I recently saw this and was about to write about it. But dammit I was beaten to it by at least two people. Thanks for stealing my thunder guys (if there was any to start).

Well anyway, this silly company is trying to make the claim that their water is better because they sent up the electrolytes (salts) into space where they were exposed to microgravity. They of course make a few vague claims about what constitutes the superiority of their water.

• Space2O™ is purified water with spaceflight enriched electrolytes to replenish and refresh your body.
• The result is a one-of-a-kind purified H2O with exclusive spaceflown electrolytes that provide Space2O™ with an out-of-this world, refreshing taste
• They also have an energy drink

Well they were pretty savvy on their site. They don't make a claim (they only strongly imply) that the space flight does anything to the electrolyte. They dont claim that the water is purified in space (its purified water with spaceflown electrolyte).

But there are three things I dont like about this. First off, how many studies must there be before people realize drinking bottled water is no better than tap water. Folks, stop wasting your money. Stop filling landfills with plastic bottles. Its true that filtering the tap water may make it taste better, but thats about it, no health benefits (unless you live in an area where the drinking water is not maintained...like in India or something).

The second part is that they imply that the space flight provides better taste, or makes the water more refreshing. Or affects the electrolytes at all. This is of course total nonsense. How about the initial multi-G the payload feels during launch? Does that affect it to?

If you want to expose your bottled water to weightlessness for an improved taste....drop the bottle. A falling object experiences the same microgravity that things in orbit feel.

Lastly are their claims of other nonsense. Thay say later that they are going to go through a phase II, which includes the follwoing activities

• Exploit the current microgravity state-of-the-art knowledge base
• Pharmaceutical products (quality, yield and cost improvements)
• Nanomaterial bonding and formulations
• Crystal growth
• Plant yield and variability with a focus on food products
• Biotechnology development and testing

• Apply our existing Phase II business models to create specifically identified products that can effectively compete in their respective markets such as:
• Antibiotics
• Cancer treatment
• Unique materials
• Space flight-derived food products (only possible in space)

Really? spaceflight derived products are only possible in space? You know rooftop-derived products (tm) are only possible on rooftops, does that make them special too? Sneaker-derived products anyone? The activities they are promising are activities already under way at far greater expense than some small water company with a useless product is going to be able to afford. Basically they are pleading with you to buy their stuff becuase they are going to fix the world with all the money they will be rolling in.

BTW has anyone actually verified that there is a salt package in those rockets?

Its a cute gimmick. Im sure people will fall into your nonsense hype. That is why I write here.

The comments are Braving the Elements are pretty funny. Good for a laugh.

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Russia has a new bomb.

While I have dabbled in the political a little in this blog, I am intending to stay out of it, and focus on technology and data. In particular Im trying to keep the focus on debunking the nonsense that comes from claims of companies, political figures and scientists.

So, I wont write a long blurb about the frightening prospect of a new arms race between us a russia.

Instead, I'll focus on two lines out of the article. The first is this one:
Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment

What?!? So, what you are saying is that the destruction of trees, wildlife, natural resources and so forth do not help to degrade the environment?

Perhaps you mean that the introduction of tons of fine particulate into the air doesnt hurt the environment?


Further thoughts on environmental impact come from this quote:
Channel One said that while the Russian bomb contains 7.8 tons of high explosives compared to more than 8 tons of explosives in the U.S. bomb, it's four times more powerful because it uses a new, highly efficient type of explosives that the report didn't identify.

7.8 tons of explosives.. and explosion is the conversion of matter to gas and heat. While it doesnt say what the explosive is.... you can be damn sure the gas and particulate that it emits are not good for the environment. The gas will be one oxide or another (CO2, SO2, NOx, etc etc) most of which are bad for the environment.

Can anyone think of a bomb that is not bad for the environment? Perhaps a bath bomb?

