EEStor: 10-10-10

10+

States of Texas Declares EEStor Titan of Industry: Only Kidding

The Texas Workforce Commission has released a new book this month called "Working Texas Style" which includes a quote from EEStor's Tom Weir in Chapter 14 on "Hot Technologies in Today's Texas."   Weir claims 2010 will be a big year for EEStor (gulp) and that they plan to be a Texas based company.  (no, not Brazil)  Intriguingly,  Weir claims they will begin hiring less advanced engineers than they have today...

I'm going to quote the book at length:

Batteries and Energy Storage

Storing electric energy is the Holy Grail for both the utility industry and the auto industry. Texas is home to several battery company headquarters but has not been as successful at luring the companies’ production factories. For example, ActaCell Inc., a specialized lithium-ion battery maker, has its headquarters in Austin but its major employment operations in Asia.

In 2008, several companies that make or research battery technology formed a consortium called the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries (NaatBatt). Lured by incentives, the consortium chose to locate its research, development and production operations in Kentucky rather than Texas. This loss highlights the limited success of Texas in the battery field. Yet Texas isn’t out of the game.

EEStor Inc., based in the Austin suburb of Cedar Park, claims to have made an Electrical Energy Storage Unit, or EESU, that can be charged at a much faster rate than current technology allows and can power an average-sized automobile for roughly 300 to 500 miles on a single charge — the equivalent of the drive from Dallas to Houston and back. By comparison, the new Chevrolet Volt electric car can go 40 miles per charge. If EEStor’s advanced capacitor technology works and if it becomes commercially accepted, then EEStor may become the definition of disruptive technology — or unexpected innovations — and Texas will be a big beneficiary. “This is game- changing technology,” said Tom Weir, vice president of EEStor. “We believe 2010 will be a big year for us, and we plan to stay in Texas and grow in Texas.”

Weir stresses that EEStor is making electrical energy storage units that are more like capacitors than traditional batteries. A battery is simply a container of chemicals that interact to store electricity, whereas a capacitor involves layers of metal that store an electrical charge. This different approach to discharging portable energy could make the small Cedar Park company a poster child for disruptive technology.

EEStor has raised more than $8 million in venture capital funding since 2003. The firm currently employs 11 people in 8,000 square feet of space in an industrial park. If the company’s product catches on, however, that payroll number could grow quickly. Until now, the company has primarily hired employees with Master’s and Doctoral degrees in electronics and engineering. Going forward, Weir said the company will primarily need workers with “normal” engineering degrees and extensive product development experience.

The Texas Workforce Commission is what

Battery Hype + Electric Delivery Truck Hype = Electrification Hysteria!

Full Disclosure: before I wrote this article, I bought 2000 shares of Enova stock at $0.74 today.  I have no intention of trading the stock or flipping it for a short term gain. As with my Zenn investment (which I have never sold), I intend to take a long term investment approach.  Most of my investment decisions lead to failure so do not construe this article as an invitation to join me as I wheelbarrow more of my money off a cliff.  There are plenty of other ways to piss away your own money.  Get creative. 

The chairman of the Enova Systems Inc. board of directors has joined Zenn Motor Company's board of directors and shall be addressed using his full name, John Robert Wallace.  Wallace fills a vacancy created with Peter Mackechnie's resignation announcement issued in the same press release.   Once they repair the window Mackechnie threw himself out of due to losing his mind waiting for EEStor to do something interesting,  Wallace has a lot of interesting challenges ahead chief among them is guiding Zenn to a place where they feel comfortable talking about what the hell they've been up to for the past year or so on the apparently uber secret ZENNergy drive project.  If Wallace can induce that Oprah moment, we might learn if there is true synergy between Enova and Zenn or if this is just a cocktail  napkin AH HA moment among people promoting their own short term interests.

As far as EEStor is concerned, this announcement probably changes nothing.  If Zenn added one of the Apostles to their Board of Directors, they would still have the problem of trying incessantly to liquor up Dick Weir and push him out in front of a bunch of cameras and microphones to coax a statement.

