EEStory, new chapter but no prototype II

Talk about recycling titles.

Head EEStor honcho, Dick Wier reappeared in one of his telephone interviews last week, The Interview got recorded, and was posted on the Internet for a while. Transcripts of the interview exist. Tyler Hamilton did a story on it. Tyler's story includes a transcript. Will, one of Tyler's readers commented:

Honestly, this interview drops my confidence…significantly. The basic errors in science that he makes are jaw dropping. Na and K as contaminants for voltage breakdown because of how they work in a solution? Alumina as the highest resistivity material in the world? 1100 V/um for alumina – by it self, sure. Not for 3500V across the 0.3um of the coated material. “The most thing you hear about…these bloggers…is voltage. I just showed you where…you know…it sounds like they don’t read. So the purity and the fact that I have test data (that) showed it…and also the polarization. So I think that overcomes it.” Well, Mr. Weir, no, no it doesn’t. Not even close. On THEEESTORY, an interview with one Dr. Cross has a quote that their claims are “outrageous”. Of course, he also claims that they are scientists, so I’m not sure how much faith I have in Dr. Cross, either.

For me the bottom line on the EEStory has always been no prototype has been released to ZENN Moters for truly independent evaluation. Dick Wier tells us that there can be no prototype will be released until the production line is finished. This is hard to accept. Again we get from Weir words and promises, but no prototypes. I am still waiting for the prototype.

End of story to date.

Update: discussion on EEStory noted that a test of an EESU would not be required to establish EEStor credibility. The test of a single 0.4" square by 0.2" component would do the job nicely. So far EEStor has not offered a component for independent testing.

Fear and Loathing of Science in the EEStory

If the readers checks out the posts that are tagged by EEStor, he or she will note that over and over I call attention to what I call red flags. These are elements of the EEStory that should give any rational person pause. Given the power of the scientific objections raised by Andrew Burke, and John Miller, and the fact that EEStor does not seem to have guilt a successful "proof of concept" prototype, the weight of evidence seems to be strongly against the expectation that the EEStor technology will be successful. Some past statements of product delivery expectations by EEStor, have been followed by a failure to deliver a product within the stated time frame. Finally, EEStor CEO has stated that, in effect, the EEStor prototype, a "proof of concept" prototype, will also be the mature product which will require no further research and development to mass produce. Yet the EESU is extremely complex. In effect, it is 30,000 capacitors wired together. There is no evidence that the individual capacitors have been tested. We are told by Richard Weir that virtually no product development would be required and thus production will commence as soon as the prototype is finished. Give me a bottle of what ever Weir is drinking!

Perhaps what is most amazing about this story is the amount of coverage the EEStory is now getting in the media. EEStor was by reputation a secretive Austin business, but they have in fact managed to garner a great deal of attention. Richard Weir has been talking up a storm, with late night telephone conversations with bloggers, and interviews with Toronto Journalist Tyler Hamilton. Even my blog has attracted the attention of "Carl", who claims to be privy to Weir's future announcement. There is a Carl associated with EEStor. It is EEStor co-founder, Carl Nelson, Of course my visitor could be a ringer.

A subtext in all of this is the amount of contempt for science and common sense that a group of EEStor "true believers" evince and the extent to which the media stories to date have downplayed the skepticism of science.

One does not have to be versed in science to understand that elements of the EEStory are deeply flawed. The recent purity certification of materials used for electrical storage in EEStor technology, strongly suggests that EEStor lacked the materials to build prototype units up till now, given their own statement of how those prototypes were to be built. We can classify past statements about EEStor prototypes as vaporware. No further proof is required than EEStor's failure to deliver a prototype to ZENN Motors last year, despite an agreement between EEstor and ZENN.

Finally we have the issue of Richard Weir's belief that what will essentially be a proof of concept prototype will also be the first off of a commercial product.

Thus the EEStory does not hang together either as science or from the perspective of common sense. Journalists and bloggers should function as gatekeepers in our society, ferreting out bad information while letting the good through. Unfortunately even when attempting to achieve balance in a story, they may place to much weight on misinformation or disinformation, while giving far too little focus to logical flaws, and the weight of fact and scientific evidence.

An EEStory comment on the John Miller interview. "zawy" compared EEStor to "Cold fusion . . . You finally get a top-notch person who's been there 3 times and you still want to BELIEVE. Who do you guys think you are? Have you had any credible person tell you it works? What do you know about Richard Weir that didn't come from EEstor or Zenn."

"Nekote" responded, "zawy, Guess we better hope something like EEStor will happen . . ."

"Satya51" stated, "I look at all the work that went into the wet chemistry to produce the ultra high purity alumina coated CMBT and Weir is dismissed as clueless (doesn't he know that much energy can't be stored in CMBT?) and fraudulent (measurements in a patent signed by R. Weir). Quite a non sequitur. And does anybody think that Mort Topfer would waste his time on anything? It is all so confusing."

Finally "Daniel R Plante" noted, "A lot of people involved in the game, with a great deal riding on the outcome. Money, power, ego, emotional investments in a dream."

In any story in which "money, power, ego, emotional investments in a dream" are involved, science and clear thinking are likely to get shoved asside. The fundamental problem with public information in the 21st century then is the laziness of the gatekeepers, who believe they do their duty by "balancing" a story, or even worse simply structure the story with their own personal prejudice.

Thus science and common sense are discounted, and when the scientific evidence is brought into the conversation, it is quickly dismissed. "True believers", are ever ready to discount the findings of science and of scientists. "The Sovietologist" has pointed out an extremely obvious example the substitution of hostility to science for critical reasoning in a recent comment found on Joseph Romm's blog, Climate Progress:

"Joseph, Good post until you got to the nukes v. coal issue. While I assume you oppose both coal and nuclear power, Oak Ridge is not a credible source for this information, as it is heavily invested in nukes, though probably more as weapons than as energy. Just as you would not use a "study" by the KKK to determine whether racism was worse in the U.S. or Africa, it's equally illegitimate to use the study you cited for the purpose you did."

