OK. They have discussions with NASA and IF IT WORKS NASA is interested.
The Lockheed deal is much better. For an undisclosed price (maybe zero until delivery of a working device) Lockheed has optioned use in specific applications.
So where are the independent test results?
Not in evidence.
Where is the evidence that Lockheed has exercised its option?
The pdf is proof of what? Communications. It is not proof of a working device.
But hey. We will be seeing those working devices real soon now. There is a factory. There is production eqpt. There are releases of promotional documents. There is proof that the base material is commercially available.
I'm more convinced than ever.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
OK. They have discussions with NASA and IF IT WORKS NASA is interested.
The Lockheed deal is much better. For an undisclosed price (maybe zero until delivery of a working device) Lockheed has optioned use in specific applications.
So where are the independent test results?
Not in evidence.
Where is the evidence that Lockheed has exercised its option?
The pdf is proof of what? Communications. It is not proof of a working device.
But hey. We will be seeing those working devices real soon now. There is a factory. There is production eqpt. There are releases of promotional documents. There is proof that the base material is commercially available.
I'm more convinced than ever.
Thus far EEstor have only the fact that various big organisations have expressed some interest. There is no other evidence that they have what they claim.
You have to treat each of these on its merits. What are the risks to the organisation on making agreement with EEstor, what are the possible benefits.
As far as we know NASA has done nothing except hear an EEstor sales pitch.
LM has an agreement. There is zero risk to them (no money, no damage to their rep if EEstor does not come up with good). Whereas on small chance that EEstor has something LM have extremely valuable option.
Where it goes crazy is that people take the fact that EEstor can sell well enough to get LM to sign a possible gain zero risk agreement to mean that therefore EEstor must have what they claim.
The fact that a verified milestone for EEstor's main backer that releases money and is meant to be proof of concept (never yet seen) or by a big stretch of imagination "proof of production ability" does not test for the critical parameter that all are agreed EEstor have been working hard to get (high breakdown field) is worrying. The fact that EEstor is silent on (and has produced no verified evidence to back up) the parameter that all outside believe impossible to get (high saturation field) is even more worrying.
Meanwhile, chemical - air batteries are progressing, whith expectations that they can far exceed lithium batteriy capacities.
Even if EESTOR capacitors worked, what are the advantiges, cost competiveness?.
I beliece there are already ultracapaciters in use for quick charge/ discharge systems like recursive breaking in electric cars. Would EESTOR capacitors have more than marginal advantages at comparable costs?
Quick recharging would definatly be an advantge over batteries, but massive infrastructure developement would be needed to take full advantage of it.
Dan Tibbets
Last edited by D Tibbets on Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
Quick recharging would definatly be an advantge over batteries, but massive inferstructure developement would be needed to take full advantage of it.
How so?
Roughly speaking, for the level of accuracy we need for this discussion, a gallon of gas has about 130MJ of energy, so a car that has a 12 gallon tank and gets 25MPG (for a 300mi range) would carry, when fully fueled, 1.6GJ of energy.
Given that the pump-to-wheel efficiency of an ICE is low, around 30%, I'll assume that the pump-to-wheel efficiency of an all-electric car is higher, around 90% (which is probably too high of an estimate). That means that the equivalent energy content needed for a 300mi range electric vehicle would be 530MJ, or 146kWh. At an energy transfer rate of 1kW, it would take 146 hours to recharge the car. Using a 20A service at 240V it would take 45 hours.
Fast recharge is going to involve figuring out how to safely dump large, high-voltage currents into the cars, and the filling stations will have to have the infrastructure to suck enough energy from the grid to charge the cars.
At an energy transfer rate of 1kW, it would take 146 hours to recharge the car. Using a 20A service at 240V it would take 45 hours.
Plug in a capacitor. Let it charge for 45 hours. When a customer drives up, discharge it into his capacitor. The gas station doesn't have to get it all from the grid instantly.