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Clearly, this sort of thing really ticks me off.
It is all over the news and YouTube

Is there no important news in the world that we have to cover obvious nonsense such as this? Look folks, no matter what, it takes more energy to split water than you get from splitting that water. It doesnt matter what you mix into the water. I'll show some chemistries later that seem to defy this rule (but in fact do not).

Chalk this up to any of the perpetual motion machines that people have tried to fool investors with for hundreds of years.

The video shows how safe you hand is in there....really? considering your body is mostly made up of water and salts, that is hard to believe! Could there be more to it????? (duh)

This is probably not a hoax. By that I mean, I am quite fine with the idea that if you send enough energy into a conducting media (like salt water), that energy will get released. Did you notice the color of the flame? Its the same color as when you burn sodium. Remember in high school that different elements burn giving off unique spectra? (BTW, since there is a burn, any hydrogen that is released - if any- is burning also)

Not one of the articles above tell you how much energy is required to induce this reaction. Not one. Why? Because I'm willing to bet that its over 100x the amount of energy you are capable of capturing from the energy released.

Dear News Organizations,
As a request from one of your viewers, your truly, when you are reporting on possible new sources of energy, could you please ask one simple question:

How much energy does it take to make the process work?

If this amount of energy is more than the amount of energy you can get from the process (ok you can ask that too, so perhaps its two questions) could you please explain that part too? Otherwise you are wasting everyone's time. This goes for ethanol production too!

You want to use salt water as fuel in the car? What will power the RF transmitter that requires more energy than the sodium will gives? Why not use this power source directly for better energy savings?

There ARE chemicals (just one of many) that do in fact steal the oxygen directly out of the water and then release the hydrogen. These are pretty cool for specific uses. The key requirement is that water is plentiful nearby. For example, if I have a remote sensor, I could collect rain and use that water in combination with this chemical to create hydrogen (which I could burn, or use in a fuel cell). Fuel cells burn hydrogen and create water, but you would still need to keep a small tank of water to get started, but they are a possible application.

But this chemical is still not useful for cars or big applications because gasoline stores far more hydrogen per liter than water does. The energy density or hydrogen content for gasoline or deisel is far higher than water. To see that, just remember that the mixture of molecules (mostly benzene) that make up petroleum fuels have many hydrogen atoms per molecule while water has only two and they are very stable (the reason water doesnt burn and gasoline does). Then remember that aside from small differences in density among liquids, the number of molecules per liter of liquid is about the same, i.e. way more hydrogen per liter for gasoline.

Similar nonsense here.

The team calculates that a car would have to carry just 18 kilograms of boron and 45 litres of water to produce 5 kilograms of hydrogen, which has the same energy content as a 40-litre tank of conventional fuel


I see, so with well over 50 liters of the water and the new materials, plus the equipment required to generate the hydrogen, plus the safety requirements for moving hydrogen through as system I can do as well as a vehicle with a 40 liter tank of conventional fuel. Perhaps you can tell me how much energy it takes to ship and recycle the Boron?

sounds cheap, sign me up (sarcasm).


Folks, there ARE applications where hydrogen taken from water is useful, but they require abundant renewable energy resources (sun, wind and geothermal). Most often its just better to take the energy directly without the water at all. Using limited resources (coal, oil, nuclear) to crack water.... well its just stupid.

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As many of you know, I have no belief in God, or any god or gods. I spent many years, not struggling with this, but instead becoming comfortable in my realization that I am part of a very small minority of the American (and the Worlds!) population. For me, it was truly strange to see that theists can sway a vote in America, not based on someones ideas or experience, but instead, simply due to what he believes in without evidence, whether it is the god of one religion or another. Frankly, I found this situation appalling and am truly glad that recently, the atheists have decided to start making a stand.

There are two great books that I have read that really let me define and be able to explain my view better. These are End of Faith by Sam Harris and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. further, in my quest to truly understand how it is that people can read a book and think it was written by an almighty being, I also read Misquoting Jesus, by Bart D. Ehrman, which is a primer on textual criticism and truly a good read.

