Envia Systems: ARPA-E's Greatest Success To Date?

2012 ARPA-E Technology Showcase
Envia Co-Founder, Sujeet Kumar with A123 Systems' Yet-Ming Chiang

The 2012 ARPA-E Innovation Summit kicked off this week amid ongoing reports of renewable energy's funeral toll and various politically oriented DOE quasi-scandals.   The pressure to deliver a winner is so intense at this time,  DOE recently hired a full time psychologist to deal with the pervasive loss of fingernails (due to biting) among & between staff.   To make matters worse, the Red Phone in the White House has been reprogrammed to ring Arun Majumdar in hopes that something--anything--might emerge as a success this election year.   As everything goes into slow motion, and the buzzer is just about to sound,  Envia Systems has slipped through the crowd to catch ARPA-E's first game winning touchdown.  It is no exaggeration to say this is a very big deal.

1) 400wh/kg
2) Automotive Grade (not a prototype)
3) $150/kwh
4) Validated by US Navy Testing
5) General Motors Funding of $17Mil

This combination of factors seems to be, quite clearly, the exact sort of breakthrough ARPA-E was designed to achieve.   After another round of cycle testing at the Navy's Crane, IN facilities, we should be in a prime position to declare this ARPA-E's greatest victory to date which in turn would be the Department of Energy's greatest victory to date which in turn would be the Obama Administration's greatest victory to date.  Consider the following rationale.

Envia's battery has the ability to create sub $20,000 electric cars (with no range problems even for heavy Americans) which when factored with total cost of ownership and with modest gains in production efficiencies, will make electric cars superior to gas powered vehicles....economically.   As a country, we spend around $1Trillion/year on foreign oil and another $1Trillion on Dept of Defense whose main mission is to protect our energy supply lines.  Eliminating those two misappropriations of US wealth holds the power to restore economic growth and spur innovation unlike anything we have seen to date.  (I know.  It's all very convincing. )

It's no wonder then that A123 Systems founder Yet-Ming Chiang stopped by the Envia booth at the ARPA-E Summit this week to ask a few questions... and congratulate them on their success.   Chiang spent at least 20 minutes with the Envia founders and flipped through the Navy test result report they had on hand.  He was visibly impressed.   So does that mean Envia takes over A123 Systems as the next battery innovator on which people with deep pockets place their hope?    That's not exactly clear since Envia's business model calls for "selling cathode material to cell vendors" such as A123...which would make a lot of sense.  Companies like A123 have invested in production/manufacturing equipment.  Envia doesn't want to go through a ramp cycle like that--they simply want to insert their innovation into existing infrastructure for speed to market.   Yes, this is a glimmer of genuine hope for people who have waited patiently for an American energy storage breakthrough.

Torch Bearers of the Lithium Ion Tradition 

But is it actually a true American success?  Not exactly. The investors to date comprise an international consortium of venture and business concerns including American, Canadian and Japanese companies.  This is an internationally funded company, i.e.,  not a straight play American company.  Even though Envia's headquarters are in Newark, CA, it's manufacturing facility is in Jiaxing, China which raises interesting questions about Envia's intention to actually develop anything substantive in the United States.  It does not appear that they do.  At least not in the Obama Administration sense of creating manufacturing jobs in the United States.  :-(   And finally, as we've stated before, lithium ion solutions will always have a question around the origins of the lithium--most of which is foreign.

So, yes, there is still room to sit around and wait for something better which leaves us to our increasingly lonely practice of speculating about EEStor...and Recapping.    And...?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Thanks FM. You freak.

ZNN Trading Halt?

http://tmx.quotemedia.com/article.php?newsid=4783244&qm_symbol=ZNN:CA

We've been here before. Don't get your hopes too high.

Latest Blog Article

I posted my latest EEStor blog article on TheEEStory.com last night.  Did you get to read it? It made a few people's mouth water.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Review: Mad Like Tesla by Tyler Hamilton

This is me helping sell a few copies of Tyler Hamilton's new book, "Mad Like Tesla" which contains new information about EEStor.  It really does contain new information about EEStor...that I did not know previously. It has fresh EEStor research hitherto unrevealed publicly except in this new book available on Amazon.

What new information you ask?  If I told you, you wouldn't buy the book.  I got the book overnighted to me for around $10.   Basically, Hamilton is giving it away unfortunately not that authors of books make much money.

What's in the rest of the book? Um...uh....ok, I didn't read the book yet.  I can tell you it is about what people mean when they say some new technology is impossible...with past and present examples to sift through all the salient points.  Sound familiar?

In any case, rather than write an article summarizing the EEStor portion of his book, I think it would be better if people actually read it first and then discuss it.   Maybe later I'll write a fuller review.