Romm did not rebuke or censor the poster as he does commenters who disagree with him. 'Wolverine" the commenter did not provide any evidence that Oak Ridge scientist had in fact made mistakes in their assessment of coal safety. The commenter simply assumes that Oak Ridge scientists are so are so "invested in nukes", as to not be "a credible source for this information". The report in question was published in "Science" the premier scientific journal for the United States. The Oak Ridge Scientists involved were part of the ORNL Environmental Studies Division, and were part of ORNL's pioneering studies of the carbon economy.

Thus skepticism about science is an increasing dodge from facing reality in our society. Beyond that skepticism, the EEStory brings skepticism about commonsense into play. It would appear then that the EEStory exists as a flight from reason.

John Miller Drops another Shoe at EEStory

EEStory actually practices good journalism. The latest example is its interview with John Miller. Miller writes on capacitor technology for Best, a trade publication for the battery-electrical storage industry. Miller is associated with JME, Inc., whose business activities include "Electrochemical Capacitor (DLC) Consulting & Contract Research & Development, Testing". Thus Miller, like Andrew Burke has some real expertes on capacitors. Miller stated that he evaluated the EEStor technology twice for United States Government Agencies. He visitede EEStor on both occasions and states that EEStor CEO Richard Weir is:
"He's a very nice fellow. He seems to want to answer questions to the best of his ability....he's not strongly technical, he talks big words but he doesn't understand the science of what he's talking about really."

Miller raised a number of fundamental issues about EEStir technology. Miller asserted that EEStor was attempting to violate no less than three laws of nature:

1. When you make something that you want to work, if its made
up of lots of constituent parts , its usually lower reliability. And
if you read the patent they have there, he's talking about putting
together 10s of thousands of parallel connected capacitors. And any
one of them fails, means the system fails. And they will fail,
Capacitors fail by dielectric breakdown. They will fail. Now you can
get around that on capacitors that have what's called self clearing
mechanisms. But Barium Titanate does not have self clearing
mechanisms. So once you have a breakdown, it's a short. So
calculations that I did..... well I also was also hired by EPRI. The
Electric Power Research Institute to write a position paper on this
and I did. Apparently they were getting a lot of questions from
their customers..utility customers...is there anything there? [with eestor] The
reliability is just not practical when you don't have self clearing.

2. [H]e's operating at the breakdown strength and you
never do that with a capacitor because you always have avalanche
breakdown. The rule of thumb is you drop it down an order of magnitude
in voltage and your energy goes as the voltage squared so that's 100
times lower.

3. [T]he third problem with this is [the] thermal management issues. He's
talking about charging this thing in his patent and all his
publications ...charging it very quickly. Even if it's 99.9%
efficient, the energy that 10th of a percent energy lost during that
process over the 5 minutes he's talking about would cause the whole
thing to melt down. It's too compact. It's incredible, it's twice the
energy density of lithium ion batteries, the highest energy density
battery. You just can't put that heat in there and expect the thing to
survive. [laughing] It's ceramic material, the temperature would rise
so great it would melt down. The metalization what he's talking
about, low temperature metalization....that would all melt.

Miller continued his evaluation of Weir by saying:

He can be very sincere and believe what he's doing is what should be
done. But has it been reviewed by other people? No, I don't think so.
Does he have the combined intelligence like the people at Penn St
that have been spending many many careers on dielectric studies.
That's why I'm saying, what's all the hub bub and all the big noise?

Miller makes his statements claims with the implied authority of the leading experts in the field of capacitor technology, the Center for Dielectric Studies at Penn State. The Center for Dielectric Studies is multi-university Cooperative Research Center backed by the National Science Foundation. I would expect good science from them. Thus of all of the critiques of Weir's so called invention so far, Miller's is the most far reaching. Miller comes right out and says, Richard Weir does not know what he is talking about. He does not understand the fundamental scientific problems with what he seeks to invent. His concepts do not pass peer review. He has committed multiple errors in his fundamental science, and does not understand the science well enough to understand his mistakes.

Both John Miller Miller and Burke have reputations as capacitor technology experts. Both have a good grasp of fundamental electrical science as applied to capacitor technology. Men like these do not make statements about capacitor technology which they believe are inconsistent with good science. To do so, would damage their professional reputations.

Prudence would suggest, at the very least, that the EEStor venture is a very risky one, and that the speculate investor should carefully weigh the odds that the scientists are wrong, before he takes the plunge.

Renewables Electrical Storage with EESUs?

Energy Journalist Tyler Hamilton has something of an EEStory scoop today in the MIT Technology Review. Tyler is the mainstream, how be it, Canadian, Journalist who owns the EEStory.  Most of Hamilton's article report information I have reported on Nuclear Green. The Hamilton article also indicates the potential of a successful EEStor technology, to provide energy storage for renewables. Hamilton reports, on the basis of an interview with Weir, that "the company is also in serious talks with potential partners in the solar and wind industry, where EEStor's technology can, according to Weir, help put 45 percent more energy into the grid."

Hamilton attributes to Weir the statement that the company is working toward commercial production "as soon as possible in 2009," although when asked, he gave no specific date. "I'm not going to make claims on when we're going to get product out there. That's between me and the customer. I don't want to tell the industry." Reportedly when the EESUs reach mass production they can be produced for around $40 per KWh of storage capacity. This would clearly create a low cost potential for mass storage of energy from renewables, although the cost of the massive renewables installations required to feed the huge banks of industrial scale EESUs might well still be prohibitive. And we still have the issue that there is no proof that a functioning EESU prototype has been built.

I will await pronouncing the EEStory one of the ten top news stories of the 21st century until Dick Weir shows us a third party test of an EESU and we see the ZENN Morors City Car prototype safely zipping around Toronto with an EESU under the hood.  Oh, and the City Car has to be crash tested too, so we can find out if the EESU will electrocute everyone within 100 feet of an accident.

This link should satisfy anyone who wonders if EEStory skepticism has been quieted.

