Talk:EEStor/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

"According to EEStor, this is sufficient for achieving the desired permittivity.[11]"

Noted statement cites a marketing release. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.101.64 (talk) 01:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

"The company appears to be proceeding with development.[9]"

The above statement both (1) says (nearly) nothing and (2) cites a source that does not support the statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.101.64 (talk) 01:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

"World Patent"? Why not just call it "Intergalactic Patent"?

Throughout the article and in this discussion page, there are references to a "world patent". There is no such thing. There are no organizations which grant worldwide patents, it is only ever done at a national level. I've worked internationally for almost ten years, and with US-educated lawyers who specialize in patent, copywrite and trademark law. They have never heard of a "world patent".

This calls into queston why artical editors have made reference to a "world patent application". Additionally, these contributors have failed to link to any public record of the "world patent application". Why the reference to the authoritative-sounding entity? Why no reference? Suspiciously, almost all edits referencing the "world patent" are positive.

Would someone please link such references to an authoritative source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.101.64 (talk) 01:03, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This is what they are referring to: http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.16.168 (talk) 04:52, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

WIPO coordinates the activities of national patent offices. It centralizes the process of searching, but I don't think it issues patents.96.54.53.165 (talk) 05:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

That's right. It's merely a coordinator. Gopher65_talk 12:52, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe I have fixed the article now, so the original comment is moot. As for WIPO, they are responsible for managing the Patent Co-operation treaty under with International Patent Applications may be filed. An international patent application CANNOT become a patent but is merely a fore-runner to individual patent applications which may be filed in up to 140 or so countries around the world and which each country may individually choose to grant or refuse a patent. GDallimore (Talk) 16:30, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

No, the article is not all fixed. It still have several references to a "world patent", not an international patent application.--Ccrrccrr (talk) 12:38, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

So, I missed a couple. Why didn't you just fix it yourself? GDallimore (Talk) 07:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Because it wasn't clear to me what was the correct thing to put in its place, and I hadn't thought of using the clarify tag as you did. Thanks for doing the work and coming up with a good solution.Ccrrccrr (talk) 14:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Capacitance?

The article claimed that the capacitance of the 336lb unit was 31 farad. Now, I'm not an electrical engineer, but I know that that is clearly ridiculous. A farad is a large amount of energy as far as capacitors go, but very very very small compared to batteries. One farad of capacitance gives you enough energy to delivery 1A at 1V for 1 second. A typical 1.5V AA battery might be 2600mAh, which means it can theoretically deliver 2.6A at 1.5V for 1 hour. In actual practice it will drop below 1.5V as it loses charge, so let's call it 1V. That gives it an energy storage equivalent to 2.6 (amps) * 1 (volts) * 3600 (seconds) = 9360 farads.

So that means that, to duplicate the energy density of a single AA battery, you need 9360 farads worth of capacitance, which is already far larger than any capacitor I have ever heard of -- and that's just to match a single small battery. To reach the 52KWh claimed by the article, since a W is 1V*1A I believe you would need 52000*3600 = 187,200,000 farads of capacitance. If my math and understanding are correct (which they may well not be) I am extremely skeptical of this claim. To avoid spreading any more misinformation (in case I am incorrect) I have merely removed the 31 farad figure from the article, since there is absolutely no way in hell that that is correct. 69.134.118.239 (talk) 20:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Just in case anyone takes the above comment seriously: energy stored by the AA battery is about 1V * 2.6A =2.6 Wh, or 0.0026 kWh, versus the 52kWh of the EEstor capacitor pack. You need less capacitance as the operating voltage rises (E=0.5 C V^2), so at 3500 volts you need only 31F, not 187x10^6 F.Cerireid (talk) 19:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Your understanding is not correct, but that does not mean that you are wrong to be skeptical of this claim. The energy stored in a capacitor is not determined only by the capacitance. Energy stored (joules or watt-seconds) is equal to one half the capacitance (farads) multiplied by the voltage squared. What is described in the EEStor patent is a 31 farad capacitor that can be charged to 3500 volts. The energy is calculated as 0.5 X 31 X 3500^2 = 189,875,000 watt-seconds or 52,743 watt-hours. Capacitors can easily be manufactured to withstand charging to 3500 volts, but this one has a dielectric that is only 12.7 thousandths of a millimeter thick. Is that possible? This capacitor uses a barium titanate as its dielectric. That material is usually much less effective at increased voltage levels. It is claimed that adding a small amount of a “doping” material will counteract that effect. Will that work? -- C J Cowie (talk) 22:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