Only 10 books are left in stock.  Reminder: it has new information.  You want that don't you?  Don't you? Yeah, I knew you did. Get it. Get the information and consume it.

Youtube-Gate

Late Friday, a mysterious video posted to YouTube purported to be of EEStor founder Dick Weir making wild pronouncements about EEStor technology and it's potential impact on the US economy.   After a brief discussion with EEStor today, I learned it is not credible.

Powder Stash Suggests Maybe EEStor Is In Production

For years, curious searchers of EEStor truth have wondered to themselves, "how can those guys be in high volume production in a tiny strip mall?" Well, thanks to yet another anonymous source, we are now able to confirm the powder production is going gangbusters. Observe.

Secret EEStor Powder Storage Site     Cedar Park, TX

As you can see, the powder production is exceeding the capacity of the secret Cedar Park storage facility.  The issue came to the attention of local citizens when it became increasingly difficult to wade through 3 feet of packed powder all over Cedar Park, TX.  The city council was able to pass a resolution setting lift tickets at $45/day for non-citizens.

Conincidentally, researchers from Penn State recently began posting " Cedar Park vacation pictures" to their facebook accounts like this:

EEStory Finally Talked To Database Table Death

As you rock back and forth with drool escaping on to your clothes and things around you in response to TheEEStory.com being down, it may be a good time to consider whether your addiction to my website is really the best thing for you.   Sure, it is great fun to talk with others every day about the same mostly silent battery company, but is it good for you?   Perhaps this is a fork in the road for you?  On the right is the path that leads right back to your addiction once we repair the database for the EEStory that houses forum posts.  On the left is the potential of a new turn for you, back into the light wherein you might regain a tiny fraction of the dignity you've lost pursuing barium titanate tidbits at TheEEStory.com.  It is your choice to make. I'm sending you all positive energy, buddy.....don't get zapped by it.

Vinod Khosla's Ongoing Obsession with Energy Storage...Worth Following

I've written about Vinod Khosla's interests in energy storage several times.  He has many strong opinions about many areas of cleantech but energy storage has to be placed near the top of what he is passionate about.  Previously, I reported on Khosla's investment in Recapping Inc., a startup intent on revolutionizing ceramic based capacitor storage using insight gained from semiconductor fabrication experience among it's ranks and combining it with the knowledge & experience of Penn State's leading ceramics researchers Clive Randall, Eric Cross & a few unknowns who probably wish they could get their names published in articles like this one that I write (ok, probably not).  Most of my attempts to get a recent update on Recapping's need to produce a working prototype for ARPA have gone ignored.  I say most because at least one attempt was not ignored and lead to an email telling me to quit bugging the researchers.  :-)

My read on Recapping is the simple one:  what they are trying to do is not easy. :-)  It's amusing to me that they have embarked on what is best described as an EEStor-like project, something many of them have spoken on negatively in the past.  (I put it that way to see if I can invoke correction emails behind the scenes if you must know).

In the meantime, Vinod Khosla is not waiting around to see if Recapping can recreate EEStor technology.  Instead, he has placed yet another bet in yet another similarly described energy storage startup.  As avid readers of this blog know, ARPA provided funding to multiple energy storage startups last year. Two of the projects sounded similar to me: Recapping and a project from Stanford lead by researcher Fritz Prinz.  I learned this week from another cleantech blog that Khosla is also invested in a company which intends to license the All Electron Battery Prinz and team are working on. That company is called Quantumscape, a name chosen perhaps to signal arrival at that "Netscape moment" in energy spoken about by several VC's like John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins over the years.   Khosla's latest slide deck describing his philosophy of energy and interests in it include reference to Quantumscape.  

So what about this other battery project at Stanford?  To find out, I contacted Fritz Prinz who told me that it is "premature to make any statements at this point" about his progress.  I pointed out to him that referencing statement making is rarely done when things are going poorly to which he replied cautiously:

In my long history of science I learned that it take sometimes much longer than one thinks to get things done. Premature statements can lead to loss of credibility. I want to keep my credibility with you and rest of the community high by remaining neutral at this point and not making any statements until we are ready to publish. Our results are not ready for peer review.

Of course, the proper retort was to point out that patent disclosures for his project have included claims of energy density around 250wh/kg which he acknowledged was true.  He told me that the patents are still under review and that some of the earliest identified structures are now out of date....which was intriguing.  We closed out the conversation by agreeing that I would be the first person to interview him once he has news, an honor I won by simply requesting it...in contrast to everyone else who had simply requested an interview irrespective of order. ;-)

Ok, time to drive this article closer to completion.  Why is Khosla so vocal about lithium ion and other legacy energy storage technologies?  Is it because he knows Recapping & Quantumscape have the goods?  You tell me.   If they do or they don't, there is, as it turns out, yet another opportunity to hedge one's bets.