I hear from "an EEStor insider"

I have dubbed the alleged EEStor insiders who have been spilling the beans to bloggers, the Gnomes of Austin. The Gnomes of Austin, the EEStor insiders or people who claim to be insiders are certainly more communicative than in the past. And that communications is basically with bloggers. I found this comment by "Gnome Carl" this morning on one of my earlier EEStor pieces:

Pollution: Moving from individual engines to central electricity generating plants would mean a net decrease in overall pollution. Even getting pollution out of our crowded cities would be a gain for public health.

Charging: There's no need for five minute charging at home. If one needs to get a big quick boost, that can be provided at dedicated charging stations.

Dick Weir, founder and CEO of EEStor, told me a few weeks ago that there would be an announcement soon on permittivity of its barium titanite powder, considered a major benchmark that would trigger future payments to EEStor from ZENN, and I can only assume Kleiner Perkins as well.

My Comment: I am in complete agreement with the first statement, which I feel would be ample justification to switch transportation from fossil fuel power to electricity. Significant human health benefits would flow from the switch.

The second statement reflects the difference between ultra capacitors and batteries. Ultra capacitors can be charged very rapidly from a high current source.

The announcement of third party test attested results on the permittivity of its barium titanite powder would certainly add to the credibility of EEStor.

Finally I note Carl's claimed insider status by stating, "Dick Weir . . . told me a few weeks ago . . ." Not a test of a production EESU mind you. We are still in a world of shadows and whispers, but the whispers are getting louder. One more note, at the bottom of his comment Carl left me a little scoop:
http://eestor.biz/

Update: The EE Story makes the main stream media in Canada. The link (Carl provided) on closer inspection would appear to not be a genuine EEStor web page, so no scoop this time.

EEStory again: Press Release, Still no Prototypes

I have dubbed the EEStor story the EEStory.  EEStor is an Austin company that claims to have developed a revolutionary electrical storage system that could revolutionize transportation.  If true, EEStory could easily be one of the top 10 news stories of the 21st century, but the EEStory could also be a bust.  I continue to see red flags, that give me pause.   But the EEStory continues to rev up.  An EEstor press release speaks of third party verification of certain facts.  The press release should be read very carefully in order to determin what it says are third party verified facts, and what are unverified assertions by EEStor. 

The press release states:
"Edward D. Golla, PhD, Laboratory Director for Texas Research International (acting as an independent agent) has certified that EEStor, Inc. test equipment, procedures, and techniques are capable of providing the EEStor, Inc. required testing accuracy for EEStor's chemicals and powder production processing analyses."

This is a statement that can be verified by a third party.

The press release then reports on test data. The testing was done by EEStor personnel with no reported third party verification.

We have a second report of third party verification in the press release:
"The purification of the EEStor, Inc. chemicals has been certified by the same chemical analysis company as EEStor's press release dated January 17, 2007 and now indicates that EEStor has improved its chemical purity to the parts-per-billion range."

What we lack here is the identity of the hemical analysis company, but the January 17, 2007 press release says it is Southwest Research Institute, Inc. located in San Antonio, Texas. We can say that the failure to mention Southwest Research Institute by name is at least cryptic, if not gnomic.

The rest of the above paragraph states:
"The aluminum oxide particle coating material purification has been certified to be in the parts-per-trillion level. Achieving these levels of purification are additional major factors in allowing EEStor, Inc. the potential to reach its target working voltage. EEStor, Inc. has certification data from outside sources that purified aluminum oxide, in the range that EEStor, Inc. has certified, can have a voltage breakdown of 1,100 volts per micron. The target working voltage of EEStor's chemical processes is at 350 volts per micron. This provides the potential for excellent protection from voltage breakdown."

Here again we find "certification data from outside sources," and "in the range that EEStor, Inc. has certified". This language presents the appearance of involving information from a third party without telling us who that 3rd party is. Thus none of this can be counted as 3rd party verified facts.

The present press report mentions another third party verification:
"It has also been certified by Mr. Ian Treviranus of HORIBA Instruments, Inc. and the LA-950 particle measurement system that EEStor, Inc. has achieved their goal of producing powder particles in the range of 1 micron with a very narrow particle size distribution. EEStor, Inc. has certification data that indicates achieving powder particle of this size and distribution along with the aluminum oxide particle coating assists EEStor, Inc. in meeting the energy storage stabilization over the temperature range of interest for key applications."

Finally the press release speaks of "present products", and "future products", but does not give us a clue about what the products are.

Tyler Hamilton comments, "As for EEStor, I suggest Mr. Weir hire someone with skills in the art of "plain language" to write his future press releases. Ugh..."

Anonymous responded, "In plain language: "There isn't a prototype.""

The latest press release does offer some third party sources who could verify some of EEStor's claims, but leaves many other key claims unverified.

Finally as Anonymous notes, the press release again failed to mention a prototype. Well what then about the prototypes that have been reported in the past, but never demonstrated to the public or evaluated by third parties? Did anyone really say they were working prototypes?  

Update: Well Richard weir said it today: "Prototypes have been built and prototypes have been tested."

Back to the drawing board on that one, but Mr. Weir leaves un in the dark as to why the prototypes tests have not been certified by third parties. Or why we have not had a public demonstration of prototypes. Or what no prototype was not delivered to ZENN Motors last year.

Upeate 8/1/08: johng left a comment on my post "Ian Clifford on ZENN Motors and EEStor":

"Announcing permittivity is another stalling tactic, just as the two previous "certifications" were.

Again, when he announces they have met their permittivity target, it means nothing unless they state it is at 300v/micron.

There is nothing special about a K of 20,000. There are dozens of those formulations being used commercially, but EVERY one will diminish with voltage, and most will break down destructively at around 50 volts/micron.

This has been an interesting lesson in impressing those not familiar with the technnology.

I really hope they can pull it off, but I doubt it."