That V^2 bit only holds under certain circumstances. As far as I can see, this is not one of those circumstances. I am highly skeptical of this company's claim, though it would be cool if it turned out to be turn:). It should be 0.5 X 31 X 3500 = 54250... I think. I hated physics classes;). That's almost 4000 times smaller than what they claim, assuming I'm right. Gopher65 (talk) 02:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

*slaps forehead* oi. I wasn't thinking there. Obviously it is 3500 times smaller if it is just V instead of V^2;). *shakes head at himself* Gopher65 (talk) 01:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll add the 31 F value back. C J Cowie is right, as a short integral calculation or a quick look to your schoolbooks will reveal. Hyvatti (talk) 09:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

That's kind of a funny statement Hyvatti. I'm not saying 1/2EV^2 isn't a correct formula. But using it in this situation rather than 1/2EV is kinda like using KE=1/2mv^2 instead of KE(r)=(mc^2)((1/(root(1-((v/c)^2)))-1) for calculating relativistic KE. Both are correct formulae, but 1/2mv^2 only works in limited circumstances. I don't know why people have such a hard time believing that capacitance is the same way. Not all formulae work under all situations. Sometimes you have to think about what you're doing rather than blindly plugging numbers in. Gopher65 (talk) 14:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

- Energy stored is 0.5 QV and Q = VC, so E = 0.5CV^2, and the energy stored rises with the square of the voltage. The capacitance (C) may vary for some reason (e.g. dielectric saturation), but the energy stored depends on the charge and the square of the voltage. I don't know where you get 0.5 V C from; unless you can justify the assertion that it should be used (ie what the 'special circumstances' are which redefine the energy stored by a capacitor to be E=0.5 VC), I believe it's just plain wrong.Cerireid (talk) 19:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay I got you wrong, sorry. Anyway this is their claim, and the entry is about their claim, and it can be disputed but not randomly edited because we disagree with the claim. They claim this formula works in this situation, and they specifically claim a device that weights 336 pounds with 31 F capacitance, so at least that should stay. Hyvatti (talk) 22:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Yupyup, I agree. I think they're wrong, but that is the claim they are making so it should be in the article. Gopher65 (talk) 22:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think the reasoning is pretty sound, if you read through the patent (and some big names who should know what they're talking about have obviously agreed). As for the dielectric constant of the barium titanate, that's irrelevant when current can just arc through the voids between grains, and the higher the voltage, the easier that can happen. Much of their patent is about how to eliminate essentially all of the voids in the bulk ceramic. The additional problem, voltage linearity, can be essentially eliminated through proper layering.[1] -- 129.255.93.182 (talk) 01:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you are making the assumption that their capacitor voltage is achieved using only one high-voltage cell. I believe all higher-voltage supercaps are constructed by putting many low-voltage cells in series. Thus the separators in the individual cells can (and should) be thin, as they each only need to separate a handful of volts. JDHeinzmann (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Read the patent. Look at the diagrams. Go through the calculations. One capacitor consists of 1000 layers with every other nickel electrode layer connected to the opposite terminal in a parallel arrangement. The capacitance of one layer is claimed to be 0.000013235F. A 1000 layer component is claimed to be 0.013235F. For a 31F unit, 2320 components are connected in parallel for C=2320 X 0.013235 = 31F. -- C J Cowie (talk) 21:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Look at the newer world patent. They're now using aluminum electrodes instead of nickel and switched from two particle coatings to one aluminum oxide coatings. Big changes from the 2001 to 2005 patent filings. I read they have 17 other patents in the wings that are not yet publicly available. 24.214.120.227 (talk) 12:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Catastrophic failure

Perhaps what is not said in the article is important. The issue of the dielectric that is only 12.7 thousandths of a millimeter thick catastrophically failing and discharging 52 kilowatt hours of charge in less than a second. Could be more dangerous than the gas tank explosions in the Ford Pinto that cost the company billions to settle lawsuits for burned and dead drivers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Perpetrator (talk • contribs) 20:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source describing this type of failure mode? If so, please be WP:BOLD and add it to the article. Ronnotel (talk) 20:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I can not prove their capacitor will fail but it is common for conventional capacitors to fail and instantaneously discharge and there is a mean time between failure specified for commercial product. Perhaps it is EEstor who needs to prove this wont explode when it fails or will be liable if it does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Perpetrator (talk • contribs) 20:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

As per WP policy, all content must be reliably sourced. As stated, this sounds more like speculation and probably doesn't qualify for the article yet. Ronnotel (talk) 20:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure either way. This is clearly a safety concern for any capacitor, including this one, but it isn't for us here to ask that question. We can report it if a news site or a research paper ponders the safety of the EEstor capacitors, but we can't come out of the blue and say, "There is no word on whether these capacitors will spontaneously explode like other, smaller capacitors do." We could just as easily make a technically true statement like, "There is no word on whether or not these capacitors spontaneously turn into smaller versions of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. EEstor has yet to issue a comment." Technically that isn't a lie because there IS in fact no word on that subject. But that's cause no one has thought to talk about anything that kookie. So it isn't exactly something we should be saying.