ARPA awarded some funding to Gerhard Welsh of Case Western Reserve University for yet another capacitor based energy storage technology.  In previous disclosures, Welsh has been modest in describing his prospects by saying his technology could be best geared for power electronics applications more so than battery replacement.  He mentioned that he is working with Rutile (TiO2) or titanate based dielectrics (remember Rolf's Quantum battery?).  I asked Dr Welsh about disclosures in his patent application which suggest that 2000J/cc is possible in a capacitor based storage system. Was this something he has achieved?  His reply:

a) 2000 J/cc in a capacitor dielectric is theoretically possible. However, we have not achieved it yet, and it is uncertain whether is can be practically achieved.   The highest we have achieve so far is near 400 J/cc in a self-repairing (Ti-oxide based) dielectric. The self-discharge times (CV-time constants) of such capacitors need improvement. The ARPA-e grant allows us to work on developing dielectrics with higher energy density than the best commercial capacitors and to address their reliability . 

b) the quoted energy densities are for dielectrics operating at a high fraction of their theoretical field strength. Such high fields (500 to 1000 Volt/micrometer) can only be sustained in an electrolytic capacitor. As the volume fraction of dielectric in an electrolytic capacitor is usually less than 20%, the energy density of the capacitor is less than 0.2  times the energy density of the dielectric.  This is still much better than what can be achieved in a ceramic capacitor. With geometric optimization this factor can be improved. We are also working on achieving a high geometrical efficiency (form factor).  In part this enable utilization of a high volume fraction of dielectric. It is also necessary for power, i.e., low series resistance in a capacitor enables rapid charging and discharging of a capacitor.  A power capacitor needs both an energy-dense dielectric and a geometry that allows a low series resistance. 

So, there you have it. Measured results of 400J/cc with prospects for going higher.  I think these projects prove that it isn't so crazy to suggest capacitors will one day replace batteries, as some of us have been saying for years (in my case, upon learning about EEStor).  Congratulations to you if like me, you made such statements when it was deemed crazy talk. ;-)  

Now for an obligatory discussion question.  What do you make of Khosla's money following ARPA's money?  Clearly, he is hedging his bets but isn't it correct to point out that he could shoulder all of these risky projects entirely on his own dime?  This situation caused me to have the following idea.  It seems like it would be a good idea if the US Federal Govt or DOE maintained some level of equity in projects it funds. This would allow things that become a hit to help pay for further research. I hope someone in DOE already had that idea and implemented it.  I'd hate to see taxpayers shoulder a majority of risk allowing billionaires like Khosla to reap a majority of the value.  That's not cool if that is what is going on....unless you are Vinod Khosla.

Zenn & EEStor Renew Vows

When the weather warms up, weddings begin populating the calendar & love is in the air.  In the business world, corporate courting occasionally leads to similar unifications.  Today, Zenn Motor Company announced the intention to repeat their vows with EEStor in a press release issued this morning.  New board chairman, Jim Kofman pledged "to increase its interaction with EEStor and, where appropriate, collaborate with and assist EEStor."  In exchange for carrying out this important new priority, Kofman quietly announced he will be seizing a mere 150,000 stock options.  Additionally, Rick McGraw and Brian Cott have officially ejected Zenn perhaps as part of the effort to have "reduced operational activities and an increased emphasis on collaboration and value creation around its unique relationship with EEStor?"    Later, Zenn plans "a further simplification and restructuring of the organization" ending in a team of approximately 5-10 key players including Jim, Roger, Allan, Ian, Dick, Tom, a few others & "the bag headed one."  

EEStor declined to comment on this story.

Do these new beginnings make other EEStor partner, Lockheed Martin, jealous?  As of this morning at least, Lockheed Martin's Craig Van Bebber says there is "no change to our agreement."  Incidently, if you must know, that statement is nearly the answer to every EEStor question you lob towards Lockheed Martin these days.  Do they feel they've lost credibility for linking up with EEStor?  "No change to our agreement."  Are they worried that they jumped the gun on a perpetual motion equivalent? "No change to our agreement."  Why haven't they pumped about $50mil into EEStor? "No change to our agreement." Are UAV's going to have EEStor batteries?  "No change to our agreement."  How do you handle disagreements with EEStor? "No change to our agreement."  The agreement was green initially but now it looks a bit blue in color?  "No change to our agreement." Does the agreement age poorly? "No change to our agreement." AFRL thinks you guys are nuts. Are you?  "No change to our agreement."  It is a bit robotic but makes it easier to complete this article.

So of course, now, finally, after all of these years, Dick Weir has everything in place as he wanted it and is ready to take center stage and let the cat out of the bag, right?   Sure, ok.