Renewables and the Madness of Crowds: Part I

I have just passed through a most interesting episode in my personal life. An attractive, well educated, and very accomplished woman, half my age, made a play for me. I kid you not. She actually "put a rush on me." As it turned out, this was strictly a fantasy play, since she had many constraints in her life, that would prevent her from having a relationship with me. But I must confess that it is difficult for me to be objective, when I am being seduced. But I could not avoid the evidence hat things were not working out between us, and her constraints provided an explanation for why that was the case.

The EEStory provides an object lesson in the effect of desire of human credulity on human Judgement. ZENN Motors, in January 2007 indicated that it expected a prototype EESU from EEStor during 2007. The Austin Business Journal in 2007 reported that ZENN had an agreement with to pay EEStor $5 million once an EESU was tested by a third party. That prototype has not yet arrived in Toronto, and unless and until it does EEStor and ZENN are under a cloud of suspicion. The EEStory would be an obscure business story of passing interest in Austin and Toronto, except that a successful outcome could easily be one of the top 10 stories of the 21st century. If the claims EEStor makes about itself are true, then the crisis in transportation caused by Peak Oil and Global Warming will be to a significant extent resolved.

I have been looking at comments on the blog titled, "EESTOR ULTRACAPACITORS: BATTERY REVOLUTION BEGINS WITH ELECTRIC CARS" that something resembling a speculative frenzy has been triggered by the EEStoy. If you wish to see more evidence of that, just look at the comments on my latest observations on the EEStory.

Now speculative frenzies are not new. Everyone who wishes to claim and education should be familiar with Charles Mackay's 19th century classic, "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". Mackey's purpose in writing his famous book was to describe "moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes. . . . Popular delusions began so early, spread so widely, and have lasted so long, that instead of two or three volumes, fifty would scarcely suffice to detail their history".

It is impossible for me to know whether or not the EEStory is true, but there are certainly some warning signs. What concerns me is the willingness of people to overlook those signs, in a a desperate hope that the EEStory is true.

Now we come to the punch line. Is not the current popular adulation of renewables, and the wide spread fear of nuclear power, the EEStory writ large? This renewables speculative frenzy has yaken a hold in the European Commission in which vast plans are currently being plotted. The EC is at least considering a scheme to build 100 GW of Solar facilities in the Sahara Desert of Northern Africa by 2050. Electricity generated "would be fed into a 5,000-mile electricity supergrid, stretching from Siberia to Morocco and Egypt to Iceland," according to a report from Laura Clout of the Telegraph. The scheme would cost €450 Billion without the grid attachment, and the Telegraph report made no mention of electrical storage.

The Guardian reports that the EU renewables directive draft would order, "Member states shall also provide for priority access to the grid system of electricity produced from renewable energy sources". Priority would include priority over nuclear generated power no doubt. According to the Guardian, "Britain wants to change 'shall' to 'may'".

The Guardian further reports that the British rational for the change is: "The use of 'shall' could have substantial implications on network balancing and security of energy supply." It said "thermal sources" of electricity were needed as back-up, and "over time this essential back-up generation might not be available if new renewable generation projects must be given access to the grid". It said the UK wanted the "discretion to prioritise renewable generation".

The Guardian report concludes with a very revealing statement by John Sauven, of Greenpeace,: "We've always said there was a danger that going for nuclear power would squeeze out renewables. The government has been caught red handed undermining clean energy, and all because of Brown's ideological obsession with atomic power."

There is a point to the European argument between "may" and "shall". It is the difference between reason and the madness of crowds.

The EEStory as Told by a Mysterious Blogger

This blog is really in its grandest sweep devoted to what I call the electrification of society. The means of accomplishing that goal, I argue is through the use of Thorium Fuel Cycle Reactors, and by LFTR is by far the superior Thorium cycle reactor design. One end of the energy story is the end of the power line that connects to electrical generators. The other end of the line and hence of the story is the way that electricity gets consumed.

Electrically powered cars, trucks, busses and trains hold the promise of replacing carbon based fuel powered vehicles in the not distant future. We need portable electrical storage for many transportation applications. So far batteries, including lithium-ion batteries have not proven capable of providing enough transportation range and energy storage amenities to throw off the shackles of the internal combustion engine. Hence the hybrid car and the plug in hybrid. The best we get with current battery technology is commuting range plug-ins. We need more range if the promise of electrical vehicle is to be fulfilled.

Enter EEStor, its super duper capacitor, and Richard D. Weir.

EEStor is an Austin technological "start up" headed by one Richard Weir. Before Weir got into the super duper capacitor business he engineered disk drives for IBM. Thus he could be said to posses respectable a business and product engineering background. Weir believes that he has developed a revolutionary capacitor technology.  

Weir had a revolutionary idea about electrical storage and co-founded EEStor in 2001 with a gentleman named Carl Nelson, another disk drive engineer/product manager. Weir and Nelson had previously co-founded disk-storage startup, Tulip Memory Systems. To date Nelson appears as a walk on in the EEStory. At any rate Weir began the circulate the claim that he had developed a revolutionary capacitor technology.

In 2004 when Richard Weir was looking for money, he used an incredibly obscure rout. He contacted an obscure publication called "Utility Federal Technology Opportunities" and gave it his basic sales pitch. The brief account of the EEStory pitched by Weir concluded:
Until now, electrostatic capacitors have not been considered for energy storage applications because of their low energy density characteristics. Capacitors applied to storage are based upon electrochemical and electrolytic capacitor technologies, which possess higher energy densities. EEStor's development proposition changes that premise by eliminating the inherent weaknesses of electrostatic technology for storage applications.

A number of major companies have said they would issue a purchase order quickly if specs are met.

The company is currently seeking equity investment of $3.5 million. A business plan is available.

Weir's pitch attracted the attention of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the crème de la crème of venture capitol firms. It is not clear who walked Weir through the door at Kleiner Perkins, but it good guess is that it would have been an Austin connection who believed in Weir's credibility. Weir got $3 million in working capitol, and an air of credibility. Kleiner Perkin's money paid of the beginning of development of a production line.

