MIT Professor of Energy Dr. Daniel Nocera has published a paper explaining a process that they’ve developed for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen efficiently using solar electricity, and then use that hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell to re-generate electricity.

Sounds a bit silly when put like that, but the part that I missed out is that there is a time delay between splitting the water and using it to generate electricity.

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PolyFuel, a Mountain View, California company, announced this week that it has integrated its methanol fuel cell technology into a Lenovo Thinkpad T40 laptop computer. According to the company’s press release:

In PolyFuel’s prototype, the power supply features a detachable fuel cartridge – about the size of a deck of cards – that can be swapped out while the computer continues to run. Long-distance travelers, or others needing continuous, unconnected, easily portable power for their notebooks, would simply carry spare cartridges in their pocket or purse – a someday common practice that has already been approved for commercial aircraft by the various regulatory bodies around the world.

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