Note: Nothing in this article originated from a drunken txt message.

Kleiner Perkins' Bill Joy Ends Silence About EEStor

Source: Masshightech.com

Six years after leading the Kleiner Perkins effort to invest in EEStor, billionaire venture capitalist Bill Joy has finally commented publicly about the investment at the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge this past Thursday evening.  During an open Q&A session, an attendee asked about progress at EEStor and Joy spent about five minutes talking about energy storage in general and offered a few thoughts about EEStor in particular. His comments end speculation about whether or not Kleiner Perkins still has an interest in EEStor.  They do and Bill Joy is still hopeful they will come through but not ready to cease hedging his bets in the energy storage space.

The fireside chat was hosted by Jason Pontin, editor in chief of Technology Review. Below is rough transcript of the exchange on EEStor. (The audio supplied to me was a little rough in places)



Attendee Question:

Since tomorrow is Earth Day and we're here at MIT, it seems like a unique opportunity to ask you about a portfolio company whose lead researcher got his start here at MIT. I'm talking about Carl Nelson & EEStor. I was wondering if you are happy with the progress to date at EEStor and also if everything pans out there, what is your vision for that company?

Bill Joy: 

Well I think. Ok so EEStor is a company that is trying to do a barium titanate giga...I dont know what you call it. It's not hyper super ultra. It's a capacitive energy storage using barium titanate. And it's difficult to do what they are trying to do. And the product isn't out yet. 

But if you look at energy storage you know for...what have we typically done? We pump water uphill and let it run downhill.  People would propose to maybe make an underground cavern and pressurize it and let the gas out something or you do have flow batteries. You start to go into electrochemistry batteries. Flow batteries or you do lithium ion batteries or sodium ion batteries that we talked about.  But ultimately at the end of the day you say, ah,  you know, it's volti, right the voltaic cell. This is old stuff. Kind of violates my rule of not doing something that could have been done in the 19th century. I like to think the future isn't gonna just be electrochemistry that we could have solid state energy storage something that's based on you know maybe early 20th century stuff. It could be a quantum effect or some something that lets us have something which is almost perfectly efficient and has some kind of Moore's law effect to it and be very very durable, high power and  high energy density. 

So you like to have that. And EEStor is an example of something solid state. I always say in investing I prefer solids to liquids and liquids to gases.  And we prefer... semiconductors is our favorite kind of solid.   So... It's just because we can engineer it. When things sit still, we can engineer their structure more and it's more predictable.  And we get access to semiconductor physics which lets us interact with heat and light and all these. There's all of these magical things we can do that came out of say quantum theory.  We're gonna....liquid phase or chemistry, you've got free energy bounds on everything you do and you know, it can get messy. .............reactions and materials fall apart. Whereas a solid state, it is the basis of electronics and it can last basically forever.  And gases, things move around it's hard to have alot of innovations there.  

Energy storage is the same thing. I'd like to see it go from liquid phase chemistry essentially to solid state physics. That would be very desirable. And then you limit cases of energy storage that should be solid state.

Now it is an open question probably whether that...will that transition occur in this decade or the next decade or two decades from now. I'm mean. It's great to have people trying it but it is hard.  And so, when we had this list of 25 grand challenges...when we went out looking for things, we didn't think we would find them all. And if we find investable things that are bred(predicated?) on one of those grand challenges, we don't necessarily expect it to work.  If the list of 25, 10 of them work, that would be a miracle. Because they are set to be very aspirational. So solid state energy storage would be on the list. And that's an example of an investment that is trying to ...with a improvement on an existing technology essentially because barium titanate is used as a material, common material in capacitors. An improvement on the technology to get there through a very you know controversial way of using that material. So.

You can't always predict....things we can't always predict what materials are going to do. You can't do computational level of algebra. We don't have computer simulations with perfect fidelity for any of these things so we have to go try things. One of our sayings is...we prefer things that work in practice to things that work in theory. It's nice if they work in theory but we can always invent the theory afterwards. 

I prefer not to violate the 2nd law of conservation of energy, the standard model. Some things we don't know...any magnetic monopole (?) ....I'm not really interested you know but so we can't always simulate things and we are willing to lose a couple millions dollars to try and see if some effect is plausible or will work ....that we dont have a close form computer simulation. But it's plausible to people trained in the art that it's not.....they can't explain to me on a napkin why it wouldn't work. 

Jason Pontin:  

For what it's worth, every year, Tech Review chooses the 10 technologies we think are most promising to have some kind of a breakthrough in the near future and Solid state was one of them and EEStor is one of the examples we pointed out.