EEStor found another capitol source in 2004, an obscure Canadian manufacturer of glorified electrical golf carts, "Feel Good" Motors. Cross my heart and hop to die, I did not make the name up! Feel Good was soon to get a makeover as ZENN Motors, and Feel Good/ZENN owner Ian Clifford revealed himself to be a man of ambitions so vast that it is to big for Canada. Ian is a former professional photographer, who founded the first Canadian electric car manufacturing company because no one else had. If things work out for EEStor, Ian could well being as rich as Bill Gates. That would not be bad for an amateur auto industry executive who doesn't have an MBA, but then Bill Gates never completed college.

Which brings us to last year when the EEStiry began to get troubling. In January 2007, Toronto journalist Tyler Hamilton reported on the EEStory in Technology Review. Hamilton noted, "The implications are enormous and, for many, unbelievable." This word of caution has been reflected in Hamilton's followups on the EEStory, and in comments which Hamilton's followups have attracted.

Hamilton's January 2007 story included an indication that a product would be seen soon:
"The company announced this week that this year it plans to begin shipping such a product to Toronto-based ZENN Motor, a maker of low-speed electric vehicles that has an exclusive license to use the EESU for small- and medium-size electric vehicles."

To date no EEStor Electrical Storage Unit powered ZENN-mobiles have been seen zipping around Toronto. Clifford has spun a story of why this is the case. It is clearly a red flag that makes both ZENN and EEStor look bad.  ZENN which operates on a shoe string passed on $2.5 Million to EEStor, and is reported to have committed $5 Million more, once the ESU passes third party testing.   I am unaware of any reports that ZENN's $5 Million has arrived in Austin.  

There are other red flags. EEStor hype in a commenter on Hamilton's story stated, Unfortunately EEStor never made and will never make the supercapacitor described in the patent because they ignore a well known physical effect, called “dielectric saturation”.

CapacitorMan was even more pointed:

Good point. As someone who has worked in this field for decades, there are several areas that have been overlooked, in addition to the dielectric saturation:
1. The first, and greatest is the temperature coefficient on these kind of dielectrics, it drops 80% at the high temperature end,
2. The voltage stress will be 3 times what is typically allowed.
3. The failure mode for these types of capacitors is shorting, and that energy, if real, would release the equivalent of 100 sticks of dynamite.
4. To make the capacitor using low cost electrodes means firing in reducing atmospheres, which this type BT can't take
5. They cannot get the characteristics they claim with one micron grain size.
6. They ignore the law of mixtures-when they mix the two glasses, they will drop the K dramatically.

Thus there is some skepticism people who appear to be Electrical Engineering professionals. This is a red flag.

In December 2007, when I sat down at my computer to try figure the EEStory out, the red flags were obvious. This will turn out to be one of two stories. The first story will be a story of deception great deception, with self deception perhaps playing a key role. The second story would be of a great technological triumph by brilliant American inventors, Texans who made oil obsolete. That could easily be a top 10 story of the 21st century. I have yet to think of an in between.

I have yet to introduce the mysterious blogger who has taken up with some considerable tenacity, and somewhat lesser literary skills the EEStory.    I do not mean this at all in derision, often I write badly, so it would be absurd for me to cast stones.   Our mysterious blogger has offered an essay on his anonymous status.  He tells us that he does not want his blogging to be connected with his regular job,  he wishes to protect his family, and he does not want his mistakes to be remembered.   The last point would require a major work of commentary,  but I am going to let it slide today.

At any rate anonymous started his blog last year and mainly reposted stories he found on the Internet.  But then he posted an email address to which persons with inside information about the EEStory could respond. This brought EEStories which EEStor insiders wanted to tell. Some see the latest round of EEStories as confirmation that the basicEEStory is true. And as human hope ever overcomes caution, a bubble of speculative excitement seems to be building around the EEStor blog. But still no EEStor prototype has arrived in Toronto. The anonymous blogger is perhaps wise to not stand behind his or her account of the EEStory.

Update 7/25/08: A lot of people desperately want to believe that the EEStory is true. See the comment section of this post.

Ian Clifford on ZENN Motors and EEStor

Introduction: In addition to Nuclear Power, Nuclear Green focuses on the electrification of transportation. Tyler Hamilton has until now had a lock on the ZENN Motors, EEStor story. But this account recently appeared on GM-Volt. I have seen a lot of red flags about that story, and I put the it into the to be believed when actually seen category. Ian Clifford, ZENN Motors CEO now comes forward with an interview with GE-Volt that offers new insights. Clifford claims that ZENN is working closely with EEStor, however, he admits that ZENN has yet to receive a power unit of EEStor, so the red flags are still up as far as I am concerned.  The extensive comment section following the Clifford interview also reflects a healthy skepticism.

From: GM-Volt
EXCLUSIVE: CEO of ZENN Motor Company on EEStor, EEStor Storage Units, cityZENN, and ZENNergy Drive Systems

ZENN Motor Company is a small Toronto based company currently building low speed lead-acid neighborhood electric vehicles. They have partnered with the secretive Texas company EEStor that supposedly has developed a breakthrough energy storage device. I had the chance for an interview with the CEO of ZENN, Ian Clifford, which follows.

What is the cityZENN?
We announced it at the end of March. We announced it in relation to the commercialization of EEstor’s energy storage technology. EEstor had made an announcement earlier in the year on their agreement with Lockheed Martin. We felt it was time then from a product development perspective to lay out our plans for a highway capable vehicle based on EEStors’ energy storage technology.

So you will use EEStors ultracaps as the sole energy source of the vehicle?
Thats correct. EEstor has these breakthrough energy and power densities, and so I think to call it an ultracapacitor is some respect is a disservice to the technology becasue it is such a breakthrough from existing ultracapacitor technologies. It is certainly a solid state energy storage device so it has the ability to store tremendous amounts of energy and power in a very compact footprint. The way that its designed allows for extremely rapid electronic charging times. If you have a charge situation where you have an EEStor device connected to another EEstor device in a charging station or even in a home, the ability to recharge in minutes as opposed to hours is entirely possible. cityZENN will have several several charging algorithms built into the car as its launched. You will be able to plug it into a regular 110 outlet and it will probably take about 4 hours to recharge or you could plug it into a 220 outlet and it will probably take about 2 hours to recharge.

