Department of Energy FOIA Requests

Do you know what your Department of Energy is up to these days? You should if you desire to stay informed at this peculiar time in history where our dependence on fossil fuels is so directly tied to our economic security. There's a lot of good intentions out there floating around in the form of stimulus funds geared towards Energy Independence and Clean Tech. But, what are the people who we have entrusted to safe guard our energy interests actually doing?

Find out yourself by filing a FOIA request. If you are a US Citizen, you have a right to access federal agency records such as those at DOE within 20 days of receipt of your request. Here's a link to the DOE FOIA webpage.

I'm a little troubled that a recent FOIA request to learn the list of applicants for some DOE advanced vehicle funds was turned down due to exemption #5 which clearly does not apply. But maybe you will have more luck.

What harm could be brought by simply learning who has applied for stimulus funds? No need to examine the applications themselves which contain possibly proprietary information. But a simple list of who applied doesn't hurt any entity--public or private. Maybe you see it differently...as is your choice.

Here's another hopefully unrelated database: http://www.opensecrets.org/

Now that you know you have all of this power over interesting information, I invite you to make up your own conspiracy theories. Have fun, kids!

SEC Records Reveal EEStor Investors Kleiner Perkins & Topfer

An alert reader known as Spaceballs_3000  at TheEEStory.com has located a public record showing who are some of the investors in EEStor inc as of 2007.   They include:

KCPB Holdings Inc. of Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers.  The point of reference is listed at John Denniston. 

Mike Long of Terralliance (formerly of Homestore). 

The 2004 Topfer Gifting Trust.  This entity is associated with Dell Billionaire, Mort Topfer. 

There has been much speculation over who are the actual investors in the EEStor enterprise.  To date, this appears to be the first public evidence confirming Kleiner Perkins and Topfer's as investors. 

Mort Topfer Departs EEStor Again: Says EEStor Demonstrated Technology

After months of attempts, I finally was able to have a conversation with Mort Topfer about EEStor Inc.  It was brief. Here's why:  as of 3 months ago, he is no longer associated with the EEStor project.  His decision was based on the fact that he did not want to be involved with "such an early stage startup company." He cited his age, 73, as a key factor.   

B: Does your leaving EEStor imply that you do not believe they have the technology they claim to have?

Topfer:  I don't know the answer to that question.  They claim to have the technology and I've seen it demonstrated but they haven't gone to product yet so I really don't know. 

B: But you've seen it *demonstrated*???

Topfer:  Yes.

(pause) 

B: And so..... it has the energy density that they say that it has?

Topfer: Well, they showed me reports that say that.  Correct. 

B: Your departure, is it based on anything you felt was amiss with EEStor?

Topfer: No, I just decided that I didn't really want to be involved with an early stage startup company. I'm 73 yrs old. I think it's got a reasonable amount of time...to go forward and I didn't want to be associated with such an early stage company. 

My sense was that Mr. Topfer genuinely wanted to focus on other things... perhaps notably the Topfer Family Foundation which serves a number of excellent charity causes related mostly to children.  

Image Source: CNET.

Ener1 Deck Chair Article

CNNMoney.com writer Steve Hargreaves has a nice article out today on Ener1. The article highlights many of the same challenges EEStor will face in moving from where it is now with component testing to a scaled up manufacturing capability. No mention of EEStor in the article, meaning you the reader, are still on the fringe. How does that fringe feel to you? Or maybe, sir, you are on the bleeding edge and Mr. Hargreaves is on the dust heap?

The impossibility of EEStor's impossibility is itself Impossible

"The impossibility of EEStor's impossibility is itself Impossible, " so says a group of 3rd order naysayer believers who call themselves "Ferro-Para-analytic EEstorextentialists" at a recent online gathering of the group.

"We've looked at this thing three ways from Sunday and the evidence is very clearly in our favor," said an unknown participant. When pressed to unpack the seemingly repetitive description to produce a simple belief statement, the group declined further comment.

This is further proof that splinter groups with even stranger beliefs than the fringe are emerging and could morph further into free-->ee radicals.

EEStor's Tom Weir Discusses Short Term Objectives

With the announcement of EEStor's permittivity certification milestone in May 2009 behind us, observers are watching closely to learn what comes next from the Cedar Park, TX company. Zenn Motor Company's VP of Engineering, Mike Bergeron added a bit of background on this topic via a recent interview with me this week. But Bergeron and Zenn are bound by their tech agreement to avoid being too verbose.