So I think that while this is a valid question to ask, we aren't the ones who should be asking it. We can only put it in the article if someone else asks it first. If you can find a source somewhere that questions the safety of EEstor's capacitors, then great. It will add a nice counterpoint to what is currently a completely one sided article. But no source = no statement in article.Gopher65 (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

They are using cells or "components" as they call them in the world patent. These can be isolated so that a failure only affects one cell, not the whole 52 kWh. Electronics could detect a failure and shut off that cell from future use. 24.214.120.227 (talk) 12:15, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, the WIPO patent says EEStor makes a tray with 100 layers of very thin BT based capacitors. And then dices them up into 6,000 individual "elements". 10 "elements" are "glued" together to make a "component", in the WIPO patent language. Thus, there are 1,000 parallel capacitors, per "component"? I'm hoping that if 1 such small capacitor has a flaw and does short out, there would be a tiny puff of smoke and then an open circuit. Without any further impact to nearby material. But, I sure would like confirmation of that. Or what the other builtin mechanism(s) (fused links?) are to effectively avoid all potentially catastrophic events.Nekote (talk) 23:24, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not connected with EEStor, but I do work in this area (projects involvin use of BST as a capacitor dielectric at sub micron film thicknesses), and I have had a look at the world patent. I think you have a large burden of evidence before you can start discussing dangerous catastrophic failure modes. You simply don't know enough about the implementation to have an informed view. Like the previous commentor, I would expect that the separation into multiple cells will act to restrict the damage caused by any single point failure. But I can't tell for sure, because I don't know how much damage the failure would cause to the overall structure. The guys who designed this & spent a fortune on patenting it may know all about this. But there's no prima facie evidence to compare it with the fuel tank of a badly designed car. Cerireid (talk) 16:10, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be a consensus that there needs to be a reputable source saying that safety is an issue before it can go in the article. Here is such a source. [2]. Ccrrccrr (talk) 02:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is certainly a reliable source. However, the expert seems to be speaking in generalities only and has no specific knowledge regarding EEStor's design. I think this can be used, but I would be careful not to go beyond what the source is saying. Ronnotel (talk) 02:45, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the expert (Miller) doesn't say anything about safety - the writer talks about safety, and gets a response from EEstor that it's a non-issue. I don't really see a justification for putting safety issues on the main page, as EEstor have gone out of their way to say it's not a problem. At some point we're just repeating vague assertions that 'safety might be an issue', when there's no evidence for that. I don't see how adding speculation to the page helps. Cerireid (talk) 16:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Except that the entire page is speculation and hearsay because there is no evidence yet of any type. This article is nothing except "he said, she said". At this point, I'm not sure that putting in *more* speculation would decrease the quality of the article:P. Gopher65_talk 02:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Unlike a tank of gas, the fully charged capacitor needs no oxygen to liberate its energy content. If one must make the metaphor to chemical energy, it seems to me that it would be more comparable to an actual explosive, but with no actual detonator present. Regardless of what happens in the event of partial internal failure due to MTBF, one is also forced by an energy density of 2.5MJ/kg to contemplate failure resulting from external failure modes. For example, crushing in an accident leading to complete short-circuit. If the fully charged (3475V) 30F capacitor were crushed in 1/16th of a second in a manner leading to full discharge, the magnitude of the output would be about 2.9GW - the same as the output of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station (the largest nuke in the country) for the duration of that 1/16th of a second. 187,000,000 watts if the process takes an entire second. Thats a hell of a lot of output, so what sort of magic is going to make this ceramic device non-explosive? Zaphraud (talk) 04:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wattage is generally less relevant than total energy release. Further, in this case, the question isn't "What would happen to a fuel tank?", but rather, what happens when lots of electrical energy is released into a material? The answer, it gets hot. How hot? Depends on what that thing is made of, and the amount of energy absorbed (you can assume 100% heating efficiency here!). Whatever the case though, unless it gets hot enough to vaporize in significant quantities, it won't explode. Explosions are, in the end, caused by the sudden expansion of a gas. --Xylix (talk) 05:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Taking a ball-park specific heat capacity of 1 kJ/kg (many solids are lower than this) 2.5 MJ/kg is enough energy to raise the temperature to 2800 K. Whether anything gets vaporized would depend on if heat production is localized to any particular component. Take a look at http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/amateur/capexpt.html (Fantastically dangerous capacitor bank experiments) to see the fun and games that can be achieved woth a fraction of this energy.24.108.87.94 (talk) 19:33, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Every energy-storage technology I can think of poses risks due to uncontrolled catastrophic energy releases. Fuel tanks can explode or burn, hydroelectric dams can collapse and release their stored energy in floods, and so on. It would be a miracle if ultracapacitors were somehow exempt from this generalization. I too wonder what happens to a fully-charged ultracapacitor unit if it gets crushed or burned in an accident (it could get burned if it crashes into a conventionally fueled vehicle which spills fuel over it and ignites). Presumably these questions will get answered shortly after units are available for destructive testing, either in controlled or real-world settings. However, it seems to me that if an accident is violent enough to crush a well-designed capacitor bank, the vehicle occupants might already be dead, so the primary hazard would be to people or property outside the vehicle. One simple way to reduce the number of collisions and their average violence is to reduce speed limits. In other words, just slow traffic down to speeds that the human brain evolved to handle. For millions of years our ancestors almost never moved faster than they could run, so it's no wonder that vehicles capable of moving several times faster are so dangerous when operated by humans. Like most obviously sensible ideas, reducing speed limits to safe levels is probably a non-starter. --Teratornis (talk) 21:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The amount of energy is about a gallon and a half of gasoline. It's enough to almost fully vaporize all the BT material and if that's not fully vaporized, then you still have some aluminum wiring to absorb more energy. Batteries can safely store more energy because they are stored as changes in chemical bonds. It does seem that since this is almost as much energy as the amount required to vaporize all the BT, and since it supposedly is not using chemical storage methods (because of long cycle life and fast charge time and efficiency), then such a thing could be dangerous if fully crushed. Partial crushing would probably just cause a lot of smoking and bad smell. Ywaz (talk) 09:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The Cycle of energy

