EEStor's battery reality?

[Rob Beckers]

There were a few new announcements recently related to EEStor's super-capacitor 'battery' technology. This is a company I've been following for some time. Their idea is intriguing: Use a very large capacitor to store electrical energy. This has the potential of making a battery that is far superior to the chemical batteries we use now. The big problem in their approach is to make the capacitor store a meaningful amount of energy in a small package. The experts are not sure EEStor's idea of using a special material for the capacitor's dielectric that can handle the enormous electrical field strength needed to make such a supercap is feasible.

Here is an article that sums up what their battery is all about (http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/01/eestor_ultracap.html). It is much more specific than the information the company has released so far. In short, they claim a battery that can store 52 kWh in just 400 pounds for $2K - $3K. A million 100% cycles (compare that to lead-acid which does about 2000 cycles for good deep-cycle batteries @ 50% discharge).

The latest news is that Lockheed-Martin has signed an agreement with EEStor (http://www.gm-volt.com/2008/01/10/lockheed-martin-signs-agreement-with-eestor/). They are a very serious company, and if they believe in EEStor that would add some weight to their claims.

I'm rooting for EEStor. This really is the type of technology that can revolutionize many areas of today's life: Fully electrical cars would be much more feasible. Storage of RE for either off-grid or grid-tie use (feed back solar power to the grid at night). The list goes on...

-RoB-

[Mark Parsons]

Hi Rob,

I too, have been following EESTOR for some time. Certainly adds lots of credence to see Lockheed Martin sign a deal with them.

I have seen production start estimates change from early 2007 to the current late 2008. Hopefully, they can meet the 2008 schedule and some 'hardware', not the current 'vapourware' can be put through some independent testing.

52kWh in 400 pounds would give us very useful electric cars. I would think that one of the key constraints to adopting a full fleet of electric cars would be our electrical power generation and distribution infrastructure to power a provincial fleet of electric cars. This Ontario stat shows over 8.2 million licensed drivers in Ontario in 2001. http://ogov.newswire.ca/ontario/GPOE/2003/02/24/c3502.html?lmatch=&lang=_e.html At an average driver distance of only 15,000 kilometers per year, that is 1.3 x 10^11 vehicle kilometers per year in Ontario. The Tesla Roadster claims 133 Wh per kilometer, battery to wheel efficiency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster At this efficiency, we would fill up with about 1.6 x 10^10 kWh per year. In 2005, Ontario consumed a total of about 155 x 10^9 kWh of electrical energy - http://www.theimo.com/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/MarketYearReview_2005.pdf

Please correct my numbers if they are in error, but looks like we would need at least a magnitude (x10) more electrical energy to make this jump.

Regards,
mark

[Ralph Day]

Hey Mark
You've just shown us why we need fusion reactors soon! Once every community has it's little "sun", we can all drive/heat/cook/cool like we were supposed to in the 70's (remember fission nuclear power was supposed to be so cheap it wouldn't even be metered!).:D

ralph