“A starter kit with adapters costs about forty bucks and a replacement pack is about twenty so it is a very economical charger to own.”

economical? You can buy a 10-20Wh Li+ based power pack with multiple tips (particularly USB) for 15 to 60 bucks. however it costs less than a penny to “fill them up” with electrons.

Even Lithium AA batteries cost less. You can get 12 Lithium AAs for about 20 bucks, the cost of a 24/7. However 12 lithium AA batteries is about 30Wh of energy. Even those are less expensive.

“A good brand of fuel cell is called the Medis 24-7 Power Pack”

Define good. Is there another fuel cell charger on the market?

“That translates to about five or six full charges for an iPhone.”

Yeah, except that the 24/7 claims to put out a watt of power (it actually puts out far less) and an iphone during talk consumes far more than that, i.e. don’t expect any long coalls if you cell phone battery is dead. Dont expect much use of your phone in emergency situations

“Almost every large electronics manufacturer is working on a new kind of fuel cell charger”

100% wrong. There are tons of chargers, but NONE of them are fuel cell chargers. Reason: Minature fuel cells are a dumb idea because the system is dominated by things that are not fuel, like air gas management, hydration management, fuel containers etc.

“Fuel cells that are also just neat. These used to be only found in designer cars and spacecraft. Now they are part of our every day life..”

Simply not the case. Stationary fuel cells are starting to make inroads. Fuel cell cars are just now starting to barely become viable. The great majority of peoiple will not encounter a fuel cell on a day to day basis.

“The Medis 24-7 Power Pack is one of, if not the, first liquid fuel-cell chargers for small devices. You can also expect versions for laptops within two to five years”

Really? Considering that the company has sold a trivial amount of 24/7s (less than 3000 over the last 2.5 years) and has shut down the production facilities, what in the world makes you say that? With such a low power density, why would this technology ever get better than Li+ batteries that are rechargable? Never mind that the 2 year promise for laptops has been made by medis for about 8 years.

“One reason is because this is such a green way to power up your gadgets. No more batteries filling up our landfills and poisoning our environments.”

Oh, i see, because throwing away a large plastic box with 20mL of KOH in it is so good for our environment. Yeah, thats right, the inevitable act of throwing away a 24/7 is far worse than throwing away modern alkaline batteries, which have virtually no heavy metals in it any more and very little KOH.

“You recycle it or refill a fuel cartridge.”
No you do not refill it. The fuel and electrolyte are caustic. Everyone just throws these away.

” the Medis charger uses a solution of sodium borohydride which comes from the earth. This makes it a very green gadget”

Asenic and mercury come from the earth too, that doesnt make them “green”. Methanol comes from natural gas, which “comes from the earth”.

The 24/7 is a bad product for one main reason. AA batteries and Li+ rechargables are superior solutions. When your new product is worse than the incumbent technologies, you are doomed. This is why medis has sold virtually none of these devices, recently got delisted from Nasdaq, and has shut down the production line.

Batteries and Li+ rechargables are better and will always be better because:

1) alkalines have less electrolyte in the landfill when they are tossed
2) Li+ are used over and over again, for essentially free, and are only recycles or dumped after hundreds of uses
3) on a per charge basis, Li+ costs an infinitessimal amount compared to the $19/pack for the 24/7
4) alkaines and Li+ have far high power, which is why the extreme 24/7 has….a rechargable battery in it

better for the environment, cheaper, more power, more energy per unit volume. Li+ win.

What good is a blog if you just parrot PR hype from companies?