EVcast Interview of EEStor Blogger

Somebody claiming to be the EEStor blogger was interviewed on EVcast today. Is this the mystery EEStor blogger? :-)

Link to the PodCast.

EEven EEStor would find this one EEnteresting...

Are you part of the EEStory? Yes/No? You're not sure. OK. But maybe you are. Maybe you lurk this site looking for references to what you know about EEStor. Question: wIll today be the day that the EEStor blogger tracks you down to solicit a comment? You never know! Maybe it would be better to proactively reach out to the blogger by sending an email to eestorblog@gmail.com? Take the case of Zibo Jiang from LInhai, China. In every way, just an ordinary graduate student embarking on what will certainly be a bright future for an extremely talented young person. A few years back, he studied in the UK at Birmingham University and moved on to MIT for a Masters of Engineering in Materials Science and Engineering. At some point in his journey, Mr. Jiang was bitten by the same bug that has bitten you dear reader. I'm talking about the EEStor bug of course. Mr. Jiang, like so many of us, succumbed to the mystery and [i] in partial fulfillment of the requirements[/i] for his degree, Mr. Jiang wrote a Master's Thesis on9url=http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/42142/228303788.pdf?sequence=1] "Technology Assessment and Market Analysis of Solid State Ultracapacitors."[/url] Welcome to the EEStory, Mr. Jiang! Yes, fascinating read, sir! What's that? You want to bring someone with you into the EEStory? Ok, no problem who? Sayt it again, didnt catch that. Your Thesis Supervisor? Yes, sure, no problem, the more the merrier. But why would your Thesis Supervisor come with you into the EEStory, sir? Who was your Thesis Supervisor? Yet-Ming Chiang. Hhmm....doesn't ring a bell. Wait a second, do you mean the Yet-Ming Chiang of A123 Systems fame?

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Mysterious EEStor Blogger to be interviewed on EVCast

Tomorrow, Sept 24, 2008 at 1000 EST, I will be joining the folks at EVCast for a little discussion about EEStor. It will be broadcast live and audience members can ask questions....not that I have anything interesting to say of course. Accordingly, it will probably be about a 5 minute conversation.

http://www.evcast.com/members/evcast/broadcast

EEStor Documentary

About a month ago, following the hoopla concerning EEStor's most recent press release, I received an intriguing email from Michael Blieden, a movie/tv director whose work includes a fair bit of comedy, a documentary called Super High Me, and a series of music videos starring comedian/actor Zack Galifianakis lip syncing songs from biggies Kayne West, Fiona Apple and Aimee Mann among other things. Check out his website here. and see all of his work here. In his email, Blieden indicated he was an avid follower of the blog and alternative energy issues in general partially as a function of his father having worked on the Alternative Energy Commission for Jimmy Carter. Over the last 4 weeks, we've had some hit or miss communications but finally got together in person atop the Altitude Sky Lounge in the Gaslamp district of San Diego. The purpose of the meeting was simply to get a feel for each other and learn a little bit about Blieden's interest in doing a documentary about EEStor including some of the antics and drama that take place on this website.

[ARTICLE CONTINUED HERE]

Ian Clifford to answer questions posed by TheEEStory.com Community

Ian Clifford, head of Zenn Motor Company, has agreed to answer questions developed by TheEEStory.com community. To participate, submit questions via the comment section of the original announcement. Zenn Motor Company is the first manufacturer to market EEStor Inc. Electrical Energy Storage Untits (EESU's), a rival technology to Lithium Ion, in use by the recently announced GM Volt vehicle and other vehicles under development.

To discuss possible contenders for questions to submit, visit this thread.

Maxwell talks about EEStor

For extended discussion of this interview, please use this Forum Topic: http://www.theeestory.com/topics/322

Almost any mystery has the power to suck you in. What would my living room look like if I rearranged the furniture? What do my neighbors think of me? Could I earn more money if I tweaked my investment plan by doing X, Y or Z? Could I adapt my recipe for beef ribs by adding ___ and enhancing the flavor? For any topic, there's much room for misinterpreting, misunderstanding or just plain asking the wrong questions. We only have to look at a lot of the dialogue on this site and it's predecessor to see all of that type of speculation about various aspects of EEStor and the many attempts to crack the nut.