Yet Wallace has a background that certainly makes his rolodex impressive.  Sure, Enova like Tesla or any similar project tied to vehicle electrification has it's stock set of naysayers.  But within that world, what counts as credibility certainly seems to be with JRW.   Enova sounds like a company many 2 years ago had hoped Zenn could turn into.  They're building electric drive systems seemingly geared mainly for delivery or service vehicles.  Think box trucks like UPS or FEDEX which would be great except that skeptics have questioned whether a company like Enova can scale up to address customers of that size.  I have no idea if they can do it.   I would love to be at that first meeting at Zenn when they walk Wallace into a large cold empty condemned God forsaken warehouse outside of Toronto and pull his blindfold off, "Surprise! This is ZENNergy!"

In terms of electrification, I do like the cold hard rationality that exists in the business market vs the consumer market. This is because businesses look at a business case with far less emotion that consumers look at their car so that if there is a business case to be made for electric or hybrid delivery vehicles and the electric drive systems that make them possible, adoption will occur at the speed of of business.

In the coming days, I'll be looking for the herd at TheEEStory.com to identify the positives and negatives of Enova, Wallace and Zenn even if many think EEStor has no working product.

Of course, if you work at Enova, your new loose association with EEStor may make you think Oh No! va!!!  Especially since they actually make things and sell them to people.

Image Source: astarfrommosul.blogspot.com

HP, their EEStor Patent and Ray Lane, their new Chairman

Ray Lane  Source: Flickr

It would be problematic if I didn't write an article highlighting something TheEEStory user Muftee pointed out.   Hewlett Packard recently hired Kleiner Perkins exec Ray Lane to be it's chairman.   Additionally, a recent HP patent application included a reference to EEStor.   Probably unrelated, sure.  But one mustn't forget that Ray Lane is one of the Kleiner partners mentioned on the SEC records which established that Kleiner had invested in EEStor.   And several months ago, he played coy with a gr33ntech media blogger about 2010 possibly being the year we go back to the future, ie, a reference to EEStor's ultra-flux-capacitor.

One thing I haven't noticed any news articles mentioning though is the prior connection between KPCB and HP vis a vis Tom Perkins, KPCB founder who left the board of HP in 2006 amid a strange story involving leaks.  Those damn leaks.

And why shouldn't we engage in a little speculation given how this all ties together? Who will get the first EESU's for personal computers?  HP?  IBM?  Dell?  Apple?  If Kleiner is involved with HP, it probably won't be them.  Sure, Tom Weir & Mort Topfer worked for Dell and Greg Weir works for Dell and we know that Michael Dell knows about EEStor.  And EEStor is in the Austin area but something tells me it's not the likely first place.  Dick Weir worked for IBM but I doubt there is any love there.  I would guess Apple has the best chance of obtaining EEStor technology before any of their rivals.   Of course, anyone with brains knows that the first adopter will be the one who firstly and thoroughly kisses Dick Weir's ass, which isn't so bad because 2nd, 3rd and 4th place will be required to grovel....which is far more demeaning.

For EEStorians Old News is New News

Rep. Bob Inglis

Three years ago, the US House Committee on Science an Technology's Subcommittee on Energy and Environment (deep breath) held a hearing to learn more about Energy Storage for the purpose of drafting new legislation in hopes of spurring development.   Among the witnesses called before the subcommittee was Ms. Patricia Hoffman of the Department of Energy.  At the time, she lead R&D efforts in Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability office. Today, she is the Assistant Secretary of that office meaning her boss is Kristina Johnson, Under Secretary of Energy who reports to Steven Chu.  (another deep breath--still with me?)

EEStor Announces Cause of Delays: Procrastination

In a tersely worded statement shouted out of a slowly moving vehicle today, EEStor's Dick Weir made plain why there's been no commercially available EESU yet,  "I've been procrastinating."