Though it is good that electric vehicles do not emit exhaust gases into our atmosphere, the electric power still needs to come from a power plant somewhere, whether we charge the vehicles from specialized stations or at home. Currently most power plants throughout the world are fueled by what? Nuclear powered? Hydro powered? Oil powered? Majority are thermal power stations that produce lots of heat waste. So my point is, though we seemed to be inventive and innovative to come up with something to tackle one part of the cycle. It is still within the cycle.

Some may say, "every little bit helps". But as the reliance on electric power increases, so would the supply of power from power plants all around the world, and so would the amount of by products produced by the power plants.

I wonder if the motive of those new Electric Vehicles startups is profit driven or sincerely wanting to make a real change in transforming our dependence on fuel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.95.251.233 (talk) 04:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not a usual Wikipedia contributor and in fact this is my first discussion edit, but I think that discussion pages are to discuss the article, not the subject. But because this topic greatly interests me, and since we'll probably both be deleted anyway, let me take a shot at addressing your question.

First, internal combustion engines (ICEs) are far less efficient than power plants. When travel-cost comparisons between ICE and electric cars are made, the much cheaper operating cost of the electric vehicles (EVs) reflects that the energy is more efficiently used. A theoretical power plant burning gasoline would need to burn less of it to charge your EV than you would need to pump into your ICE's gas tank to travel the same distance.

Furthermore, power plants as a rule don't burn gas or oil. Most (more than half of the U.S.'s total electric power) comes from coal; much comes from natural gas, which at least burns fairly cleanly, and a growing amount from sustainable alternates. The EV concentrates power production at the plant instead of among millions of ICEs, which allows targeted reduction of emissions and fossil fuel consumption (and, for that matter, waste heat--the ICE wastes a lot of heat, while the natural gas power plant on the University of Texas at Austin campus, for example, captures a lot of waste heat in the form of steam pumped to various campus buildings).

Finally, the energy storage issue directly influences power generation in other ways. Better energy storage (be it electrochemical or capacitive) makes many applications more efficient and effective. My favorite example is home solar. Suppose you put solar panels on your roof. You must also install an energy storage system to transfer energy from times of excess production to times of insufficient production. This adds thousands of dollars to the system, and furthermore the batteries' life span is probably shorter than that of the panels. Every energy storage advance helps mitigate this problem. And the ultracapacitor is potentially better than the battery in several ways, with essentially unlimited recharges (and importantly, complete discharges and recharges, in stark contrast to electrochemical batteries), virtually no self-discharging, and the ability to charge and discharge at speeds as high as electric transfer will allow (this means higher power than batteries can drive--commercial transport? Flying cars, maybe?). So if it works, home solar and an almost endless number of other applications become much more attractive.