[Story and Maxwell Interview continued here]

Lockheed Sticks to EEStory

When you ask an important question for which obtaining a true answer is critical, is it better to catch someone off guard with a question they didn't think you would ask as in a meeting face to face or is it better to submit questions in writing in advance giving the subject time to think, craft, massage....or even spin? Are reactive answers more informative than proactive ones? Or maybe your introspection is insufficiently developed to care.

The answer is both approachea complement each other. Truth comes when you ask the same questions in lots of different ways. But we don't always have the luxury of understanding something from all angles. Such is the case with what may be the most interesting public disclosure in the eestory: I'm talking about the interview of Lionel Liebman from Lockheed Martin posted January 10, 2008. See Also, the press release.

My first impression of that interview was that Liebman ....[article continued here].

to continue this article

EEStor: Most Widely Anticipated Invention Ever? Or was it iPhone?

Discussions of articles with forums taking place here now: TheEEStory.com

If you follow developments of Apple Computers and imac, iphone, ithis, ithat, etc., you may be part of a very large group of people who spend considerable time anticipating new product developments. And certainly for every class of consumer products you have early adopters who pride themselves on having the latest and greatest gadget.

I would like to posit that what EEStor is working to produce may be the most widely anticipated technology ever in history in terms of commercial and governmental organaizations. By anticipated, I mean spending time tracking and following EEStor's development and speculating about it's use, impact and transformational effect on multiple large industries.

In comparison to an iPhone, what we're all focused on here at this site is nothing less than world changing having the potential to disrupt several industries rapidly. This cannot be overstated given the claims that originated in EEStor's early patents.

So, as the scientists here point out, "with extraordinary claims comes the requirement for extraordinary proof" and I will add to it extraordinary anticipation, discussion, dissection, hair splitting and yes, occasionally going around in circles.

Obviously, the investment anxiety is it's own animal. But I find the anxiety among those people who are simply looking for an energy solution fascinating. I especially love it when well informed people come along to shoe everyone away with "move along, there's nothing to see here." ...and then they hang out for a few months. :-)

Comments? visit TheEEStory.com

Zenn Motor's Ian Clifford: EEStor Technology is "The End of Petroleum As A Fuel"

Almost on it's anniversary, a resurfacing of an Ian Clifford interview from Sept 2007. Highlights include statements about cycleability testing over 1mil cycles and insulators.

EEStor's Potential for Production Consistency: Finger Licking Good

To discuss this article, visit:  TheEEStory.com

Late last night, after ZMC announced it's Q3 progress, I went to bed and had a strange dream. In the dream, I'm standing at the counter of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant about to place my order with what can only be described as a very intelligent-looking fast food worker who is smiling knowingly. Instead of simply making my request, I felt a deep sense of doubt and found myself saying this, "will you be able to provide me with a 3 piece meal of original recipe?" The answer was a barrage of technical jargon describing the cooking process, the worthiness of the staff and a lot of very technical terms I had never heard before. OK, I said, I'll take one. After what seemed like a pretty long wait, my tray was put in front of me and it contained--and I'm not making this up--a single chicken leg. But it was the size of a giant turkey leg. I looked up in disbelief at what I got and received an immediate response, "ok, alright, hang on a second." The tray was whisked away and another tray was put in front of me. This time I was staring at strange casserole-like mish mash of chicken pieces. At this point, I started to realize something was not right and I had to get out of there. I was so confused by the expectations I had built up over a lifetime of eating KFC, but still convinced that the ability to produce what I had once enjoyed was now somehow impossible.

