweitzer: Mind the gap
• Shark Bait: Paint Not For Amateurs...

Previously in IT Blogwatch

• We remember Sputnik (and Oz spot)
• Microsoft shares Office Live Workspace (and Prawn2Bwild)
• Apple bricks iPhones, even unhacked ones (and nikeja)
• More Windows Update woes (and Halo 3 hack)
• Excel bug calls for wrong number (and GHP CDs)
• Older posts

And finally... Amazingly lame ad, starring ST:TNG's Comdr. Riker

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.