Bill Joy: 

I'd love to find....if someone has another solid state energy state...speculative....it's hard enough to invest in another one of those. 

------------------------------------

After the fireside chat, Joy answered questions from a small crowd of people for over an hour. 

Question:  

So, are you still hopeful about EEStor?

Bill Joy:  

Oh yeah. I mean these things are hard so there is always a chance they won't work. But we're very uh......We'll see. I don't know anything that isn't in the press. 

Question:  ....a person team somebody that already may already have a solution that hasn't been discovered, is that something you think is possible?   Like a crowdsouring...somewhere in world that's working....

Bill Joy: 

It doesn't tend to work that way. It proceeds from somebody who has deep expertise in a domain who acquires interdisciplinary collaborators. Thats a better formula. There are no child prodigies in these fields that involve physics and chemistry. 

You really just have....you mentioned Carl Nelson he is like 90 years old an MIT PHD material scientist, who is one of the inventors under EEStor. If you don't have someone like Carl. I mean you ask Carl, tell me something about halfnium. Carl will talk to you for 15 minutes about halfnium. He knows something about every element in the periodic table. He can tell you off the top of his head what its crystal forms are and alot of interesting properties. I mean you have to be intimate with the periodic table to do this kind of stuff.  You have  know... .you really have to have had a career.  With somebody like that, he's probably the oldest founder I ever backed.  But you just have dinner with him and you realize he really understands what he is doing with materials. 

Now what they are proposing to do is wild. And there's lots of reasons in which some of these things could fail to be commercialized. I'm not saying whether it's worked or not and if we've announced it or not, I'm just saying it's hard.  What they're trying to do...obviously, it's took years...to get....since they....first....it's not easy to do these things. So...but the worthwhile things usually are hard and they always take longer

Non-Disclosure Agreements: EEStory Ship of Gold

Thanks to a dedicated reader who has contributed research to numerous items of interest to the EEStory, we have an interesting book excerpt to read in order to get us into the mindset of Dick Weir in his fund raising days.  What am I talking about?

The book Ship of Gold was published in 1998 and written by Gary Kinder.  It documents the story of "maverick scientist and entrepreneur Tommy Thompson" who discovered and lead the 1989 recovery of approximately $1Billion of gold found in a shipwrecked vessel called the Central America whose 1857 voyage terminated at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

I highly recommend buying this book (even though I haven't read it yet) because I'm publishing a long excerpt of it which I think you will enjoy.   It looks like a brilliant story. The kind I wish I had read when I was in college.  

In any case, the excerpt covers the portion of the book that documents Thompson's effort's to raise funding to retrieve the sunken treasure. I think you will enjoy this as much as I did.  If you don't enjoy it, perhaps there is something wrong with you. Profoundly wrong.

Here are the excerpts:

Excerpt #1

Excerpt #2

Sorry if the formatting drives you bonkers.

German Company--DBM Energy-- Uses Hummingbirds as Batteries

Note: the following article is based on several German news articles I read recently. To preserve accuracy, I felt it appropriate to abandon the horrible translations made possible by Google and other similar tools and just hack it together myself.  I think you will find the significance of the story easier to grasp as a result.

A German company--DBM Energy-- has identified a way to connect tiny hummingbirds to an electric motor and achieve single charge electric vehicle distance records.  First, the birds are placed on a conveyor belt, coated in lithium (a process licensed from KFC) & filled with nectar, a tradition the Dutch call KOLIBRI, which is short for "Call the Library. "  The result is an efficient and tasty treat that could change the eating habits of electric vehicle consumers everywhere.  The German connoisseur's at DEKRA tasted the crunchy fowl and certified the results. (Michelin refused to participate--Zero Stars)  All of this has caused a firestorm of controversy in Germany, which a few months ago ignited the test vehicles used by DBM. They didn't have backup vehicles and had to reinvent the batteries from scratch in 4 months.)   But they did it again.  And now, everyone wants to meet "the Blue-headed hummingbird in the zoo of Augsburg" which sponsors DBM research.

To gain further insight, I contacted Mirko Hannemann, CEO of DBM and he provided the following information. (He urged me to conduct the interview in English):

B:  Frau Hanneman, thanks be to Wōdanaz for allowing me to ask you a few questions about your batteries.

MH:  Hair Hanneman.  Hair. No problem.

B:  Sure. Thanks.  Let's start with the fire.  You have these great batteries but decided to burn them and start over?  Could you explain?

MH: No B. We didn't burn the batteries, our storage facility caught fire and destroyed our test vehicle.  Do you understand?

B: Ah yes, very good. Is that because you couldn't control the charging apparatus and it blew up or something?

MH: No, the fire was investigated and determined to have nothing to do with our technology.