In my blogosphere wanderings I came across this set of questions from the friendly atheist. If you read through the answers I think they capture an atheists perspective pretty well. Hurrah to Hemant Mehta for compiling the list. I followed Berlezebub's lead and posted my answers at my own blog. Here goes:

• Why do you not believe in God?

I cant find evidence of any god. The hypothesis is that an all knowing being out there who is capable of manipulating every single electron in the universe, but is not part of the universe and is in fact outside of space and time, is so complex, so outrageous, so huge, that it requires REALLY big evidence to support. I would take a giant hand coming out of the sky (with the correct Gods name on it) that comes down and crushes a mountain. If I saw that I would change my mind (and if there is a god, and he REALLY needs me to believe in him, now he knows how to get my faith).

• Where do your morals come from?

Morals are generally innate. We have developed as a species and as a society because our base morals are part of our genetics (where else could they be?) Or if not ingrained in us biologically, then tendencies to create morals are ingrained in us genetically, for example, the will to listen to our parents. We do the things we do to survive and grow as a species. We know this because tests of moral dilemmas have been given to people of various religions, backgrounds and atheists.... we all score the same (statistically). So it really doesn't matter which book you read, you have the morals first.

• What is the meaning of life?

What meaning? This question implies that there is a goal defined by someone.

• Is atheism a religion?

Is NOT playing baseball a sport?
Is NOT collecting stamps a hobby?
Not believing in a god is not a religion.

• If you don’t pray, what do you do during troubling times?

Try to figure out how to fix my problem. Talk with people, in particular my wife, about it. If there is nothing to be done about it (i.e. someone died), then I mourn and move on.

• Should atheists be trying to convince others to stop believing in God?

No, however critical thinking and actual data collection should be taught far more than it is. Believing in god delineates a distinct lack of critical thinking skills. The debate is old, if theists actually had critical thinking skills they could make a better case, besides "God did it".

• Weren’t some of the worst atrocities in the 20th century committed by atheists?

Actually, they were committed by people who didn't believe in the tooth fairy. These atrocities were not done in the name of atheism, they were done in the name of national pride or personal zeal for power. Shall I list the details of various of abortion clinic atrocities, or world wide suicide bombings, or a particular incident in New York on 9/11 that WERE, in fact, done in the name of religion?

• How could billions of people be wrong when it comes to belief in God?

Yeah, its hard being in the minority. I think Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, Bohr, Snow and a variety of others can feel my pain.

• Why does the universe exist?

'Why' is irrelevant. 'How' is far more interesting and pertinent.

• How did life originate?

I wish I were there for the first complex organic molecule to describe it. But alas, I was not, However we sure see a lot of complex organic molecules around. They all came from somewhere. A billion years is truly a long time for them to come together for the first time. 3.5 billion is certainly long enough to get where we are.

• Is all religion harmful?

To whom? The people in the majority religion certainly benefit from being there. But ask the jews in the south (of America) how things go for them. Ask the Muslims in America how things are going? Or the Christians in Iraq. Plus all religions teach to have faith without evidence. This is totally different than prediction based on evidence (like the sun will rise tomorrow). This fundamental lack of critical thinking education simply puts religious people at a distinct disadvantage to those that employ these skills.

• What’s so bad about religious moderates?

They validate the extremists. They can say trite things like "Well he isn't a REAL Christian", but that abortion clinic bomber thinks he is a Christian, even a better one than the moderate.

• Is there anything redeeming about religion?

Religion has one significant trait that I admire. Sense of community. If I were catholic (for example) I could go virtually anywhere in the world, find a church and have a sense of community immediately. Clubs and so forth dont do this in the same way since there isnt a common set of beliefs that are common to say, all hikers or poker players. Other than that, I dont really see a need for it, it just takes rational conversation off to never never land.

