Actually they have been extremely hype free - and if anything secretive. I have been trying to get more information about them on the web, but it is very hard, other than maybe a couple of press releases and a patent. It is interesting that this came not from them, but the defense company.

These things are 3500 volt systems (according to wikipedia). You need 4180v AC to charge them. Nobody's going to use them in personal cars or in remote RR locations. Quite possibly for load leveling and power factor adjustment though.

Actually wrong, did you read anything about EEstor? The whole point of the product is that it can be done at a fraction of the cost.

Traditionally more expensive, you mean. With EEStor we don't yet know so don't claim otherwise. If you research EEStor you will discover NO patents related to ultracapacitors. What you will find instead is several patents related to the manufacture of ultracapacitors.

I remain neutral about EEStor but the breakthrough they appear to be seeking is in scalability of manufacturing and in cost control. There's no way to evaluate that until they actuall get into production.

J'accuse! theantidoomer

Again you come here like the saviour, offering your anecdotes and hype as the antidote to the doom we luddites and others seem to be predicting. And yet again we have explained why there is nothing to your over zealous optimism.

Time again we the scientists and engineers who actually do this stuff, have tried to explain to you the limitations of technology - like my outburst here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3448#comment-283788
and yet you persist on this madness.

I have been wondering what goes on in your head, what motivates you, and then I read this:

theantidoomer: feel free to move to the middle of the country get yourself some land and live off the land and be happy or move to a really poor country they don't have too many cars there. :) Either way I believe that future tech will bring a cleaner more advanced society for all (that want it).

So essentially your position is a dichotomy because you do not believe we should give up anything. A classic 'have-the-cake-and-eat-it'-syndrome familiar to anyone with children.

Not only is your position naive in the extreme by ignoring how many things we already 'give up' everyday with the real compromises we make in engineering, manufacturing and economics: the opportunity cost of every decision, the allocation of limited resources, the law of entropy. But you insist on placing immediate comfort over safe future, the familiar conveniences over the real costs and demands they require.

You lack the ability of moderating your expectation to match reality. And in order to justify your position to yourself, and deny the absurdity of your position, you are having to deal with superficial anecdotes.

This truly is the level of thinking for a five year old. However in my opinion you are more likely just a shill.

But for the benefit of others I would like to say a few words.

I work at the border of science and engineering, one foot in each. For people like us, problems like PO and GW, and I might add the inevitable collapse of our unsustainable monetary system, leave us with only two choices, in depth analysis, or total ignorance. Most of my colleagues choose the latter, understandably as they have invested their lifetimes into their careers and research and locked themselves into a certain lifestyle. Personally, if I'm having to perform objective analysis of problems in my work, its hard to do the opposite in my daily life. But for others it seems they can detach their personal lives from the side of the brain they use at work, and live the common irrational way of life, at least for now.

For the non-engineers and -scientists it's much easier. For them its all about religion. All they see is the cornucopia of technology at the shop window - the perception being that its all at least linear, if not exponential: everything getting faster, bigger/smaller, better every year, with no limits in sight. And why would they see any limits - they have no concept of what is a limit - energy, space and time - laws of physics are there for the theoretical physicists to 'break'. And even less so, they have no idea of the compromises done in engineering or the law of diminishing returns (engineering IS ABOUT making compromises!).

If you point out to them some shortage of a particular resource, they'll just state we'll figure out a way of making more from less, forever (forever meaning often their lifetimes). Similarly, as they have no idea how the monetary system works, they believe absolutely that money is no object in the way of finding and applying any number of solutions to all our problems.

Finally we come to the technocopians - the advocates for the status quo. Their motives stem from the various fears and delusions they have got from being confronted by greens and extremists on the other side (which I don't particularly like either). Or they have simply analysed PO far enough to have found something personally unacceptable to their wish of what the future should be. Hence they desperately defend their hopeless position with what ever means: assured rhetoric, logical fallacies, outright denial. TOD is a tough place for them since people here know their engineering and math. Here you cannot just bluff people with numerology or tech-jargon.

The reason I like TOD and have stuck around for now, is that here you have lots of oridinary people different walks of life, making extraoridinary efford in analysing the situation objectively and holistically. People who are not distracted by hype or narrow interests. And people who can see hope in the future without having to resort to irrationalities or denial. Having to let go of our current way of life is seen as an opportunities for a better, healthier and happier existance for man. In that, I think we are the true optimists.

Oh, and by the way, what I said means we're stuck with batteries for now, probably unless someone invents both a miracle nanotube capacitor and an affordable and practical means to produce the necessary materials by the megaton. I say stuck because EESTOR's patent claims an energy density (by weight) somewhat better than present-day Li-ion:

The components are configured into a multilayer array with the use of a solder-bump technique as the enabling technology so as to provide a parallel configuration of components that has the capability to store electrical energy in the range of 52 kWh. The total weight of an EESU with this range of electrical energy storage is about 336 pounds.

For comparison to this ridiculously optimistic scenario, 52 kWH is about 8 or 9 pounds worth of gasoline or diesel; throw in a few more pounds for the gas tank, and the EESU is still around 30 times heavier.

Oh, and the solder-bump thing gives me the willies for mounting large ceramic components into modules for vehicles stored and/or used outdoors. Think metal fatigue and subsequent cracking and breakage in the bumps - this type of packaging tends to pop off circuit boards subjected to large temperature fluctuations, especially if lead is legally disallowed in the solder. Any risk of internal disintegration is not a good thing in a module (EESU) storing this much energy at 3500 volts. It's enough energy to raise 336 pounds of ceramic and metal to a very high temperature, and it will not simply disappear into thin air, leaving a harmless room-temperature pile of fragments and powder, if the module arcs over.