LA Laker Fan at the Parthenon

B:  OK, good.   How many times did you swap out the batteries when you drove from Munich to Berlin?

MH: Excuse me?  No, no, this was a single charge. No batteries were swapped.  We charged them once and drove the entire distance without recharging.

B:  What is the size of the fuel tank on the test vehicle?  Was it refilled?

MH: No, this is an electric only vehicle.  No fuels. Just batteries.

B:  Ah, that explains it then.  The test course is all downhill isn't it?

MH: Sort of, yes.

B: How did the car handle in neutral?  Did you burn out the brakes?

MH: Would you like to talk about the batteries maybe?

B: Would you like me to do the interview maybe?

MH: The batteries. Please.

B:  OK. 250 Wh/kg?

MH: That is correct. Certified.

B: I think that's probably what my readers want to know.   It certainly sounds very promising and I'd like to congratulate you on all of your accomplishments.  This is a great feat for Germans everywhere.

MH: Thank you. We have a dedicated team here and will do what we can to bring these batteries to market as quickly as the automakers will allow.   We are ready.

B:  That sounds great.  What is your plan for operations after EEStor delivers EESU's this year and puts you out of business?

MH:  We were thinking of going public like A123 Systems and then closing up shop slowly over the course of 5 years like A123.

B: I thought so.  There are certainly people willing to fund that plan.  Well, best of luck to you and yours.  One more thing, how can I contact the blue headed hummingbird of Augsburg?

Blue Headed 6 Minute Charge

Wired Reporters Trash Unsung DoD Science Hero

Source: Google Images

Wired's Noah Shachtman & Spencer Ackerman have been publishing a series of investigative articles attacking the ethics of DARPA head Regina Dugan.  The controversy centers around the fact that prior to her appointment to head the US DoD's premier research organization, she helped launch a startup company, RedXDefense, devoted in part to creating better detection of explosive devices.  The problem highlighted by Shachtman & Ackerman & Manymen is that when she was appointed head of DoD by Secretary Robert Gates, she disclosed being the company's co-founder & owning 15,000 shares.  Although she followed accepted procedures and recused herself from any dealings concerning RedXDefense, it was later awarded a contract by DARPA. Then another.  Oh, her father, uncle & sister work for the company & it owes Dugan $250,000...as repayment for a loan or something.

Great material for a govt scandal article right?  Wrong.

Regina Dugan was appointed head of DARPA precisely because of her competence as a researcher & entrepreneur--> the exact profile of persons DARPA courts to conduct its research.  Dugan has a 1984 BS, 1985 MS & 1993 PHD in mechanical engineering. She wrote her dissertation about un-detonated bombs.   She entered the workforce as a researcher at a premier non-profit DoD think-tank called Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) in 1993.  She must have impressed many because 3 short years later, DARPA hired her to manage a $100Mil research portfolio that included projects to detect land mines & help Marines storm mine infested beaches.  Between 2001-2003, the Army asked her to study what was happening in Afghanistan with IED's.

TheEEstory.com Under Attack Again!!!

Image: Starships.com? WT?

Nah, I'm kidding.  It's probably just technical difficulties. You know, difficulties that are technical meaning techniques and technologies are technically tenacious at this time.  Don't worry though, you don't really need TheEEStory.com right now. You have this blog post to read which I can tell you are definitely enjoying.  I know I am enjoying writing it.  Tell me, what if I told you right now that I am shutting down TheEEStory for good?  All gone.  Wouldn't that be sorta like becoming a vegetarian all of a sudden (or vice versa you vegans out there)?  How would you handle that situation anyway?  I know it is crazy to think about.  Blows your mind doesn't it?  Yeah, me too. Whew.  Well, listen, I can't really keep writing this blog post all day. I've got other blog posts to write.  News topics area always coming at me. That's what it's like being the center of the EEStor information universe.  Oh, are you surprised by that statement?  You think Dick Weir is the center of that universe?  No, it is me and only me.  Ok, sure, he does a little bit every now and then but for the most part all of his information is "proprietary" whereas see, I'm open source.  Proprietary. Open Source. See the difference?  I find that followers have adopted me as a solution for EEStor information because I don't require you to invest $5Mil in EEStor to obtain it.   True, I should require it but I don't...for the time being.  Do any of you have $5Mil out there?  If so, send it to me.  Don't worry about what I'll do with it. It will be happy here. I give you my solemn assurance.

Any way, you probably miss your friends at TheEEStory so go ahead and make use of the comment section to talk to your buddies OLD SCHOOL style.  Remember the early days on this blog when Y_Po would post like 85 comments in a day and battle Steve and others?   Wow. What a long time we've been sitting around waiting for Godot.

UPDATE:  Site is back up!

