"Green Cell" Standardized Battery Idea Almost Practical

The "Green Cell" proposal by the design clique "Rich, Brilliant, and Willing" is almost a great idea, and fortunately its main sin is an easily remedied one of omission. Their concept is a a vending machine full of rechargeable batteries of uniform size. All gadgets would use this single battery profile, making it possible to toss an old, worn out battery into the hopper for recycling while easily picking up replacements on the go.

The glaring flaw, of course, is that for their Green Cell idea to work, all gadget manufacturers would have to adopt a standardized rechargeable battery size. It'll never happen, not just for the typical reasons attempts to align corporate manufacturers of disparate interests into a monolithic platform rarely work, but because we as gadgets owners don't actually want one large battery to become a default size.

The designers of the iPhone and Macbook Air, for example, gain a lot of leeway in flattening device chassis by not having to account for a removable battery. Leaving aside whether all products even need a replaceable battery, one relatively large battery like the Green Cell really limits the shape and sizes of future gear.

So let's take it a step out if possible and crib from the disposable batteries of yore, offering a few standard battery sizes. One of the Green Cell concepts show two cells placed in sequence to power a laptop. By offering a few smaller sizes, gadget manufacturers might be afforded sufficient flexibility to create the thinner and smaller devices we all crave while still realizing the convenience offered by the Green Cell vending machines.

Even through it's likely that batteries will shrink some as they increase efficiency over the next few years, there will be a realistic minimum size for a while. That smallest size can be the most tiny modular cell offered.

In short, we just need a new set of standard battery sizes that are flat and rectangular, not cylindrical.

Or we could just not worry about it until supercapacitors prove themselves as a viable power storage system.

GREEN CELL Universal Battery Sold in Vending Machines [Inhabitat]

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