• What if you’re wrong about God (and He does exist)?

Im not worried about this at all. If he is a just God, then he will know that my belief arose from the lack of data he provided to me and he will know that I am a good person and that go out of my way to help others and so forth. If he is a petty and unjust god, then he wouldn't have been my god and either way I would be condemned to hell regardless. Besides how good can a heaven made by an unjust god really be?

• Shouldn’t all religious beliefs be respected?

Oh yeah? We should respect the Raelians? Branch Davidians? Fundamentalist Islam? No, all religions base their foundation in the gullibility of most people and the pursuit of power. This is not a respectable endeavor.

• Are atheists smarter than theists?

We are less gullible because we require proof before we believe things. That does not make us smarter, per se, we just have a smarter method of going through life.

• How do you deal with the historical Jesus if you don’t believe in his divinity?

What is there to deal with? He is dead. He had a few laughs, hung out with the guys, told some good stories. So did Ghandi, MLK, and all of the Dalai Lamas.

• Would the world be better off without any religion?

Only if we were able to teach critical thinking better. Otherwise most of the population will simply replace religion with other nonsense like The Secret, space aliens, or anything Deepak Chopra has to offer.

• What happens when we die?

Worm Food! Enjoy your life, you have only 70 years to do everything and make your mark!

There are many other answers at the friendly atheists site. I think taken together you may get a good feeling of the general mindset of many atheists.

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I just spent 691 dollars at the vet. My two dogs needed boosters for their shots. We have a lyme disease problem here so they got that. Then there is rabies (lots of bats have rabies around here). Then there was distemper, which I bailed on for one dog as it is a dog-dog transmitted disease and getting 3 shots at once can have some bad side effects. We'll get that one later.

This all cost about 270 bucks. I then bought enough heartworm preventative medicine (interceptor) to last 2 years for both dogs. 320 bucks (or so) for this. Ow!!!!

According to this site in my area (north east US) there is a very low incidence rate of heartworm, between 1 and 5 cases per clinic per year.

Here is a pretty comprehensive description of heartworms, symptoms and treatment. The little worms are delivered into your dog by mosquito (damn things). But the symptoms are visible and treatment costs around 300 dollars.

Why the hell would you spend 80 bucks per year per dog to prevent heartworm? First off, in the northeast, where we have lyme disease, we use advantix (unless you also have cats!), that keeps off ticks, fleas AND mosquitos!

While I wont tell you what you should be doing... I'm going to return my 320 dollars worth of heartworm medicine.

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Now back to what is pissing me off:
Looks like the EPA is following suit

"White House spokesman Tony Snow said, adding that 'We are doing a better job of reducing emissions' than Europe."

This is what he is basing that on: "The White House said Snow was referring to figures from the International Energy Agency that from 2000 to 2004, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion grew by 1.7 percent, while in the European Union such emissions grew by 5 percent."

Here is an analogy: Gas prices in Lapland are 10 dollars per gallon. While in Elbonia they are only 6 dollars per gallon. Lapland raises their gas prices by 'only' 1.7%, while in Elbonia they have risen a whopping 5%. Can it truly be said that Lapland has done a better job of controlling their gas prices? No! of course not. What a stupid thing to say!

The White house has decided to totally ignore the fact that were are pumping 40% more CO2 into the air than all of the EU! Keep in mind that the EU has over twice the population and a higher GDP. So each person is doing a better job of controlling their energy consumption and the economy doesn't suffer due to CO2 controls.

The right wing nuts will repeat their mantra over and over again. "The economy will be ruined if we start limiting greenhouse gas emissions". They contend that the the economy is so good (is it really?) only because we allow our corporations energy companies to pollute without regard to the effects of CO2.

If this was the case then we would expect to see that the economies of countries that try to take care of their emissions (like those using a carbon trading scheme, and those who signed up for the Kytoto Protocol) to have worse economies than ours. Well this is clearly simply not the case as we will see.