The performance characteristics are such that we think that this vehicle specifically will meet the driving needs of probably 90% of people in North America, and even more people outside of North America in terms of driving habits. So we’re talking about a car with a 250 mile electric range between charges. You’ve got a highway capable vehicle so 80 mph is our target top speed with full gradability. So you’ve got a car that is absolutely usable in virtually any driving situation. Its not susceptible to cold or heat so you don’t have the technological limitation of chemical batteries. EEStors been testing to millions of cycles in their early cell prototypes so we basically have an energy storage device that is a permanent energy source that is distinct from something that has to be replaced every number of years.

So you’re saying millions of cycles as opposed to the typical 5000 cycles that is a goal for lithium-ion batteries. These devices could go millions of cycles without a decay in energy storage capability?

That’s correct. And that’s typical for capacitors. As a solid-state device they certainly will last and last and last and they’re known for that. So tha’ts one of the similarities that EEStor has definitely.

How did you form the relationship with EEStor, did they contact you, did you contact them. Most automakers are looking a lithium-ion, so how did that come about?

I founded ZENN in 2001 and we started creating a certain amount of profile for the company over 2001 and 2002. To such an extent that EEStor actually found us. I got a call from Dick Weir late in 2002 and he was at the point where he and his partner Carl Nelson were getting ready to commercialize the technology that they had developed 10 years previously. They were looking to find a industrial partner who would be entrusted in purchasing the technology right or rights to purchase their technology fro certain exclusive markets. That’s where the discussion started and we did extensive due-diligence on what they were doing back then. We were completely blown away by what we saw and what we saw the potential for their technology to be.

You felt that that was a superior route than going down the lithium-ion or nickel-metal hydride route?

For a number of different reasons. We were certainly compelled by what was happening in chemical battery technology and the advances that were happening, but they were quite incremental. So no significant breakthroughs and this is going back four or five years. We’ve certainly since seen continued incremental improvements in lithium-ion technology but to date we’ve yet to see a commercialized lithium-ion solution at even 20 kwh of storage. We’re still kind of waiting for that.

There were also other significant differentiators that compelled me to the EEStor technology, and a lot of the were the barrier things. The issue of being able to recharge in the same amount of time that it takes to fill a tank of gas, that was a big consumer barrier. How could you expect mass adoption if people were going to be inconvenienced by charging an electric car. So that was a very big motivator for me.

The volume and weight of the technology. We’re looking at a technology thats 1/4 to 1/3 the size, mass, and volume of a lithium-ion technology for the same energy storage. So suddenly you have an energy storage device that can store enough energy to give a useful range of an electric vehicle without having concerns about being able to crash-test. That always is a very very significant concern.

Are there risks of an electric short with the EEStor system?
That was the other thing I was going to get to, safety. The ability of the architecture that EEStor has developed allows for basically instant discharge to ground. So they’ve got becasue it is solid state the ability to dump that energy virtually instantly. If you look at any chemical battery what do you do with that energy thats caught in a medium that cannot discharge instantly? So that was an important consideration for us, its ability to act as a huge circuit breaker on itself.
I think perhaps the biggest thing and perhaps one of the things thats overlooked the most in the debate thats going on now in the search for energy storage is raw material availability. Its not until very recently that people have started to debate the availability of lithium, the global reserves of lithium. And the implications of potentially millions and millions of electric cars using pretty massive energy storage devices onboard and what that does to the existing global reserves of lithium which are limited. And that word limited I think is an understatement.
So as we we’re looking at technologies we were very very conscious of the scalability of the technology and what we saw with EEStor that was quite profound was their utilization of the raw material barite which has massive global reserves, over 2 billion tons of reserves. Enough if you put it in the context of automobiles, enough to build 10 billion automobiles. Hopefully we’ll never get there. The other implications for EEStor was that they play in a whole bunch of different markets so we saw in their design the ability to meet global energy demand. That was a huge consideration for us.

Do you guys have any working prototype vehicles?
No. Our expectation from EEStor and that’s always been our expectation is that they will deliver a commercial product to us. They will deliver and what they’ve told us is by the end of this calendar year was delivery of an early production commercial unit. I get asked that question all the time and my answer has remained consistent in that I’m not interested in a hand-built prototype from EEStor I’m interested in a commercial grade product that we can order 1 or 2 or 10 million of and not something that they’ve hand built. Thats not relevant to us. The only thing thats relevant is a mass commercialized product. Thats ultimately where the end game is for us.

So you see them doing all of the assembly work on their end and providing you with the packs for production?

Exactly. We have a great relationship with EEStor. We’re very very close to them, our engineering teams are integrated to the extent where we are specking final production product with them. We’ve worked through all the power electronic issues. Were very very comfortable with our costing. The discussions from our perspective are highly advanced. And what we see in terms of their build out, we are certainly one of the few companies and few people who have actually been behind the doors of what they are doing and its so compelling and truly thrilling. Just in terms of the impact that it has on global energy use and foreign fuel dependency and all the other issues that are related to petroleum. I see it as really a turning point.

Looking at the GM example, they get delivery of cells and they test them in their lab. They want to see things on the cell level. Have you seen examples of the EEStor cells behaving as they say they do?

Well the original patent is all based on the lab testing that EEStor did a decade previously. So absolutely as part of our due diligence with EEStor initially all that data was shared with us. So we have a very strong level of confidence that the science works but of course like anyone else the proof is in the final product and so becasue of that we’ve structured our agreement with EEStor based on milestones. So every payment milestone that we have on our technology agreement is based on third party verified data of EEStor achieving the specific milestone as they work towards commercialization. So we’ve been cautious as well. But certainly the build out that were seeing and the level of advancement that they’ve made in the last eighteen months gives us a great level of confidence.

So even though you don’t have a cell in hand you are seeing third party data along the way showing that they are achieving the milestones?
Exactly.

When do you expect to bring the vehicle to market?