To see if I could learn more, I contacted Tom Weir at EEStor Inc. this morning. First, EEStor now has visibility to the necessary funding commitments that should allow them to meet their anticipated near-term objectives. Second, Weir says they are moving further along their path. Tom Weir:

"Our objective is to complete component testing by September 2009. In parallel, we will be finalizing our second objective which consists of the assembly processes necessary to deliver production quality components and/or EESU's by the end of 2009. "

Just what does component testing consist of exactly? To answer this question, I turned to a subject matter expert with several years experience in capacitor manufacturing who preferred not to be named for this article. ( However, I can reveal his username at TheEEStory.com forums as none other than CapacitorMan.) The standard component tests for capacitor manufacturers consist of the following:

1) Capacitance

2) Dissipation Factor

3) Insulation Resistance

4) Voltage Coefficient (measuring capacitance vs voltage)

5) Temperature Coefficient (measuring capacitance vs temperature)

6) Voltage breakdown

Capman went on to say that a piezoelectric coefficient test, though not widely performed elsewhere, would be important in EEStor's case "if they have the size capacitor they are talking about. " He went on, "a piezoelectric coefficient test would be important for them because it measures how much the ceramic moves when you shock it with a high voltage. "

As speculated previously, the pace of information coming out of EEStor Inc. appears to be on the uptick as it zeros in on the completion of the commercialization of the EESU.

To discuss this article, please visit:

http://theeestory.com/topics/2044

Zenn Motor Company Suddenly Less Mysterious?

Is it possible that EEStor Inc. partner Zenn Motor Company could suddenly become far less mysterious....almost over night? Certainly not. But they might be able to put a few issues to bed. Muahaha!

EEStor Silences DIelectric Saturation Criticism

Due to Zenn Motor Company's recent announcement of it's validation of EEStor's recent permittivity test results, we have learned that constituent materials of EEStor's energy storage system are operating in what's known as the paralectric phase in contrast to the widely predicted ferroelectric phase.  

Dielectric Saturation was widely and emotionally delivered as the death knell to EEStor's prospects for delivering on it's claims.  But this is a phenomena that does not occur in the paraelectric phase (except possibly at extremely high voltages).  

What the hell does all of this mean?   Quite simply this: if you poll the opinions of the EEStor skeptics over the past year, the #1 leading fundamental problem they had with EEStor's claims was that it would suffer from the effects of Dielectric Saturation.   They were all wrong. All wrong. 

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAH!!!!!!  So laugh it up believers, you earned it!

What do the skeptics at TheEEStory.com have to say about this?  Strangely little.  

Zenn Motors Announcement

Trading of Zenn stock was halted today at 11:20 pending a news release by the company. The request for halting came from the company.  They've never done that before apparently. 

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Zenn-Motor-Company-TSX-VENTURE-ZNN-993395.html

EEStor Throws The Blogger a Bone

If you've been following the EEStory for any period of time, you know that for some mysterious reason, EEStor occasionally speaks with me, an anonymous blogger. Possibly, if you ask Dick Weir, he might possibly say it's because he knows that I know that any Marine who risked life and limb for the freedom of insignificant people like me is and always will be a noble sacrifice. You might say I pay my EEStor bills with respect, something very foreign to many who show EEStor disdain at their business choices. In the meantime, I am very certain that EEStor is not at all concerned or interested in educating irrelevant skeptics while they make their way along their path to commercialization. That said, occasionally the stars align and I am able to acquire a few more clues about EEStor's ongoing validation of their technology, something that appears to only be understood by persons who are not simply focused on material science but also those who understand manufacturing milestones.



In that context, I am happy to learn that EEStor's recent permittivity testing took place with a few additional data points. First, the permittivity had a loss of less than 10% across the temperatures it was tested. Secondly, the frequency of the testing was 100Hz. That much was included in the 3rd party testing. Within it's own internal tests, EEStor has shared with me that the loss value is flat from 100Hz up to 100,000Hz. If you recall past blog posts, this is data that persons from Penn State were interested in obtaining to further assess the significance of the announcement.

Ordinarily, I would provide additional commentary by way of recording some interpretations of this additional data from some SME's. But my results from very cursury attempts at this were mixed. So I felt I would simply share the information and let it speak for itself...whatever its significance may be.