The AlwaysOn Network has selected its GoingGreen 100 -- the 100 top companies in greentech, based on "innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value creation, and media attention or 'buzz.'"
Here's the category I'm watching:
Energy Storage
A123 Systems
Bloom Energy
Cobasys
Deeya Energy
EEStor
GridPoint
Jadoo Power
Lilliputian Systems
ZPower
(Gridpoint was the top company in AlwaysOn's overall rankings. Good to see a smart grid company win the gold medal!)
Note the enigmatic EEStor, which doesn't even have an operational website. It claims to have developed an ultracapacitor that will revolutionize the plug-in hybrid and electric car markets and render electrochemical batteries all but irrelevant for most applications. After it made that initial claim, it clammed up -- it's done almost no press and has kept its cards extremely close to its vest. There's serious venture capital behind it and legit people running it. It certainly isn't acting like a fraud.
Nevertheless, the claims it's making seem almost fantastical. I read quite a bit about the company while I was researching a little blurb for Wired. Here's a bit from a longer version of that piece:
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Most attention in the energy storage world goes to batteries, particularly next-gen lithium-ion batteries. But one storage tech is superior to batteries in almost every way: electrochemical double-layer capacitors, or ultracapacitors (or if you have a flair for the dramatic, supercapacitors). Where batteries store electricity via a chemical reaction, ultracapacitors store it directly in an electric field, enabling them to charge much faster and provide large bursts of near-instantaneous power (added bonus: no moving parts!). Batteries degrade steadily over charge cycles, get hot with use, and contain toxic chemicals; ultracapacitors last virtually forever, have no thermal discharge, and meet RoHS standards.
So what's the problem? The Achilles heel of ultracapacitors is their specific energy density -- they don't hold nearly as much energy per unit weight as batteries. Lithium ion batteries produce around 120 watt hours per kilogram, whereas commercially available ultracapacitors produce around 6 Wh/kg, some 20 times less. That won't cut it for vehicles, must less for industrial-grade renewable energy storage.
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EEStor says it can do better -- way, way better. From Tyler Hamilton's piece in Technology Review:
EEStor's system--called an Electrical Energy Storage Unit, or EESU--is based on an ultracapacitor architecture that appears to escape the traditional limitations of such devices. The company has developed a ceramic ultracapacitor with a barium-titanate dielectric, or insulator, that can achieve an exceptionally high specific energy--that is, the amount of energy in a given unit of mass.
For example, the company's system claims a specific energy of about 280 watt hours per kilogram, compared with around 120 watt hours per kilogram for lithium-ion and 32 watt hours per kilogram for lead-acid gel batteries. This leads to new possibilities for electric vehicles and other applications, including for the military.
So EEStor's battery replacement would be smaller, lighter, cooler, cheaper, and more powerful than the most advanced hybrid batteries on the market. The company has struck a deal with ZENN Motors, giving it, at least initially, exclusive access to EESUs to power small- and medium-sized electric cars.
That's supposed to happen by the end of this year, so we'll see soon enough whether the hype is justified. Needless to say, skeptics abound.
You can read more about EEStor in this recent AP story, on Tyler's blog, or on the Energy Blog.
Do we need nuclear and coal plants for baseload power?
Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!
Comments
View as Flat
sunflower Posted 12:57 am
09 Sep 2007
I have also been watching Greentech. Many, if not most, of the technologies have been spun to the moon. Investors beware.
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theBike45 Posted 1:16 am
09 Sep 2007
problematic for applications such as autos. Also not mentioned are their undesirable failure characteristics.
EESTor is THE big unknown when it comes to handicapping future electrical storage technology. Let's all pray they succeed. They have claimed commercial production within 10 months and will deliver a test battery pack to ZENN before then. The article claims before year's end, but that is no longer valid - it should occur, obviously, before production begins, most likely early next year. ZENN stock has been volatile, and mostly volatile upwards the past several weeks since new talk of EESTor has emerged. ZENN has made no mention of a bona fide, highway capable electric car, probably because they can't build one - all their current products are low speed, neighborhood death traps that don't meet any Federal safety standards.