Here is a table I made (from WTO and IMF data) of various countries GDP. I also found the CO2 emissions by country (for as late as only 2003).

GDP



CO2 Emmisions


RATIO


Clearly those countries that have decided to be responsible for their CO2 emissions have not had a bad impact to their economies, even when you take an economic powerhouse like the EU as a whole.

Turns out someone did this exact exercise on Wikipedia. Similar results. The point is: It is a total farce to claim that capping CO2 emissions will hurt the economy. The data is against that argument.

It is clear that we need to start thinking about getting power of alternative sources. I'm all for solar, waves and wind. But I am also all for nuclear. Best yet, lets start getting biodeisel from algae and refining it with this process.

Here is some further discussion of this that I found entertaining.

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This is what pissed me off:
Bush claiming credit where none is due

But before I get to that, please bear with me. I'll get back to it in the next post.

No blog is complete without it's mention of global warming. I'm not going to bother linking the thousands of sites that discuss global warming. Clearly the Earth is heating. I don't think this is disputed any more.

The dispute is about whether or not people are causing that by dumping CO2 into the atmosphere or if our CO2 dumping is just a drop in the ocean in terms of atmospheric content. There is plenty of data out there to describe this pro and con.

To sum up the 'other side'..here is a nice video. [EDIT: this link is dead now, it seems that The Great Global Warming Video is no longer viewable for free] It nicely summarizes all the aspects of the naysayers. The science is only 38 minutes of the entire video. The rest of it is nonsense about conspiracy theories about funding and a truly offensive implication that GW advocates are causing strife in Africa, which I just have to answer like this: Please show me a single bill from any 1st world nation requiring African Nations to get energy from renewable resources instead of fossil fuels. Secondly, the reason a clinic in the bush has a solar panel is because its incredibly expensive to run a power line out to it. If they don't have enough power with that panel, it is still cheaper to get another panel than to run a power line out to it. The implication in this movie is truly sinister. One more dumb thing in the video. they try to connect Temperature with economy. No climatologist says economy causes GW, its CO2, and there has never been a drop in CO2 production in 150 years.

to summarize the video and the 'other side':

• The earth heats due to the suns cycles (not disputed)
• some say sun cycles are the sole cause of our current heating (very disputed)
  
• The earth cools, when cosmic rays makes clouds and reflects the sun (and the solar input recedes at the same time)
• CO2 is a result of rising Earth temperatures, not a cause
• Satellite data does not support CO2-GHG theories
• Adding a tiny bit extra (not defined) of anthropomorphic CO2 to the natural sources is not significant. Natural sources being the ocean, permafrost, volcanoes and cow farts.
• Water is the most pervasive green house gas, and compared to that, CO2 is nothing
  

OK, Nay Sayers have I got that right? These are the same points brought up 10-20 years ago and are truly unchanged and tired. They were excellent points back then. However anyone still using these points are sadly and terribly not up to date with their data.

I am on the side that humans cause global warming. Here is why. Lets start with why CO2 has lagged temperature in the past.

1. The earth gets heated by a variety of cosmic events, solar cycles, cosmic rays, cow farts or whatever. These are natural forcing functions and have always been there and will always be there. some are cyclical some are not.
2. For the past 650,000 years (unless you are a bible thumper in which case its for the past 6000 years), the earth has heated due to these forcing functions. This heating releases CO2 from the ocean and other CO2 sinks.
3. CO2 goes into the atmosphere and what can be seen is that the cooling (presumably once the forcing function is over) is far slower than the heating. Every Single Time. (historical temperatures go backward to the right on this graph). It's also why GHG theory allows for the earth to cool when solar input diminishes, it just doesn't cool as fast or as much as it would have without the CO2

So... the question is: where is the lag now? It is critical to note that there is no lag between CO2 levels and earths average temperature any more. If fact, for the first time in the history of the human species, CO2 is now leading temperature rise.

