Even More info from Tyler Hamilton on EEStor

In his blog, Tyler Hamilton provides additional information about his recent conversation with Dick Weir. Here's the link Hamilton says that Weir likened EEStor's work to the Manhattan II project. That's actually someting Dick told me as well last Friday. I'll post more information about that conversation now that Tyler has provided a good foundation.

Also, the Wall Street Journal Blogs mentioned the Hamilton EEStor piece this morning.

Related link from Jim Kingsdale's Energy Investment Strategies website.

Note: We will be transitioning to a new web platform in the coming days. We'll probably turn off comments on this blog but continue to post new content until a majority have migrated over to the new site. I'll be investigating ways to import the old content to the new site. Overall the plan will be to transition slowly---we will probably encounter bugs, unexpected issues, etc. But we'll work through them. Testing on the new platform is going well. I probably need about 3-4 people to help with a second round of testing so shoot me an email if you can assist. Actually, maybe I should combine a couple desires here. If you've contacted me about some content you want to get up on the blog, shoot me an email because you can throw it up in the forums and we'll see if you encounter any issues. email: eestorblog@gmail.com

EEStor Announcement Ultracap Recap

With regard to EEStor's recent announcement of production and purity milestones, here's a little recap post for easy access to the various postings.

1) Links to original press release and coverage
2) Follow on Interview with Richard Weir
3) Interview with Edward Golla, 3rd party reviewer
4) Zenn's subsequent press release
5) Some technical discussions of the release and related topics.
a) reader Mihkel
b) reader Zawy
c) Prof Randall
6) A charity I support

UPDATE: I'm getting emails that the picture in this post is of an EEStor cell that has "mysteriously" appeared on wikipedia. (i just linked to it) I've seen this before though..I dont think it is an EESU because it looks like it was made from powder that was way too impure to produce an EESU. :-)

Richard Weir Says Permittivity is Subset of Purity, Prototypes built/tested

I just spoke via phone with Dick Weir for about 5 minutes. It was a very typical conversation in the sense that he was at times jovial and others mildly irritated with me. I could tell he was determined not to let the conversation stray from simply commenting on the press release, to explain what's in there.

Blogger: some people are wondering if your use of the term "milestone" in the press release relates to investment payments or investment milestones.

RW: No. Milestones of production and chemical purity.

Blogger: Why would you issue a press release on something related to purity prior to permittivity?

RW: It all leads to that. Everything we got there is the holy grail of everything we've worked for here. Permittivity, it seems to me people overconcentrate on it. Permittivity is a subset of getting these. If you dont get these, you dont get the permittivity. If you
get these, you get the permittivity and you can set it up at very high levels. This allows us to meet present specifications but more importantly or equally, it's the pathway for future advancement. In 2007, we made a conscious corporate decision to put in our advanced technologies. Of course, thats going to take a little longer! But we did that with very good reasoning behind it. As it states there, there are some mission critical programs out there that we wanted make sure that we could meet. Now what we had (prior to our advanced technology) could certainly meet alot of the programs. Putting our advanced technologies in place...this is why we are so happy.....because this shows the success of our advanced technologies. "

Blogger: Does that mean from a production standpoint that....

(interrupting)
RW: We were [funded].....say this on the blog.....we were [funded] to put a production line in. So what we are putting in here is a production line. (production said slowly and with emphasis)

(note: Weir said "invested in" but probably reads better as "funded"?)

Blogger: Not a lab?

RW: No, we've already done all the R&D and preproduction on this a long time ago. Now our [funding is] to put a production line in. This press release was put out to tell the people of our production successes that we have had.

Blogger: I hate to bring this up because I feel like I'm pretty clear on the information that's out there in regards to what you're saying about production. But still, alot of people still think that you haven't even got a prototype.

RW: We've have made prototypes of this and those have....they were made with technologies that we had at the time. And what I'm telling the people today is in 2007 we made a corporate decision to put in more advanced technologies which we now and this data shows that we hit a home run on these technologies. Prototypes have been built and prototypes have been tested.

Blogger: tested by 3rd parties?

RW: I'm just going to say that. They've been tested and the data has been reviewed by a lot of people.

Blogger: are you following any of the discussions on the web?

RW: [scoffing] I dont follow any discussions. I get to work, get my ass to work and get things done around here. What people say has no meaning to me. What we put out there I thought was dynamite and go from there. Anyway, that's all I can say. Thank you very much.

Blogger: .....one last question, people want to know if Moore's Law.... [phone click]

Thoughts? What's my take? I think someone smarter than me should piece this together. On the one hand, we have all the skeptics beating the permittivity drum with Weir saying essentially that he's focused on production issues not lab or R&D issues. You be the judge.

