The real energy crisis

BUSINESS
Mobile devices

Jan 6th 2005 NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

How an old technology is constraining a new one

“SEAMLESS mobility is here,” trumpet the latest advertisements from Motorola, one of thousands of consumer-electronics companies that converged on Las Vegas this week for the industry's glitzy annual shindig, the Consumer Electronics Show. Like Motorola, many of these companies will be hoping to persuade the show's 130,000 or so attendees that the combination of faster wireless networks, more powerful microchips and better display technology will usher in a new age of dominance for mobile devices. Yet as such devices—which often combine a phone, camera, music player and personal organiser—become more powerful, they are consuming more power. And that is the industry's dirty little secret: battery technology is not keeping pace.

The news that Matsushita, a Japanese consumer-electronics firm, plans to launch a new sort of disposable battery technology (called Oxyride) in America and Europe illustrates the point. Matsushita's engineers have spent eight years working on their new battery, yet it lasts only 50% longer than an ordinary disposable battery. The technology behind the rechargeable lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries that power mobile phones and laptops is not evolving much more speedily. According to unpublished research by the Boston Consulting Group, the amount of energy that a battery can store (its energy density) is growing by 8% a year. Mobile-device power consumption, meanwhile, is growing at more than three times this rate, as backlit colour screens, high-speed wireless networks and more powerful microprocessors draw ever-larger amounts of power.

This growing gap between the supply (energy density) and demand for energy (see chart) is an indicator of the severity of the trade-offs which device-makers and consumers may have to make as battery technology increasingly constrains the evolution of mobile devices. Demand continues to grow rapidly, especially as mobile operators upgrade to new high-speed networks, which require more powerful handsets. Eventually, a new technology, such as miniature fuel cells, may solve the mobile-energy crisis. Until then, consumers will face stark choices.

Some may be willing to recharge their devices more frequently. Battery life has already plummeted for certain devices. Musea, an all-in-one mobile device built to run on NTT DoCoMo's fast, power-hungry third-generation mobile network, advertises just 40 minutes of talk time with its screen fully lit. At airports, business travellers are increasingly to be found squatting beside inconveniently-placed power outlets, desperate to recharge phones and laptops before they board their flight. Some consumers have already learned to avoid power-hungry features such as video calling. Others are opting instead to lug extra battery packs around with them. Alarmingly, the American army's “Future Force Warrior” programme has calculated that the soldier of the future may have to hump around the battlefield batteries weighing 34lb (15kg) to power his high-tech combat kit. That is one feature of the seamlessly mobile future that Motorola—the proud maker of the networked motorbike helmet and snowboarding jacket—will be happy to gloss over.

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