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261 comments on DrumBeat: January 11, 2008

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fringy on January 11, 2008 - 10:13am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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.

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xeroid on January 11, 2008 - 11:53am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yes, hype by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control for some bizarre reason (you would have thought they would keep details like that secret?)... not hype by EEstor - as you say, secretive people, I wonder why? - but I can guess.

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theantidoomer on January 11, 2008 - 12:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Why so defensive Xeroid? EEstor hasn't asked for a cent from the public or government, was funded by a highly respected group of investors and is now getting defense department contracts for its product. It seemed pretty obvious to me from the article that the Lockeheed Martin folks have seen the device work they just haven't been allowed to take one for themselves yet.

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xeroid on January 11, 2008 - 12:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Oh! ... let's hope they have a viable product, available to the whole world, in the huge quantities required ... but, as usual for adequate alternatives to oil, they are not available yet (even to the military - who usually get stuff years before Joe Public.)

We have an urgent need for something like this - BTW ultra-capacitors are not new technology, but for any real capacity they are NOT low cost at present (low cost is the AIM of their R&D efforts and you shouldn't assume that they will actually be low cost when/if they finally hit the market (that doesn't matter for military applications maybe?) - there are many applications that need large amounts of energy in a short period of time (an example is intermittently used photocopiers that have to have their fuser rolls hot is one area I know quite a bit about.)

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bruce from chicago on January 11, 2008 - 1:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Military contractors have a history of throwing money (they have a lot of it, thank you Mr. taxpayer!)at a technology even if there is less than a fifty/fifty chance of it working. Witness the huge amount of funds thrown at the “Star Wars” program. Most of these experimental programs show no results. An article for Technology Review, published by MIT, show there are a lot of scientists who are very skeptical this new battery will work. The comments are interesting, while the scientists cite papers and explain why they don’t think the Eestore device is viable, the other comments throw around platitudes and wishfull thinking as to why it will. Maybe a new way to measure the acceptance of the reality peak oil - peak platitudes.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/

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Black_Dog on January 11, 2008 - 1:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

There is an obvious military use for these high voltage devices. As noted in the interview:

......In the situation where you are trying to store energy, transport it without discharge obviously thats very attractive in the utility grid load leveling (situation). If your talking about powering for example a high energy weapon that requires a short burst of energy a capacitor is a great approach to do that....

...We are basically working with them exclusively and in the homeland security and defense department’s markets...

One of the big problems with laser weapons is the high energy requirements over a short period of time. If these ultra capacitors are as good as described, think of IR lasers mounted on Humvees. There was a story about such a scenario while back. The IR laser is invisible and the comment went something like "the bad guy was standing in a group talking with his buddies and suddenly his head exploded". Such systems would also be of use in airborne applications, including lasers to intercept incoming missiles. They would be used for delivering a series of rapid pulses, then could be recharged over a few minutes from lower power sources, such as an APU. Then too, there are the potential orbital applications...

E. Swanson

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Big Gav on January 11, 2008 - 4:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Why so defensive Xeroid? EEstor hasn't asked for a cent from the public or government, was funded by a highly respected group of investors and is now getting defense department contracts for its product.

I wouldn't be too sure about who funded all this research originally. There is a theory that it came out of weapons research in the first place.

http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2006/09/ultracapacitor-conspiracy.html
http://cryptogon.com/?p=255

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enemy of state on January 11, 2008 - 6:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but to me it has all the signs of investor fraud. The product capabilities probably violate the laws of physics. But hey those capabilities, are just what anyone who knows what the specs for energy storage mean would kill for this.

Yes, ultracapitors are really amazing devices. But in the real world they have limits. It would be great to combine UC with LiIon for all sorts of plugin technology, but the current cost is prohibitive.

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RBM on January 12, 2008 - 10:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Heh, enemy, you qualified that nicely.

"The product capabilities probably violate the laws of physics."

Sure it does !

So what's so surprising about that ?

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RBM on January 12, 2008 - 10:20am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This makes all the sense in the world to me.

"The new boss is same as the old boss."

They military-industrial complex is continuing to strengthen it's position for a post FF transition.

Goal: Present vested interests remain vested.

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