Second question: If CO2 does not effect the temperature, why does the earth cool slower when the CO2 concentration is higher after the forcing function is gone?

Third question: if CO2 is leaving the oceans like it always has, why is the CO2 content in the oceans increasing even though the temperature of the Earth is rising? (if CO2 leaves the ocean when the temp rises the Ph should rise too)

Fourth question: why don't you know that the previous satellite data was wrong and the newest data actually shows that the CO2-GW theory is actually supported by satellite data (because the troposphere is actually heating, while the stratosphere is cooling)?

Fifth Question: For as long as we have been measuring cosmic rays, why has there been no correlation between them and earths temperature?

Sixth Question: if sun cycles are causing our current heating why is there no correlation between the sun cycles and the earth temperature and why is the earth heating when the solar input is currently decreasing?

Last question: If human activity adds so little CO2 to the natural sources (actually the amount is an extra 5%), why are the current CO2 levels higher than at any time in history even though the earths temperature is not as high as it has ever been?

Further, and to me the most important. At no time in the history of earth has the temperature risen as quickly as it has in the last few decades. It is not really scary that the average temperature of the globe is hotter than it has been since we have been recording temperature. The earth has been this hot lots of times. The scary part is that it has never risen this fast. So in all the cycles, cosmic rays, sun spots and whatever other theories that right wingnuts want to put out there, there is no getting around the fact that this rate of temperature rise has never been seen before.

And finally, you cant expect to dump 14 000 000 000 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere every single year and not expect some sort of negative response.

Of course the GHG theory explains all the data that is inconsistent with the movie.

One more quick note on water. Yes it is true it is a green house gas. however the atmosphere is 99.99% saturated naturally with it. Human beings literally can not add to this amount of water in the atmosphere even if we burned all the fossil fuel on the planet. However, we easily can add to the CO2 in the atmosphere (and we have). Further, this saturation has always been there, it doesn't explain atmospheric temperature shifts. However, not all greenhouse gases are the same. CO2 absorbs light at a different wavelength than water does. So by changing the amount of CO2 in the air, we are actually absorbing a different set of wavelengths than water alone. Its important because its the same set of wavelengths that radiate off the earth when the light hits it an heats.

These things lead me to believe that CO2 is causing the current temperature rise. Think of this: If I put a wire in a box filled with something thermally conductive, lets say water, the heating elements will rise to some temperature X, perhaps a few degrees. but if I change the media around the wire to something far more insulating like air, the wire will heat to potentially thousands of degrees! The element in a 20 watt bulb is thousands of degrees not because 20 watts is a lot, but because the vacuum it is in is a great insulator.

We have added 37% more CO2 insulation to our atmosphere in the last 150 years. This is not disputable. There does not need to be a change in the heat input to make the global temperature rise. Any changes in the heat inputs (say a solar cycles) will be exaggerated (in the hotter direction) due to the increased insulation.

There is tons more data out there about how CO2 and other GHGs are warming the earth. Most of the nay sayers arguments have been put to rest (cosmic rays causing clouding, solar activity, troposphere temperatures, etc etc). Don't bother posting these tired 'alternate theories' in the comments (if anyone reads this at all).

Here is a nice little remark on the outdated information in the video. Its sad that the naysayers have to keep their data restricted to before 1980, in order for it to be cohesive. Here is another point by point argument against the movie. And here is another nice rebuttal.

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I like to get through the hype of companies. I spent most of my time with fuel cell companies recently. You can see what I have for data concerning the Medis junk. Mechanical Technology (MTI microfuel cells) has also made news about focusing on a low power system. At some point in the future I will go about showing how a fuel cell in a portable device is a dumb idea. Im not alone. not alone here either.

Creating a model that shows this is a big task and it may take me a while to do it. Until then, I'm hoping for some suggestions on some companies to analyze. For example, my attention was recently pointed at some ridiculous claims made by Eagle Coatings (in particular the last page has a truly misleading diagram). So I will do an entry on that. So please, if you would like a quick analysis on some hype that a company puts out, please forward it to me in the comments section.

