Sweet Sugary Battery Goodness

This is pretty cool news.

Using sugar for fuel is not a new concept: Sugar in the form of glucose supplies the energy needs of all living things. While nature has figured out how to harness this energy efficiently, scientists only recently have learned how to unleash the energy-dense power of sugar to produce electricity, Minteer says.

A few other researchers also have developed fuel cell batteries that run on sugar, but Minteer claims that her version is the longest-lasting and most powerful of its type to date. As proof of concept, she has used a small prototype of the battery (about the size of a postage stamp) to successfully run a handheld calculator. If the battery continues to show promise during further testing and refinement, it could be ready for commercialization in three to five years, she estimates.

It's not inconceivable that five years from now - all portable electronic devices (cell phones, MP3 players, etc) would use sugar powered batteries. In the sixties - plastics were the growth industry but I think chemistry may give nanotechnology a run for its money the next ten years.