Lockheed Martin & EEStor: An Enduring Love

As Tuesday Feb 1, 2011, Lockheed Martin maintains that there have been "no changes" in it's EEStor agreement.  "Our rights agreement is still in effect," Craig Van Bebber wrote in an email to me today.

To find out why Lockheed would maintain such a long term relationship with EEStor Inc and get virtually nothing in return, I decided to go under cover once again to see if perhaps a nugget of truth could be located among the abyss of misinformation about EEStor that exists on the Internet and around the world.

What I learned may surprise you:  while most business relationships are predicated on a quid pro quo basis,  the Lockheed-EEStor hookup is based purely on love.  It started when a mutual friend introduced them at a social event and soon blossomed into a 3 division review resulting in an inability to conclude EEStor's technology couldn't work (or if it doesn't, at least Lockheed couldn't find a reason why it couldn't).   This paved the way for love to take root and bring both parties a rarely experienced profoundly intense LOVE.

According to Lockheed Martin strongman & CEO, Bob Stevens, it is not uncommon for the two companies to exchange poems penned by each company's board of directors.   I was able to obtain an unauthorized copy of such an exchange recently. I will quote sufficiently to allow you a guess at the author:

To me, you are like love taffy

I can't wait to hold you but once I do

I can never let go

until I wash with industrial soap

which is itself rather nice

About the only time the relationship went rocky was when both parties were separated due to family vacations and the dreadful thought that perhaps their beloved was wooed by someone else inevitably crept in.

"I'm not saying A123 Systems and GE are attractive mates.  But the thought of Lockheed running to their arms almost drove me mad with jealously, " stated a senior executive at EEStor too embarrassingly smitten to admit his or her name in conjunction with this flowery topic.   When I checked with Lockheed,  a key spokesperson within Missiles and Fire Control assured me "when in love, the mind can wander off a cliff on occasion which only adds to the excitement and fire in a real romance. "

But is this an enduring relationship? As one senior Lockheed executive explained recently,  "Listen. Let me explain something and you draw whatever conclusions you wish to draw.   What we have together is not the typical booster rocket event leading to an almost immediate crash. We've already endured real pain together and it only brought us closer.  It's not what our minds tell us that counts, it is what our souls identify as our meaning. Do you understand?"  This last sentence was accompanied by an almost frightening facial depiction of earnestness.

So this Valentine's day, when you ponder your particular romance status, keep in mind that personal relationships aren't the only option when it comes to experiencing love: sometimes you can find this in the commercial world as well.  The mechanics can be awkward and may require a whole new set of social conventions, but some companies are making it work.

Yet Another EEStor Patent Application: Power Averaging

Due to an inadvertent misconfiguration early in the process, the EEStor pilot production line under construction in their Cedar Park, TX facility has been producing patent applications instead of capacitor components for the past couple years.  No word on when that might get corrected. In the meantime, the    latest EEStor patent application, published today, January 20, 2011 has to do with with power averaging.   The abstract indicates the following:

A system is disclosed for providing power averaging for the utility grids and more specifically to utilizing a unique EESU unit with the capability to store electrical energy over 24 hour periods each day and provide power averaging to homes, commercial, and industrial sites to reduce the peak power requirements. charging such power averaging units during the non-peak times and delivering the energy during the peak demands times provides for more efficient utilization of utility-grid power-generating plants and the already existing capability of isolating the users from utility grid power failures, transients and AC noise. 

According to unnamed sources, this patent has caused a few concerned individuals over at American Power Conversion to clean out their desk and update their linkedin profile.  Not so fast folks. You can always license your existence from EEStor.  Good luck.  Oh, I almost forgot, that is....IF Dick Weir's battery works.  So many geniuses make it clear to us that actually testing dielectrics and components for energy density may be something Weir shelved a long time ago.  Brilliant insight.

Furthermore, the patent reveals what EEStor thinks a home EESU might cost:  $4000-$5000. It would save the end user approximately $1000/yr in situations where off peak electricity is cheaper than during peak. (assuming more variables than I or EEStor care to list).  



Discussion question:  when people are wrong about what is scientifically possible, is it more correct to refer to them as morons or neanderthals?  Oh, you're right, that's not polite.  They are simply in error.

Former Zenn Exec Sues Zenn

Cott & Hancock Discuss ZMC Strategy

Former Zenn Motor Company Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Dennis Hancock is suing ZMC & executive Brian Cott. The case is summarized in a supposedly publicly available document from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Court File No. CV-10-411405.   According to the document, Hancock is seeking $20Mil+, a company car powered by an EESU, a lifetime supply of mood enhancing incense,  tangible evidence of UFO's and personal apology from Brian Cott at center ice at next year's Stanley Cup prior to the start of the game.  The suit also seeks all of Cott's frequent flyer miles earned from travel to/from the People's Republic of China along with any cool recipes for peking duck he may have acquired while on business travel.   In an interesting countersuit, Cott, if proven innocent,  is seeking the right to fire Hancock repeatedly just prior to each of his family vacations regardless of where Hancock works. Hancock would also need to change his name to Hancott.