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:43 am
09 Sep 2007
Meantime lets stick with Lithium Polymer Batteries.
http://greyfalcon.net/phoenix
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:33 am
09 Sep 2007
EESTOR has kept the details of their tech confidential so far. They filed a patent that really does not disclose how their system works: you could not build an EESTOR from that patent.
My guess: they made some sort of genuine breakthrough in the field, but were overenthusiastic in thinking that their breakthrough was so key, that clearing the remaining obstacles would be routine. Their sincerity, enthusiasm and real technical achievement convinced both themselves and investors; but the breakthrough turned out not to be enough to get them to a commercial product, or (unless there is news I have not heard) even to a working prototype. So it does not come across as a scam, because it was not intended as a scam; it was the overoptimism inventors and entrepreneurs are often guilty of.
I hope I'm wrong and in turns out to be real. But I doubted it a year ago, and doubt it even more now.
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:53 pm
09 Sep 2007
Batteries or capacitors that weigh even that much are still a bad idea. You're committed to carrying around weight regardless of how much energy is stored. A full "tank" weighs as much as an empty one.
Compare that even to gasoline, whose weight is proportional to the stored energy. The other thing is that batteries and "ultracapacitors" still have to regulate voltage as they drop in energy. With fuels such as hydrogen or gasoline, the last drop has the same energy content as the first drop...no need to regulate.
A hydrogen tank or gasoline tank can be a fraction of the total weight of the fuel -- batteries and ultra-capacitors are not only still heavy, but they cost the fuel of having to truck them around -- thereby being inherently inefficient.
John Bailo
Sutext:
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drivin98 Posted 6:38 pm
09 Sep 2007
This is a technology that may well revolutionize energy storage. Maybe before EEStor.
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ClimateCriminal Posted 9:10 pm
09 Sep 2007
Yes, it seems likely we will have to go cold-turkey which is going to be difficult, but the alternative is the possible runaway greenhouse climate, which is likely to be even worse, perhaps even terminal. BTW, it's happened before, so it seems quite possible that potentially disastrous warming could happened again, it's the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 55 MYA. The PETM visited its very own MASS EXTINCTION upon earth.
There are increasing indications that the climate can change abruptly, once threshold conditions have been reached, the problem is, only nature knows where these thresholds are. For references see bottom of post.
The profligate wasting of energy will have to cease, and powered transport will have to be lighter, smarter and most probably electrically powered.
Perhaps super-capacitors have a part to play, let's hope the technological hurdles are cracked quickly to start the process of letting-go of oil!
-------------------------
Quote from abstract
..,We suggest that the evidence indicates that long-term climate change occurs in sudden jumps rather than incremental changes, which does not bode well for the future.
Endquote
2001. Maslin, M., D. Seidov and J. Lowe, Synthesis of the nature and causes of rapid climate transitions during the Quaternary
http://www.essc.psu.edu/~dseidov/pdf_copies/maslin_seidov ...
Quote from abstract
Large, abrupt, and widespread climate changes with major impacts have occurred repeatedly in the past, when the Earth system was forced across thresholds. Although abrupt climate changes can occur for many reasons, it is conceivable that human forcing of climate change is increasing the probability of large, abrupt events. Were such an event to recur, the economic and ecological impacts could be large and potentially serious. Unpredictability exhibited near climate thresholds in simple models shows that some uncertainty will always be associated with projections. In light of these uncertainties, policy-makers should consider expanding research into abrupt climate change, improving monitoring systems, and taking actions designed to enhance the adaptability and resilience of ecosystems and economies.
Endquote
Abrupt Climate Change
R. B. Alley, J. Marotzke, W. D. Nordhaus, J. T. Overpeck, D. M. Peteet, R. A. Pielke Jr., R. T. Pierrehumbert, P. B. Rhines, T. F. Stocker,L. D. Talley, J. M. Wallace
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2003/2003_Alley_etal.pdf
Science trumps everything - religion, politics!
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scatter Posted 10:24 pm
09 Sep 2007
So you're lugging a bit of extra weight around. But the efficiency of EVs completely outstrips fossil fuel and will be superior to hydrogen vehicles. To call them inefficient on the basis that their weight doesn't change is completely wrong.
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mihan Posted 11:24 pm
09 Sep 2007
Unless you were comparing them to the internal combustion engine, in which case that is definitely not made clear in the sentence.
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