EEStor announced a patent grant last week. Lots of folks have commented on it but it has the potential to be a significant change. An ultracapacitor that can hold the equivalent Kwh (52) as the Tesla battery pack weighing only 286lbs versus 992lbs for the Tesla. The other two dramatic changes are that the ultracapacitor looks to have a nearly unlimited duty life and more importantly can charge in less than 10 minutes.

Cost is still going to be an interesting question but it should scale down over scale and time, plus unlimited duty life may mean you can move it car to car. The interesting thing is that its relatively easy to build out the home side of the charging kit that uses an ultracapacitor sitting in the garage to quickly charge the car while the stationary one can recharge more slowly on a high voltage line. That system can also be scaled into the gas station infrastructure as well.

Now they only have to make it through the 1000's of other hurdles that can doom a new technology to failure.

Thank you for your insight. I have been reading the EEStor patent for over a year as it was available

What you said about the "1000's" of obstacles is true. Here are several of them:

1. IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE:
a. It is easy to say we could put in a 3500 volt charging system in our homes, but what happens to the local grid when everyone comes home at 6 PM and plugs in? Yes, you could charge up the charger during lower peak hours, but you are still adversely impacting the available power.
b. I would guess that less than 30% of the world's 800 million vehicles are parked in a private garage. Would we have chargers in all apartment complex parking stalls? Or would we have to run electrical chords across the sidewalks where street parking is prevalent?
c. Some of the bloggers on EEStor have said this impact could easily be overcome. This may be true in already developed countries, but what about in developing countries where the electrical infrastructure is already years behind present and near future needs.
1. RELIABILITY
a. The EEStor technology uses solid state ceramic technology rather that liquid electrolytes as are used on today’s EDL capacitors. When you bond dissimilar materials with different temperature coefficients, they will bend under heat (bi-metal strips in thermostats). How much heat will be generated with a 5 minute charge at 3500 volts? What happens if you suddenly drive it out into 20 below weather?
Ceramic materials will crack under adverse temperature conditions. Could this be the reason EEStor has delayed delivery to ZENN?
Will a Battery/”Ultracap” with 31,000, 100 Microfarad capacitors, using 3500 volts generate Radio Frequency Interference.?
The information they published last year, comparing the EESU to Lead-Acid and LI-Ion batteries is misleading. LI-Ion technology continues to improve as is lead-acid. Placing a true ultracapacitor in parallel with one of these doe’s two things: It reduces the size by approximately one-half, as the battery would not have to be designed to handle peak loads. The second thing it does is to dramatically increase the life of the battery since it does not have to charge up as often.
It would be more practical, for now, to use the Chevy Volt concept with the following features:
a. An improved lead acid or Li-Ion battery
b. A light weight ultracapacitor which delivers effective capacitance of 70-100 Farads per gram. (200-200 Specific\) The present UC technology delivers only about 5 Farads per gram in the delivered package.).
c. A small, gasoline driven charging motor.
d. A regenerative charging system.
e. In the future, the system could have a solar charging option.
This system could work right now as there is some new, low cost electrode technology available, today.

At least to your point 1, there is a relatively tractable solution and that is to use EEstor capacitors in the home as well. If 220 service keeps a bank of capacitors in the garage charged/charging then the spikes are well held off the grid. Add even some simple computing/wifi capabilities to the home side and you now have a system in each home that replaces the need for reliable electrical service to the home - which also addresses your developing market concerns.

Plus, developing markets have rarely if ever driven the adoption of new technology. The rich get new technology first and drive its commercialization down to commodity cost.

On the temperature front, can't that be overcome by simply climate controlling the capacitor? You can basically assume you have power and DC heat pumps are showing commercial success.

-Gene

Gene, thank you for your prompt response. I am happy see that you are not so set in your opinions and are willing to have honest discourse on this subject.

Yes, you could use EEStor in an in-home power optimizer, but it would be much more expensive than a small UC/battery combo, driven by renewable energy.(do-able now) You would be hard pressed to have a solar system that would drive a 3500 volt charger.

Concerning the heat subject: If you need an air conditioner to run it, you have now increased the cost and the amount of power to operate the system. Am I wrong?

If we are to reduce our overall carbon footprint we need to address it on a Global basis.outside our Euro/North American box.

I feel that the EESU may have it's place in special applications, but not for vehicles in the next 7-10 years. There are too many things we can do now without waiting to see if EESU is scalable or reliable.

Thank you again for continuing this converation.

Expense isn't the first thing I'm worried about. I'm worried about solving the battery problem so that more sources are economically viable. If projected MTF's are correct (which are very long) then we can turn an expense for energy into long term capex. That's a really good idea. Imagine if the daily ISO chart looked like a flat line - how much less peak capacity would we need?

I don't think you're thinking about the climate control of an ultracapacitor. You were talking about problems when you use the thing in external temperature extremes. Well, I can tell you that I don't want the interior of my car to be outside of the range of about 60 to 90 F. Using that same capability to make sure that capacitors don't have to deal with extremes seems like a quite elegant solution - especially on the cold temp side. Alaskans are used to having to use more energy to keep their car working. Engine block heaters are quite common in places where temperatures remain below freezing.

Finally, I'm not at all worried about carbon footprint initially. Before we an at all seriously address CO2, we have to address the battery problem. That's what is exciting about eestor. Large scale ultracapacitors and nuclear power can go a long way and an ultracapacitor opens a lot of renewables that are silly otherwise.

And honestly - no there really aren't a lot of great techonologies out there for automobiles. The only scalable thing we have might be plug in diesel electric hybrids, but it is yet to be seen if lithium ions can actually scale. Teslas may or may not be able to make 200 miles and we don't know how expensive in even cell failure alone a 5 year lifetime will be on a capex basis.

Outside of the G8 all you can do is keep people poor and dieing prematurely. That's not the type of carbon footprint I'm willing to sign up for.

Solve the battery problem and allow non proliferation nuclear power to be deployed in the rest of the world and you might make a difference - if the local strong man doesn't just take the power.

Gene, sorry to be so late getting back wiht comments. What are your feelings about the thermal flexing of a solid state electrolyte using ceramics? Don't you think the materials, having different thermal coefficients would flex the ceramics and crack them over time? You are looking at 3500 volts and charging in 5 minutes.

Regards,

Jack Mastbrook

Gene, sorry to be so late getting back wiht comments. What are your feelings about the thermal flexing of a solid state electrolyte using ceramics? Don't you think the materials, having different thermal coefficients would flex the ceramics and crack them over time? You are looking at 3500 volts and charging in 5 minutes.

Regards,

Jack Mastbrook

Hello. And Bye.