The gas station will need greater cannections to the grid though, sure. I don't know how many 240V outlets a typical small business grid connection can support, but presumably a gas station gets many dozens of customers a day. So that's significant, and will mean this gas station will need the equivalent grid connection of a Walmart. But we already build Walmarts and it doesn't seem to bother us.
I guess doing this to every gas station everywhere all at once would be a big deal. But that wouldn't happen. Electric vehicles would slowly gain in market share and gas stations would buy capacitor chargers to suit, upgrading their grid connection as needed a few years down the line. It would be slow, like new construction, giving the grid time to adjust.
At an energy transfer rate of 1kW, it would take 146 hours to recharge the car. Using a 20A service at 240V it would take 45 hours.
Plug in a capacitor. Let it charge for 45 hours. When a customer drives up, discharge it into his capacitor. The gas station doesn't have to get it all from the grid instantly.
The gas station will need greater cannections to the grid though, sure. I don't know how many 240V outlets a typical small business grid connection can support, but presumably a gas station gets many dozens of customers a day. So that's significant, and will mean this gas station will need the equivalent grid connection of a Walmart. But we already build Walmarts and it doesn't seem to bother us.
I guess doing this to every gas station everywhere all at once would be a big deal. But that wouldn't happen. Electric vehicles would slowly gain in market share and gas stations would buy capacitor chargers to suit, upgrading their grid connection as needed a few years down the line. It would be slow, like new construction, giving the grid time to adjust.
If you just cross connect them you have an energy loss of 50%.
Two capacitors of equal size. One charged to V the other at zero.
Energy = 1/2 CV^2. After connection you have two capacitors charged to 1/2 V. The total energy = (1/2*(2C)*(1/2V)^2 = 1/2 what you started with. You can do better with a DC to DC converter. About 85% to 95%. But you still have component capacity problems. And expense.
Where did the energy go? Let us see if some one knows. Any of you physics students care to guess? BTW for the sake of the question all conductors have zero resistance.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:If you just cross connect them you have an energy loss of 50%.
Two capacitors of equal size. One charged to V the other at zero.
Energy = 1/2 CV^2. After connection you have two capacitors charged to 1/2 V. The total energy = (1/2*(2C)*(1/2V)^2 = 1/2 what you started with. You can do better with a DC to DC converter. About 85% to 95%. But you still have component capacity problems. And expense.
Where did the energy go? Let us see if some one knows. Any of you physics students care to guess? BTW for the sake of the question all conductors have zero resistance.
Thats easy, it just goes back to the Zero Point Energy field!
You can do better with a DC to DC converter. About 85% to 95%. But you still have component capacity problems. And expense.
If I ran a gas station and wanted to buy a rig for juicing up some electric vehicle, what sort of expense would I be looking at? $10k? Or $1000k?
I'm willing to bet those gas pumps cost more than $10k each, by the way. And then there's more for the tanks, the insurance, etc and so on.
If the design is real good and in volume 25 cents a watt. Otherwise 50 cents a watt.
One KW = $500. Ten KW = $5,000. One hundred KW = $50,000.
Assuming a bunch of stuff.
1.5 MT vehicle. 200 mi range (a little short but WTH) 1,500 Kg * 200 = 300KWh. Delivered in 1 hr. $150,000 capital. Delivered in 6 minutes. $1.5 million.
Cutting that in 1/2 (25 cents per KWh) is not going to help much.
It will all be unicorns, rainbows, and candy mountains by and by.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:1.5 MT vehicle. 200 mi range (a little short but WTH) 1,500 Kg * 200 = 300KWh. Delivered in 1 hr. $150,000 capital. Delivered in 6 minutes. $1.5 million.
Cutting that in 1/2 (25 cents per KWh) is not going to help much.
It will all be unicorns, rainbows, and candy mountains by and by.
Battery replacement is surely easier than superfast battery charging?