And then I woke up and I was thinking about.... what else? EESU's. Sometimes after a dream, your imagination is still firing. I pictured Dick Weir talking to investors, showing them prototypes and describing his process to build them but admitting he had a little problem. The problem was that as he made and then tested the prototypes, he noticed a bit of inconsistency in their storage density. But, he ran a few tests and knew now why this was happening. The problem stemmed from the *consistency* of the underlying materials. Some batches received powder of a certain "crystallization, size, purity, and polarization" but in others all of these were off in certain ways. And so it occurred to Weir that implementing certain quality control safeguards at key steps in production would cure these issues. And these steps included in some cases improved production equipment and in others better onboard testing. The beauty of his discovery of this inconsistency in production, to Weir, was a great thing because he learned how to tweak certain things to create different storage densities. Addressing all of these issues would be a "home run" or "the holy grail" of next generation energy storage...production.

Now remember, the above is my dream and my post dream thoughts. So I got up this morning and went back to EEStor's July 31 press release and do you know what word I focused in on? The last one in the PR. "Consistency." I would argue (with Steve, if no one else) that the most important word in that entire PR is "consistency." And if you put that concept in the context of great inventions of the past, it starts to make perfect sense.

EEStor has made it very clear both to me and other sources that they have been grappling with *production issues* not new explanatory models to convince skeptics that what they are producing is theoretically possible. I would ask everyone who has an interest in the EEStory to reflect on a simple question: how are we to understand production consistency? Isn't it the simple concept of you have a production line cranking out widgets and as you're tweaking things, you find that for every 100 units you produce, 18 of them don't meet specs...then you adjust and 18 goes to 12, make another adjustment and 12 goes to 6, make another adjustment and 6 goes up to 32, then back to 12, etc etc.

If you know the error rate of a production line, you can calculate it's throughput....or as they say in networking goodput. So, now fine reader, are there dots to be connected here, beginning with those found in Zenn's most recent "Management's Discussion and Analysis?"

Throughout the document, Zenn connects to varying degrees their mission, their goals and their progress to EESU's and cityZenn. And then this:

The Company is currently engaged in negotiating a supply agreement for the cityZENN project. While there has been substantial progress and management is confident of a positive outcome, there can be no assurance that the negotiations will conclude favorably until all documents are executed. Should the current negotiations not conclude favorably, the timing of the cityZENN project would change.

Wait!?! Where's the "imminent" permitivity announcement? How can we move forward without that? You, sir, are conflating two separate issues: Zenn's investment in EEStor which hinges on a permittivity milestone announcement and Zenn's "supply agreement" with EEStor....which may now be under negotiation. Why didn't Zenn say they are negotiating with EEStor specifically? I have not read Zenn's Non Disclosure Agreement with EEStor but I'd bet its potentially interesting reading because it would reveal what it is that Zenn can't say about EEStor.

Let's talk about "supply agreements" now. (shout out to Steve for highlighting the need for copious use of quotation marks). If you're building something, which supply agreements are the most likely to have a material effect on your business?:

a) items invented a long time ago and produced for years and years  b) items invented only recently and produced by the world's first production line of said

I vote for B! (ha, pun).

Roll out bullet number 3 in Zenn's MD&A:

The press release announced the achievement of important production results moving towards the commercialization of its technology. The release indicated third-party confirmation that EEStor’s technology will meet the voltage breakdown, polarization and saturation requirements considered necessary in the development of its EESU.

In this passage, is Zenn interpreting for us the EEStor press release? And what stands between the EESU and it's commercialization? A supply agreement maybe? But what could possibly be going on that would give Zenn's management confidence "of a positive outcome?" Could it be perhaps the consistency necessary to place an order of a certain size? Is Zenn asking for 32,000 pieces of original recipe in the first 6 months with options to buy 382,334 in each of the next 7.54 months???  Is EEStor coming back and saying something like this, "look, either you place an order for 66,000 for delivery by november 30 or else we're going to build the 232,000 needed by Lockheed first." What is going on there? I definitely don't know. So, what are your theories?

Wait a second, B, go back to permittivity. You're saying that's related to investment milestones not supply agreements? Wouldnt it make sense for EEStor to announce permittivity first and collect the additional investment? Poor reader, I don't know. But I can imagine a multitude of scenarios where EEStor would be willing to throw out some aggressive negotiation requirements.

Too much speculation for you in this posting? Be my guest and start asking Zenn more and better questions.