考研必读经济学人杂志精选:Therealenergycrisis
文章作者 100test 发表时间 2007:06:11 11:47:30
来源 100Test.Com百考试题网
Mobile devices
The real energy crisis
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 According to unpublished research by the Boston Consulting Group, the amount of energy that a battery can store (its energy density) is growing by 8% a year.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.