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I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about why the Medis power pack will be a non starter. It isnt becuase of the technology. Its because of the market.

When looking at a new company to invest in, it is important to look at the technology (or the viability of the product if it doesnt require new technology), the market, and the managment.

We previously looked at the technology (see prior post) and found that it is not better than the incumbent alkaline battery technology. It is difficult to know about the managment of anycompany if you do not know the people personally (unless they have a history with other public companies). In this case, we are talking about a company that has been trying to introduce new technologies for 15 years, unsuccessfully.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. There are TONS of R&D companies around that go from technology to technology without focusing on any in particular. Medis however has now spent tens of millions of dollars developing their power pack and claims it will be on the markets in the beginning of 2007. So how will it do? Lets Look.

I found a number of charger products on the market today. I also can compare then to the 6xAAPP I made in the previous post. These products are:

the 6xAAPP (not a product, i made it)
The Medis Power Pack
CellBoost
Clipper Gear
TurboCharge
Instant Power
Mfuel
Zap Power

There are three main groups here. Emergency chargers that provide very little talk time, these are the Turbocharge and the Cellboost. Then there are the energy camels that last a long time like the Mfuel and the Zap device. These provide long discharge times and can be recharged. Then there are the products in between. Im not sure what market they are targeting, as we will see.

Im sure there are other devices on the market. This is what I was able to find. To be clear: I have not tested ANY of these expect the one i made. All my data following is based on the manufacturers claims. So there is a large source of error here, for example the turbo charge says it can provide 2 hours of talk time from a single AA battery. Seems pretty incredible. Someone on the Medis message board claimed that a turbo charge was tested and only provided 22 minutes of talk time (for me its hearsay). However these two sites claim pretty good performance from a cellboost and a Clipper device. So take my data here with however many grains of salt you give to a manufacturer.

Here is the raw data (click to make larger)







Using this data I extrapolated cost vs run time. For example, the 6xAAPP cost for the first run would be about 10 bucks including batteries. But the second run would only cost $3.60 more becuase only the batteries would have to be changed. Conversely, a Cellboost only costs 6 dollars to start, but another 6 dollars for the next one.

I did my best to get the right data here. I had to infer some of it based on lithium ion data from say ultralife to extract energy density data and apply to the big devices. So until I see some real test data, this is what we have to go with.

So here we go:














The X-axis is total run time in hours. I went to 10,000 hours becuase the Zap and Mfuel can be recharged 500 times which leads to about 10-20K hours of use.


Its pretty clear that if you plan on using external chargers for many hours the CellBoost is not an economical choice. It really is best if you are in an emergency, and only very rarely. The high rechargables are only economical if you plan on using them for their whole life. Its the plethora of other devices that are interesting.

While the 6xAAPP scores the best over time for the middle range, this product doesnt actually exist. The closest the the Clipper which only uses 4 AAA batteries, so its initial energy is smaller and requires a new set of batteries faster.

The initial price of the turbo charge makes it not a good choice unless you use it often.

The two interesting things that really make me beleive that Medis has it all wrong is:

1) There is no point on this chart where the medis pack is the compelling choice

and

2) The manufacturer of instant-power device (which truly scores best here), has stopped making these becuase the market couldnt support it. This company was Electric Fuel. It appears that someone still sells these devices though, but i dont know if they are still being manufactured.

It appears that in order for medis to have a compelling product they will have to bring down the initial cost of their device and make it refillable, with the refill charges costing less than 3 dollars.

I expect that CellBoost and Turbocharge will still outsell the medis device (and even the 6xAAPP device if it were real) because they are so small and convenient to use. They are light weight and install directly to the phone.

Well thats my rant for the day. I'll be happy to answer any questions or comments about this data.

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