Richard Weir on EEStor's announcement

Cleantech has acquired some comments from Richard Weir on yesterday's announcement:


here's the link.

thanks mrjerry

From Pacemaker to Powerplant: Part 1 Interview of Ian Clifford

What do you get when you combine gadget lust with an energy crisis?  For Ian Clifford, CEO of Zenn Motor Company, the answer is quite simple: an opportunity to save the planet.  

Not save

 Toronto or Texas or any other part of the world but the whole shebang; everything and everybody.  You'll forgive Mr. Clifford if he occasionally uses that two word phrase--the planet---a bit too often.  It's just that, when you are about to enter phase 1 of a revolution that could end the use of fossil fuel powered cars, that phrase keeps popping up unexpectedly.  Then again, that's the sort of phrase we heard often back in the early Internet boom, of which, Mr. Clifford was  a successful participant, having sold an Internet marketing company at precisely the right time to stay optimistic about almost anything he touches for the rest of his life.  It's going to take nothing less than heroic optimism to pull off what Mr. Clifford is aiming to pull off.  What is he trying to pull off?

For starters, he wants to save each of the 13000 taxi cab drivers in New York City around $17,000 per year in fuel costs which amounts to over $1Bil over 5yrs which does not include the savings associated with no longer needing to change oil, filters or tune up internal combusion engines or even the lion share of savings gained via vehicle life expansion.  He wants to do this with a zero emission alternative based on technology gained from EEstor, the mysterious producers of a technology which may or may not receive 3rd party validation any day now.   For those who have followed news on Zenn Motor Company, you may be scratching your head now as you thought Zenn was focused on producing a tiny but fully electric  car. But how could Zenn get this car to every taxi cab driver in NYC?  Clifford and Zenn Motors is working on a set of ultracap conversion kits which will be available to retrofit the typical NYC cab platform of choice: the Crown Victoria and/or similar large vehicles.  The kit would eliminate the internal combusion engine and replace it with a ZENNergy drive system, a fully electric system based on ultracapacitor technology. 

With a little success under his belt, Clifford could spend a bit of effort on 100 or so other similarly sized fleets out there before moving on to something of more interest to the average consumer.  While Zenn's cityZenn car is targeted to possibly begin chipping away at the 40mil new  car market beginning in late 2009, you may find a bigger dent sooner among the 900 mil existing vehicles around "the planet" today.  Let's elaborate on this a bit.

Perhaps lately your decision to buy the largest SUV available with the worst gas mileage is seeming less funny to you. Picture this. One day you drive to a Jiffy lube or even your local dealer and instead of an oil change, you ask for engine removal. A few hours later, you pull away from the shop and notice your SUV is now quicker out of the gate than your wife's SAAB while reducing your vehicle power costs by what we'll call a motivating amount of money.  What happens next?  If all goes well, over 1Mil others follow your lead each year for the next few years producing what Ian Clifford would have investors believe is a motivating amount of money. 

What else would Ian Clifford have us believe? In the next installment, Clifford will test our faith with thoughts on who will be the new gas station, other applications of ultracap technology as well as where entrepreneurs should focus their attention for the most gain. 

Distribution and Licensing

One of the questions I asked Richard Weir recently was if he could describe how EEStor intends to distribute it's technology. His reaction was quick and a little testy that this would not be a question he would answer or comment on. It's interesting to think about how today's alternative energy companies can more or less mirror some of the great software companies of the past. I wrote a quick article with a few thoughts on the topic on my other blog covering algae as a biofuel source. If you happen to be one of those who has invested in Zenn Motors and you are trying to figure out what value is that initial $2.5Mil stake they have in EEStor, you might want to think this through a bit.

Wikipedia Link

Here's the wikipedia link for EEStor.

The current wikipedia overview:

EEstor is a company based in Cedar Park, Texas, USA. It is a start up company pioneering a new energy storage technology.
The company claims to have developed a superior type of supercapacitor, using barium titanate coated with aluminum oxide and glass, to achieve a level of capacitance much higher than what is currently available in the market.
Using this technology the company claims that it can produce a high energy storage device that will be superior to current chemical batteries. The company has started construction of new production facilities to bring their product to market.
Richard Weir is CEO and President, as well as the inventor named on their principal technology patent.
Equity funding for the company appears to come predominantly from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
If the technology works as claimed, a five-minute charge costing $9 would give the battery enough energy to drive a small car 500 miles. Toronto, Canada-based Feel Good Cars, which operates Zenn Motor, said in the last week of April, 2007, that it had invested $2.5 million in EEStor.