I will not comment on the merits of the case as I'm not qualified to do so.   However, it is interesting to ask what exactly such a lawsuit is an argument over in the first place.  Is it a fight over an empty bank account or a future blockbuster company rocketing to the top on the back of breakthrough technology?

I for one look forward to all of the kook comments coming from the Short & Distort team as to how the Zenn/EEStor scam conspirators cover their tracks by suing each other over a wrongful termination issue.  Geniuses.

PS: I made up some of the things Hancock is suing for.  I think the money part is real.  Don't take my word for it, research it yourself.

Energy Storage: An Old Story for a New Year

Imagine for a second that instead of being the run of the mill shlub that you are today, you had actually quite an interesting life which of course often means you would have had to of had an interesting beginning.   Computers are interesting so let's say you were around when some of the interesting innovations in computers were literally coming online.  One such interesting time would have been in the 1950s & 1960s when, for example, there was a need to invent several technologies to make distributed RADAR such as SAGE possible.

Specifically, the purpose of SAGE was to prevent the need for aircraft to fly 24x7 to defend US air space from Russian bombers.  To achieve this, radar sites had to be linked together over a network (the technology of which didn't exist) to a computer which could process it in real time (again, something that didn't exist) so that a video display (not this either) could present immediate access to needed airspace information allowing US jets to scramble, when needed, to intercept inbound bombers.    Again, this is your imaginary other life, so put yourself in that situation and imagine what piece of it you would have enjoyed being a part of?  One suggestion for you would be the problem of Core Memory, the technological forerunner to what we today affectionately label RAM.  For SAGE, the need for this CM drew from the slow computing speeds available at the time only from electrostatic storage tubes.

Secretary Chu On Lithium Ion?

Source: NY Times

Like most public officials,  DOE Secretary Chu can be both praised and criticized for the choices he has made to advance the mission of the agency he leads.   My initial worry with Chu was that maybe he didn't prioritize energy storage enough  in his overall plan so that research funding was being spread too thinly across various renewable energy technologies.  I also worried that the DOE was a bit too cozy with campaign donors to the Obama administration, for example, giving enormous funding to electric car makers Fisker and Tesla....when what was actually needed more urgently were batteries to propel such vehicles.

The more I get to know Chu via his numerous public presentations, the more I come to the conclusion that he's doing a pretty good job.  In fact, I find it hard to believe we have ever had a former DOE head that has even 50% of the efficacy of Chu.   Everyone talks about how smart he is as a scientist. But I think lately, he seems to be paying more attention to economic viability.   

Case in point.  Last week in Cancun, Mexico at the UN Climate Change Conference,  Chu gave a very interesting presentation.  Notable is the discussion starting around 25:00 where Chu begins to compare liquid fuels to lithium ion batteries.   He then goes on to recognize that lithium ion has a very long way to go to be viable for consumer adoption in cars.  According to John Petersen, he actually paints lithium ion as a dead end.  Although I don't quite go so far based on what he presented. But, of course, I personally have a considerable reservations about it based purely on supply. 

It seems to me that Chu is paying most of his attention to research and appears to have put together a team that is achieving demonstrable progress.   Now, of course, not everything DOE funds is going to come to fruition.  But really, all we need are a few key ones to succeed with energy storage being chief among them.   

You may say, well, if EEStor produces finally (after torturing everyone with a long announcement delay chosen solely by Dick Weir and no one else) then doesn't that mean DOE is wasting a lot of funding on batteries?   I don't really think that's the right question. What I'm curious about is if EEStor produced, what would Chu's DOE do in response?    I think he's a guy that would use his resources to make the most of it.    So, I am not skeptical of Chu. Instead, I'm interested to see where he could take us. 

My only other concern is whether or not our attempts to cooperate with foreign governments such as China on the level of research is actually in our best interest as a country.  We always tend to come up short on trade negotiation.  I think that one issue is one that separates the climate change crowd from the energy independence crowd in the USA.   To the EI group, the CC group appear alarmist and economically wreck-less. To the CC group, the EI group are insufficiently alarmed and possibly nihilistic.   But, at least both groups can agree that we need to get rid of fossil fuels for transportation and power generation.  

Credit: thanks to the anonymous emailer who brought Petersen's article to my attention.  

PS: My view is if we have to depend on lead acid as Petersen suggests, let's call everything off.  You know, throw in the towel and have a end of the world party.