Air Travelling with batteries

As I noted below, there is a bunch of talk on the blogs about the new rules for airline travel with lithium batteries. Here are the bullet rules from the Safetravel.gov website :

• Spare batteries are the batteries you carry separately from the devices they power. When batteries are installed in a device, they are not considered spare batteries.
• You may not pack a spare lithium battery in your checked baggage
• You may bring spare lithium batteries with you in carry-on baggage – see our spare battery tips and how-to sections to find out how to pack spare batteries safely!
• Even though we recommend carrying your devices with you in carry-on baggage as well, if you must bring one in checked baggage, you may check it with the batteries installed.

Basically, the rules are for big batteries that go on video cameras and laptops. Our hand held digital camera batteries are ok. If you are going to carry lithium batteries in your carry on, put them in the case you got when you bought the batteries, in zip lock bags (one battery per zip lock), or put some electrical tape over the contacts. The point of that is that you don't want the batteries to short out, and possibly catch fire.