Made By Monkeys

EDN Editor Margery Conner juxtaposes two recent quotes relating to the amount of energy stored in a laptop battery pack that couldn't be more diametrically opposed in her PowerSource Blog post Hand grenade or coffee thermos: Two very different models of a laptop battery.

First from a NY Times article about solar thermal energy generation:

"A coffee thermos and a laptop computer's battery store about the same amount of energy"

Second from an IEEE Spectrum article

"...the energy density of lithium-ion batteries used for laptop computers, at 40 watt-hours per kilogram, was already getting uncomfortably close to that of your basic hand grenade."

Both analogies have their flaws, of course, as EDN readers gleefully pointed out in their response to Conner's provocative post.