A Little More About EEStor

On Nov. 5, the Austin-American Statesman had an article about EEStor Inc. and its potentially disruptive energy storage technology (previous post).  Not anything new about the technology, but quite a bit of background information on founders Richard Weir and Carl Nelson. The following are the most interesting excerpts from the article:

The company has come up with a new method for making ultracapacitors, battery-like devices that can store large amounts of electricity. EEStor's energy storage unit can hold enough charge to power a car 300 miles, according to its patent, and it can be recharged in the time it takes to pump a tank of gas. And it can do that at only a small, if any, premium to the cost of a gas-powered engine.

In his May 2004 report, Ed Beardsworth said the company expected to eventually produce its energy storage devices for as little as $2,100 — roughly half the cost of a standard gas engine and power train. Beardsworth used to publish a report called Utility Federal Technology Opportunities.

"That's why the technology that EEStor is developing really breaks the mold," said Ian Clifford, CEO of Feel Good Cars Corp., a Canadian electric-vehicle company that has signed a deal to put EEStor units in its cars. "It's low weight, low cost and it has the rapid recharge technology that suddenly makes electric vehicles viable."

EEStor is building a production line in Cedar Park.  Feel Good Cars had expected to receive some of the energy storage units by now. "There have been slight delays, completely acceptable delays from our perspective," said Clifford. "For this, we're happy to wait."

Thanks to Tyler at Clean Break for the tip.

Comments

[Tim]

The storage device costs half of what the power train costs. Don't forget moters and electronics that charge and discharge the 3,000 volt capacitor.

[david foster]

Strictly from a marketing standpoint: wouldn't this technology be better introduced to the automotive world via a high-performance vehicle along the lines of the Tesla instead of a "feelgood" car?

[Charles S]

For $2000, I'd ask why only apply this initially for automotive applications? Why not also market it as home energy storage solutions?

[Mike]

There was a key sentence in the newspaper article that doesn't seem to have gotten much comment. It seems that eeStor doesn't use nano enhanced plates. It's tech is based solely on the dielectric material. This is the right decision (assuming you have the dielectric), but with available tech the effective plate area can be expanded by 10x to 20x. This yields 5x-10x more power storage. Thus, if the current product gives you 58 KWH, we now have 290 KWH to 570 KWH. Pretty stunning.

Mike

[Stephen]

Good point Mike. I was thinking the same thing as I read the article.

Reminds me of two lead acid companies mentioned on this blog that have complementary technology -- they should get together.

Stephen

[George]

I'm worried about something that will not Feel Good. What happens when a fully charged EEStor Cap develops an internal short, say due to a crash? Is this when your FeelGoodMobile is reduced to a bubbling pool of liquid aluminum, polymer degradation products and vaporized early adopters?

[marcus]

You have to keep wondering whether this is for real.....

[Dinesh]

Hi Charles S:

Could you please explain what you mean

"It's tech is based solely on the dielectric material. This is the right decision (assuming you have the dielectric), but with available tech the effective plate area can be expanded by 10x to 20x. This yields 5x-10x more power storage. Thus, if the current product gives you 58 KWH, we now have 290 KWH to 570 KWH. Pretty stunning."?

Thank-you!

Dinesh

[Andreas]

EEStor supercapacitors only exist on the paper, unfortunately it won't work in reality. They are based on barium titanate, which has been used for decades in capacitors due to its high dielectric constant. However, this drops drastically in a high voltage electric field, such as the 3200 volts over 13 micron claimed in the patent.
This has already been pointed out by John on October 17:
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/01/eestor_ultracap.html#comment-24008179
It's too nice to be true!

[Alexander Bell, NYC]

As FYI: one of the first practical implementations of the portable audio electronics powered by Ultracapcitors (or Supercapacitors) instead of Batteries was introduced 10 years ago in the article titled:
Single capacitor powers audio mixer (Alexander Bell, USA, EDN, March 14, 1997, http://www.edn.com/archives/1997/031497/06di_04.htm). Hi-quality audio mixer powered exclusively by Ultracap, was capable of running for 2 hours on a single charge, while the charging time was as low as 10 seconds; the solution was recognized as the “Best Design Idea” by EDN Magazine.

Since that the author was actively promoting the idea of Capacitor-based Power systems, mostly for the portable devices (see the link to so-called “Green Electricity (GEL) Initiative”, now topping Google™ search engine): http://www.alexanderbell.us/Project/GreenElectricity.htm
http://www.alexanderbell.us/Initiative/GEL.htm

Another practical examples of using Ultracaps as intermediate portable energy storage in conjunction with muscle-powered generator is described in the article: Muscle power drives battery-free electronics (Alexander Bell, EDN, 11/21/2005. http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6283833
).

[Term Papers]

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[vigilon security]

Don't let newspapers or mail pile up as this is a dead giveaway that no one is home. One home security measure will not be enough to deter a determined intruder. Many burglars and other offenders do not randomly choose their victims.

[one for all]

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