Texas startup says it has batteries beat

Associated Press ^ | Tue Sep 4 | GRANT SLATER

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

High voltage means the possibility of sparking. Everyone in the car in an accident is killed by lightening? Sounds like more work is needed.

[Daus]

The deal with ZENN Motor and a $3 million investment by the venture capital group Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

The fact that Kleiner Perkins invested tells me that there is something there. The fact the Kleiner Perkins only invested $3 million tells me that it won't be as big as what this story claims. If it truly was that big, Kleiner Perkins would have invested $100 million at it already would be to market. :)

[Uncledave]

Renewable Energy Ping

Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off

[hosepipe]

If true about this capacitor.. Nuclear energy would be worth many times more.. if used in power tools, boats, cars, trucks and some airplanes.. Wonder how long this device lasts before burning out?.. Are capacitors generally durable?..

[Rick_Michael]

We’ll see...I’m skeptical, but any movement towards not funding the ME...is great, imo. The faster the better.

[dangerdoc]

batteries suffer from self discharge also.

[hosepipe]

[.. Correct. Now, try to load all that energy into the car in just 5 minutes via a plug. ..]

Oh! aw right 30 minutes you ol poop.. and cables the size your FINGER.. for enough energy to get you home.. Where a charge could happen in a couple of hours..

[dangerdoc]

Capacitors are generally durable. Even if eestor is as good as they claim, it will not be used in airplanes, it is not close to the energy density of jet fuel.

Li ion batteries are generally good for 500 recharges, capacitors should be good for hundreds of thousands of recharges.

[MrB]

It takes a huge amount of energy to drive a car 500 miles.

Yes, I was thinking this - and they claim to be able to transfer that amount of energy in 5 minutes from a charging station to the car.

I'm dubious even before I perform any calculations.

[Kellis91789]

Thanks for the good info ! I didn’t realize 5000V was prevalent in neighborhoods unless it was an industrial area or a substation.

I was thinking about retrofitting existing neighborhood gas stations rather than building from scratch, so I wasn’t considering how easy it would be to get high voltages to them. 480V is easy. High amps though. And you are right about charging the vehicle — the EESTOR caps can be charged at (I think) 30,000V. Meaning a low amp, small cable at the “pump”.

Home charging doesn’t really seem like a problem to me. Yes, without a cap bank it might take 5 hours to fully recharge your 50kwh pack. But not many people are going to deplete a whole 50kwh every day. Most days you’d be topping up only 10kwh and be done in an hour. The inconvenience of an hour might not justify spending money on a separate cap bank in the garage. Unless the cap bank in your garage was dual-purpose and actually storing electricity to run your house while buying electricity at off-peak rates.

[Squantos]

What they fail to mention in the article is that this new type of battery violently blows up when exposed to eakemaniumdioxide !........:o)

Hope ya’ll are all well .........Stay safe !!

[hosepipe]

[.. Capacitors are generally durable. Even if eestor is as good as they claim, it will not be used in airplanes, it is not close to the energy density of jet fuel. / Li ion batteries are generally good for 500 recharges, capacitors should be good for hundreds of thousands of recharges. ..]

Thanks... I was not thinking of jet planes but prop planes.. of 'whatever" size..

[hiredhand]

eakemaniumdioxide? Isn’t that the same stuff that makes M-1 Garrands blow up too? DOH! :-)

[SauronOfMordor]

Ig their ultracap fails catastrophically, it probably will release all its energy at once

Their press says 280 watt hours per kilogram. That's 10^6 joules per kg. TNT is 4.2 * 10^6 joules/kg. That approaches being impressive

[dangerdoc]

Same goes for general aviation fuel.

Not to say that there won’t be electric planes. There is some potential for direct heat to electric conversion that will be 2-3 times more efficient than ICE. The fuel will still be hydrocarbons just converted into power more efficiently.

[ken21]

>a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline.

_________________________________________________________________

these ideas come and go,

and i still pay $2.76 per gallon for gasoline.

[SauronOfMordor]

I could see something like this being viable in a hybrid vehicle, where you could get along with a much smaller gas engine operating closer to peak more of the time, with the ultracap powering an electric motor to give the car peppier acceleration.

[Ancesthntr]

Remember this thing only stores energy. You still need the original source: coal, oil, nuclear.

Emphasis on the first and last, of which we either have plenty or can make it quickly (assuming the will do to so is present - watch the will develop overnight as gasoline climbs over $5/gallon). Also, don't forget natural gas, of which we also have a lot. Our neighbors to north & south also have lots of oil, and it cannot be a bad thing to provide more money to their economies (where will they spend their dollars?).

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“finish building my Interocitor.”
Hey! Hey! I got one of those. A white-haired old guy with a big, old forehead sent it to me. But, dude, the instructions are, like, totally alien. Send me your instructions when you’ve found your ultra-capacitor, Dude!

[Ancesthntr]

He had way too much faith in our politicians. Nixon had no interest in the manned space program, since it was a Kennedy/Democrat invention (in his eyes - it actually started under Ike). This was, IMHO, his greatest failing outside of the character flaws that did him in with Watergate. We DID have the technical capacity for the base and the regular trips, and we’d be far better off materially if we had done that.