We’ve stated that if EEStor stays on schedule to deliver early commercial units to us by the end of 2008 that we will have a fully certified highway vehicle powered by EEStor at the end of 09. We did state publicly that the initial launch for that vehicle will probably most likely be Europe and Asia as distinct from North America. That has mainly to do with the time it takes to certify a vehicle in the U.S. We are not going to engineer a car from the ground up. Were going to partner with a key global OEM on the chassis of the vehicle. So this will most likely be a vehicle that is already certified to certain global standards and then we will work together to integrate what we calla ZENNergy Drive System into the vehicle that would be powered by EEStor.
So have you shown any concept of what the exterior of the car will look like yet?
We haven’t shared that yet. We are still finalizing negotiations, very close to finishing negotiations related to what Ill call the initial cityZENN vehicle. So you can expect some more information on that in the near future from us.

Can you say how many people it will seat?

Yes were anticipating that it will be a five-passenger sedan. Our exclusivity with EEStor’s technology goes up to a 3100 pound curb-weight vehicle which is basically a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord-sized vehicle and smaller. Thats our exclusivity, our non-exclusivity goes to any size passenger vehicle as well. So I would anticipate that it would be a car thats pretty close to our maximum exclusive weight and it would have operating characteristics that you would expect out of a vehicle that size at a retail price that would certainly be competitive with an ICE version. Thats been our target all along.

Is your target less than $30,000?

Yes, exactly. You’ve got to remember that the GM Volt has an electric range of about 40 miles and we would be looking at a 250 mile electric range, without a range extender.

Is the EEStor technology less expensive than lithium-ion cells?

Dramatically. I cant go into specifics on that but suffice it to say that we feel quite comfortable in offering a vehicle with the characteristics I have defined with a price point of $30,000 or less. It is orders of magnitude less expensive than lithium-ion.

Lithium ion is costing $800-$1000 per kwh now and the USABCs goal is $200 per kwh and I guess you’re talking about values less than that?

I wont comment on the $200 per kwh becasue I don’t think thats realistic for any technology to be honest with you. But for lithium-ion I can only see the price going up. Just based on raw materials cost alone. Were going to get into a situation very quickly, the global reserves are such that were going to go into a serious price squeeze going forward if we get into serious large-format lithium ion battery production.

The people at A123 have advised me that there should be enough lithium out there to build more than 2 billion cars, you seem to have a different perspective than that.

Yes, very much so. The studies that we’ve seen and the understanding that we have that to meet capacity even with small scale adoption of plug-in hybrids the lithium reserves would be severely challenged to meet that demand. The lithium reserves are about 17 to 25 million tons. Thats not a lot of raw material. The price has already gone up in the last 8 years. Barite on the other hand which is the core ingredient of what EEStor is doing is incredibly plentiful and available throughout the world. Massive reserves in North America and very easy to get to and extract. This is part of the debate that has not really been articulated yet. Right now without EEStor yet being really commercialized it hasn’t really come to the forefront of the debate.

Why do you think the big companies like GM haven’t embraced this technology?

I think they are learning about it to different degrees, and I know that different companies have taken a look at the technology at different stages. I think ultimately and you see this with lithium technology, they say show us the product. They wont make a decision until they’ve got a commercial battery. And right now there isn’t a lithium ion battery out there at the scale thats required for a commercial product yet. Its very difficult to do. Its a huge challenge.

Is you long-range hope to become a major global player in the automotive market?
We see ourselves more as an enabler. We did announce the cityZENN as a ZENN branded product that we would distribute through large distribution networks. Once again partnering with other organizations. But ultimately we believe our most significant opportunity is the ZENNergy drive and that is an integrated drive system utilizing EEStor as the energy source that we would then joint-venture with any OEM around the world an then create a “powered by ZENN” drive for vehicles that fit within our market in exclusivity. Its kind of like the “Intel inside” model. We intend ZENN and ZENNergy to be synonymous with electric drive and thats the biggest role that we can play globally. And then every OEM is not our competitor, every OEM is our partner.

Is the city ZENN then more of a demonstration so other OEMs will become interested in purchasing the ZENNergy drivetrain system?

Exactly. We don’t need to re-invent the automotive industry, I think we need to re-define it. We don’t need to become a global OEM in order to demonstrate the viability of electric. I think judging from the response we get and certainly the response that you get on your site there is a huge pent up hunger for electrification. It’s remarkable. I think every major and minor automaker around the world appreciates and understands that. I think that ultimately the consumer and technology will drive us to that inevitability which is extremely exciting.

Are you guys planning to offer conversions when you have your ZENNergy system up and running?

We have worldwide exclusive rights to EEStor technology for the conversion of any 4-wheel vehicle on the planet. So absolutely the conversion market is something that is extremely compelling to us. Our plan is to start looking at some of the largest install bases for single platform use in fleet applications. So in NY you think of yellow cabs and black limos, in London taxi cabs, US postal service, you think of very very large install bases. So leveraging our ZENNergy drive we would create kits that would be specific to certain platforms. I think that will be an incredibly exciting market.

You would then be able to offer that to any 4-wheel vehicle?

Yes, any 4-wheel vehicle. Thats our exclusivity. To me thats the access to the 750 to 900 million cars that are on the planet. If you think about it we’ve got this huge investment in raw materials in every vehicle on the road. Depending on who you ask theres something between 20 and 40,000 gallons of water going into every car thats on the road. You think if all of the raw materials, and process materials, and energy that goes into creating this chassis and really the thing that fails in an internal combustion vehicle is the internal combustion system. You take a 5 year old vehicle that has whatever mileage and you create a replacement ZENNergy drive system for that platform, you certainly have another 10 years at least on the chassis.

This all sounds very exciting, but lets face it, it all depends on EEStor actually delivering a product. What is your confidence level that you are going to have a commercial grade EEStor product by the end of 2008?