 Followed to the stop sign exiting the EEStor Cedar Park, TX location, a few follow up questions were answered, "Do you think you might get on that sometime soon?"

Weir:  "Well, I've got a lot things to do right now.   I'm busy with Kiwanis and the church.  Also, we have a team in back home that's doing some much needed painting using a new formula we derived from some of our work here.  But I've basically got a ton of social obligations and events and the holidays are right around the corner.  I got a new motorcycle too.  That's fun.  Shit man, there's just a lot going on, what can I tell you?  I'll get to it eventually.  You can't just sort of sit down and start commercializing breakthrough energy storage technology again like you were having a ham sandwich.  I n e r t i a (said slowly and with emphasis) ok?"  

But I thought you were full time working on the EEStor thing?

"I am. Sort of.  Remember now, we got this thing working a long time ago.  Sometimes we forget where we were and we gotta redo it all from square 2 or 3 except for the certified parts."

What's with all of these invitations to AFRL and Sandia, etc?   If you've been procrastinating, why invite all those important groups?

"Frankly, it had been so long since I had called anyone on the phone, I just needed some practice to ramp up, you know? And I didn't really know what to say when they actually answered, so I just blurted out whatever came to mind,  Want a demo?  And of course they did but then I couldnt think of why I would even offer one so I just said, great, because I need more money. "

Well, are you going to be able to show them anything?

"Good question.   We learned, through a little bit of tinkering, that the modules we have for sintering powders do a pretty good job on a Chicago style pizza pie.  Now that's fully automated you see, 24x7 pizza pie manufacturing using only commercial off the shelf automation.   Originally, our plan was for the pizza pies to be delivered robotically directly to my desk where Carl, myself, my son Tom and some geek we hired named Smetty....uh....Getty...no no no, Pettey....and a Dr. Pettey would consume them.  But we didnt have enough buttons so we're working on disconnecting some of the powder production buttons for the pizza pies.  By the way, am I the only one who still calls it a pie?  It is a pie technically. "

Probably not.  How did your investors like Zenn and Kleiner and big ace partner Lockheed like the modifications?

"We haven't told them yet.  We're still on schedule here.  When we saw the pizza pie capability, we knew we had to see where it would take us.  We're almost done.   We'll get back to the battery soon enough."

You know there's a lot of people who are really counting on you.  I think some of them have invested some of their retirement funds in Zenn.  Pizza manufacturing was never mentioned as one of your initiatives.   It just seems so strange. 

"Well how many of those people have ever tried alumina coated deep dish pizza?"

I'm guessing zero. 

"Well find out and get back to me.  I gotta run now. Don't worry about the battery. It's inna de bag mon."



Note to admired readers:  Yes, once again, I got a little bored. Maybe I should just write a play and be done with it?

Rally to Restore Sanity?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rally to Restore Sanity
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

For the first time in my life, I will be attending a political rally in Washington DC on Saturday, October 30 2010. I hope they have special seating for prominent bagheads like me.  I'm razor close to making attendance mandatory for Futureman and Whiskeythief.

More FOIA Materials

A couple more FOIA records for your review:

http://theeestory.com/topics/6771

EEStor Controversy: Air Force Research Lab Wants to Know What Lockheed Martin is Sssssmokin'!!!!

If someone had pointed out to me 4 years ago that I would soon be authoring a blog about a breakthrough battery technology with thousands of daily readers, I would have asked what they were smoking and then laughed at how weird my life must be if that were to come true.  Later, I would have had a nervous breakdown.  

I don't know anything about batteries or capacitors or storing electrical energy.  But what I've learned over the past couple of years is that what mankind (archaic, I realize) knows about electrical energy storage is S C A N T.  Understand me here.   You can find a battery conference program and scan the academic papers presented to see that there are a ton of smart people looking into energy storage and it's complicated and their papers seem erudite and grand.  But there is a simple fact that no one disputes.  Electrical energy storage, ie, batteries aren't too much better than they were 100 years ago.   No, not 10 yrs or 30yrs ago,  ONE HUNDRED years ago.  Thomas Edison talked about batteries that could propel the vehicles of his day as far as the GM-VOLT does today.  (forget about weight for a second).

