DOE places $465Mil bet on Tesla

Tesla landed a $465Mil DOE loan according to a Wired article.  The loan is supposed to aid the development of the Model S, a car the vast majority of Americans  (and Earthlings) can not afford.   That's an interesting amount of money to be sure.   

Movie Review: A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash

I watched the documentary A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash this weekend. It was the first time I had a look at an organized view of how much oil is left on the Earth and how it impacts several things such as the environment and the economy. I think the movie makes a compelling case for a simple point: our future generations will not have the luxury of basing their economies on oil. Secondly, it confronts viewers with the question: are we transitioning from fossil fuels fast enough? For me, even before I watched this movie, the answer was and is NO (chiefly for the energy indepedence that I value for the USA). But after the movie, I'm even more passionate (or frightened) about this. I recognize that documentaries such as this  usually have a political axe to grind but I think this movie did a decent job of putting those elements in the background and keeping the issues that impact all of us out front. I'm not so sure the movie Fuel will achieve the same feel but I'm looking forward to checking it out too.

I'm trying not to be preachy in this post. I simply think you ought to check out the movie and come to your own conclusions. Also, if you have a recommendation for a different way of looking at the problem, please email me: eestorblog@gmail.com and in a later post, I'll write about it too.
Update: thanks to the reader who pointed out a key problem with one of my sentences above which is fixed now. :-)

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.