Were expecting it by the end of the year and I cant state by what date specifically. Our level of confidence is extremely high based on what we are exposed to and certainly the involvement of others in this technology. The involvement of Kleiner Perkins is significant, the involvement of Lockheed Martin is significant. So we have a very very high level of confidence. To the extent that last year we became and equity investor in EEStor as well. So we put our money where our mouth is and invested in the common stock of EEStor as well, so no only do we have a technology agreement with them we also have participation in the other markets that they are developing product for. On the other hand, its not proven until its delivered. Ultimately the proof is in the commercial product. We are obviously making plans to develop solutions based on EEStor so that continues to show our level of confidence in our path.

How many employees does EEStor have?
Thats not publicly disclosed.

Have you guys spoken with GM at all?

Yes, we have. I wont get into any details and to what level we are at, but interestingly a Volt with a ZENNergy drive is a kind of a sexy product. You never know. It would certainly be something we’d love to explore. As I said earlier were a little tiny company and it takes more and more proof of the technology to get the attention of the bigger companies. We’re working at it

So you will tell the world when you get the product this year?

Oh you will know. Theres no question about it. For one thing were a public company and these are material advances in the company and they trigger payments. We intent to let the entire world know of the developments and the final commercializations.

Comments on the Clifford Interview:

Raphael
Anatoly Moskalev wrote on January 20th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
About EEStore supercapacitor hype :
1. The company made claims about dielectric powder parameters - that is it. Claims themselves are likely correct. So they have powder with:
Eps = 18500, Eth = 3 * 10 ^ 6 V / sm, Density = ~ 6 g / sm^3 ( Eth - practical electric field intensity threshold )
For 12 um thickness of dielectric we get Uth = ~3500 V - top practical voltage. From a capacitor formula you could get
C = ~0.2 F / kg resulting to energy density ~1.15 MJ / kg = ~320 Wh / kg
For comparison Tesla Motors battery pack has 5 2 kWh / 450 kg = ~110 Wh / kg
Capacitors formulas from school text books appears well known so after powder parameters verified EEStore CHEMISTS feel safe to make bold claims.
—-
2. But good physicist like me knows very well that capacitors physics under extreme conditions is not textbook straightforward. The dielectric constant involved will stay at indicated value until approximately 30000 V / sm electric field strength. This value is pretty high so measurements unlikely exceed this so they give high Eps value OK.
But to get claimed energy density you need approximately 100 times higher field strength. Getting such field strenght is extremely unlikely in the Eps measurements. But the reality is that exactly in this field strenght region electrical induction gets saturation because it reaches the interatomic field strength. This is well know effect to physicysts but not very widely known phenomenon to general public. Resulted effect on the energy could be described as if dielectric constant gets reduced in the formula. My estimations demonstrates that actual energy density would be 25 - 50 times less than a claim.
Resulted EEStore capacitor would approximately match currently available ultracapacitors by energy density per unit of mass making ~5 times better energy density per unit of volume. As such it would be marginal improvement over existing ultracapacitors technology. It surely would be a order of magnitude improvement for ceramic capacitors so it would have some use. But it would be nothing as bold as EEStore claims.
In 1 - 2 years from now we will see what would be the outcome of EEStore activity. Judgement day for EEStore would come when somebody would build a capacitor and try to store expected energy into it. It would be discovered that above
~100 V voltage would grow with charge much faster than expected and finally instead of ~15 kWh it would be ~0.3 kWh at the highest possible voltage. But powder alone would match all the promises. Who knows - they might even think it is a big discovery of new phenomenon. So they would explain the failure by claiming they run into truly unpredictable effect unknown to science. Irony is that 1947 year physics knows it and today it is forgotten.

nasaman
Returning to the topic, I’ve avoided commenting on EEstor because I’ve been watching work at the Georgia Tech Research Institute of a very similar nature —employing nanotechnology to maximize the capacitance & voltage breakdown of barium titanate. When I last checked, that work had resulted in improving the energy density by less than a factor of 4 — which I believe represents the current state-of-the-art for ultra capacitors.
By contrast, EEstor’s patent says they can increase the energy density of barium titanate capacitors by 1,000:1! The problem with this is that the dielectric strength of barium titanate in its purest form is at best a few hundred volts (say 350V) —not 3,500V as they claim— so the resulting capacitance is reduced by the square of the ratio…..
Therefore the capacitance is 350V/3500V^2 = (1/10)^2 = 1/100th of that claimed by EEstor, so their 52kWh claim becomes only 0.52kWh!

nasaman
142 REFER TO MY POSTS 125 & 127 BEFORE READING THIS:
Those 2 posts were hung up for moderation; since then I’ve talked in some detail with a lead investigator on a research program using BaTiO3 in nanoparticle form VERY similar to the work EEstor claims to be doing —in fact, published just a month after EEstor published its first major claims last year. He said they had been overwhelmed with questions from the press & others about EEstor as a result. I promised not to disclose any opinions or facts revealed to me from our conversation this afternoon. So the following comments are simply MY OWN conclusions based on my own study of the EEstor patent(s) as a physicist and the contemporary work by extremely-competent researchers at this major university…..
1) As many here have expressed, it would be GREAT if if it were true!
2) It defies fundamental physical principals for BOTH the dielectric breakdown to reach 3,500 volts AND the permittivity to remain high
3) The EEstor claim that their BaTiO3 “pore spacing” is reduced or eliminated at low temperatures (~150 C) is not credible
4) Since the energy density (E) of any capacitor is….
E = 1/2 (CV)^2, where C = Farads & V = Volts, a reduction in break-down voltage from 3500V to 350V (much more likely) results in a reduction in E of 100:1, which is credible, but rebutts EEstor’s claims
5) BaTiO3 nanocomposites produced by virtually ANY means are extremely brittle, therefore subject to catastrophic failures due to microcracking; hence the enormous number of plates (substrates) required for capacitors as large as even 1 kWh would be highly prone to shorts (all sections are in parallel, so 1 short kills them all)
6) MY OPINION ONLY: There’s NO con like that when the promoters, scientists or not, are themselves conned —cold fusion is perhaps the most notorious example that comes to mind
Therefore, we can dismiss EEstor and ZENN’s claims out of hand!