So, if someone suddenly emerges on the scene promising to bring to energy storage the sorts of gains in performance achieved in fabricated integrated circuitry, ie, computer chips, then my friend, they will stick out like a  SORE THUMB.   That's EEStor in a nutshell.

Imagine for a second, you've been immersed in the scientific culture that hasn't yielded an energy storage breakthrough in 100 years.   Same ole, same ole.  Incremental progress at a snail's pace.  Thomas Kuhn said scientific innovation occurs when thinkers abandon assumptions and tackle problems without inherited baggage.  But that's the rub.  If you abandon the baggage, do you slip off into UFO chasing?

To me, scientists seem particularly unforgiving to those who abandon inherited assumptions.  I think this is a function of academic culture which breeds arrogance rather than teamwork.  But I won't try to esplain it.  You may disagree.  Can you esplain it?

So finally, now that I've aired out my lungs and put a few people to sleep, we turn to our little EEStory.  

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

According to records released by the United States Air Force to Mr. Tom Villars (EEStory Genius), the United States Air Force Research Lab Kirtland Air Force Base Directed Energy Directorate AppleTurkey, New Mexico......a question has emerged for Lockheed Martin Corporation CEO Robert Stevens.

Lockheed CEO Bob Stevens. Source: Reuters.

Yes, thank you Mr. Stevens.  I am B the Magnificent EEStor blogger representing a Cadre of Fanboyz (and gurlz) at company B  and my question comes from the Air Force Research Lab.  Sir, as you are aware, this is the portion of the United States Defense Department responsible for ensuring the weapons in the movie Star Wars are developed from toys and movie effects into security for the free world.   This is literally the future of warfare, which if successful would put your jet fighter business OUT OF BUSINESS el rapido.   Sir,  I understand you are a Marine. Semper Fi, sir.  Thank you for your service.

But,   really,   if you have allowed your company to enter into a an agreement with EEStor Inc.,  who proposes that none of your geniuses can identify a reason why EEStor's energy storage technology will NOT work, then doesn't that mean that Lockheed Martin is smoking an illegal substance? Or samples of an illegal substance?  (Yes, I realize that the Lockheed Martin Corporation could obtain a medical prescription for smoked goodness in Californ-I-A, sir. )  Again, sir, this is not my question. I think you're doing a fine job and not smoking anything...good.  This is a question posed by the Air Force Research Lab in this released FOIA document.

Sir, very respectfully, I don't mind if Lockheed Martin is smoking something interesting.  And I don't think we should be too critical of our Air Force Research Lab subject matter expert.  NO, not at all.  But,  really, where there is smoke at Lockheed is there F I R E?    If so, let's light it up together. No?


MUAAHAAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Max Power in The Power Dome

Over the next few days, we'll be releasing more of the documents obtained from the Air Force Research Lab related to EEStor.   We've redacted the names of the persons discussing EEStor as a courtesy to them.  Their FOIA officer actually could have redacted them under personal privacy provisions we've seen invoked by other govt agencies.   I hope the Air Force Research Lab follows suit as it seems other people are now trying to file FOIA requests for these documents.  Some of these people may not be as civilized as me.  Some of these people are not civilized at all.

I don't claim to have a grand moral vision or stellar philosophy about anything.  But my approach to the use of FOIA has been to request official interviews with govt officials first.  Often this leads to nowhere.  For me, that's generally good enough although sometimes if I feel an agency has something to divulge, which they choose not to divulge, I can occasionally get a little bent out of shape.   But, I still respect the work of civil servants and so, if I make use of FOIA material, I still try to keep that in mind.    FOIA is a very important tool in our democracy but it's all a real pain in the ass to persons who have to comply with the law.    In any case,  striving for the golden mean tends to work for most things so that's typically my goal.