I must agree with you, though, that if this comes to pass we'll most certainly go right back to driving more and bigger cars, and more often. Conscientious people will need to remain vigilant in the pursuit of ever greater improvements in sustainable energy production. 66.193.122.3 (talk) 18:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

From what other people say, even with line loss, battery efficiency, etc, an electric car is still substantially more efficient than a gas-powered one, both in heat pollution and more traditional varieties. Still, obviously, how the power is generated will affect how much of an improvement it is. But infrastructure improvements can be made transparently to the end-user with a universal fuel like electrons.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060831063922AAWkoys

Lordyak (talk) 22:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, one of the founders of Tesla Motor Company, Martin Eberhard, did a presentation in Hawaii a few weeks back where he showed that: if you take a gallon of diesel and burn it in a car you get about 40 miles to the gallon, but if you take that same gallon of diesel, burn it in a generator (to convert the diesel to electricity), then you can go over twice as far in an electric car using that electricity. This is because the electric car is much more energy efficient than the internal combustion car. 63.3.15.130 (talk) 23:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, when cars use electicity instead of fossile fuel, we still need to produce elecitricity. But then, we also need to compare the efficiency of a combustion engine with that of en electric motor. Even when all combustion engine powered cars would be replaced by electric cars and all the electricity would be produced by burning gasoline in huge electric plants, the overall efficiency would increase and we would need about 30% less crude oil than today.

And even better: an electric car doesn't care, how the electric energy has been produced. You can any kind of energy source. If you want to use wind power, than an investment of about 2000 or 3000 US$ will be sufficient, to produce all the electricity that this car will ever use within it's life. 79.218.82.159 (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

$3000 spent on a wind farm buys about 1.5 kW of nameplate capacity at current prices (prices were dropping until around 2005, due to technological advances, and have been rising since then, due to exploding demand for wind turbines and resulting bottlenecks in manufacturing). A well-sited wind farm has a capacity factor of about 30%, so the $3000 investment buys an average output of about 11 kWh/day. (The output can vary widely from day to day and by the season for an individual wind turbine, but you could average that investment over many wind and solar plants on a large grid to get a fairly reliable daily output.) Assuing an EV expends about 200Wh/mi, 11kWh/day gives 11,000/200 = 55 miles/day or about 20,000 mi/year which is more than the average car in the U.S. travels. So your wind power investment number sounds about right for a reasonably efficient EV. There are other arguments for EVs, such as the Vehicle to grid idea that would allow an EV owner to earn as much as $4000/yr by selling the use of the EV's power pack to the utility company as Grid energy storage. This type of scheme could solve the intermittent power source problems that dog the most promising of the new renewables (wind power and solar power). --Teratornis (talk) 20:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

As to ultracapacitors leading to a resurgence of the gas guzzler in a new form, this seems unlikely any time soon. Even if EEStor's technology lives up to the hype, scaling it up enough to matter would take years. For comparison, the Obama transition team is talking about an "aggressive" goal of getting one million plug-in hybrid vehicles in the U.S. by 2015, but the U.S. has about 250 million registered personal vehicles. It's questionable whether EVs can scale up as fast as the supply of petroleum might decline over the next 10 to 20 years. If the petroleum available to oil-importing nations such as the U.S. declines faster than alternative vehicle propulsion methods can scale up, there will have to a commensurate decrease in total vehicle ton-miles. The most obvious way to make a shrinking fuel supply go farther is to build lighter (which generally means smaller) vehicles. While the potential for renewable energy sources such as wind power and solar power is enormous, exploiting these promising sources on a large scale will take a long time. The U.S., for example, has built the equivalent of about 10,000 large wind turbines over the past 30 years, and now wind power supplies a little over 1% of U.S. electricity. The U.S. could in theory get all of its primary energy from wind alone, but this would require building several million large modern wind turbines, basically carpeting the Great Plains, the shallow parts of the Great Lakes, and other windy areas such as just off the Atlantic Coast. Even at the current robust rate of exponential growth of wind power in the United States, this would require decades, along with a national consensus to override all the NIMBYism that large numbers of wind turbines would tend to generate. (Opinion polls consistently show solid majority support for wind power, but it only takes a few vocal determined opponents to slow development.) Given that world population just keeps growing, virtually guaranteeing ever more demand for energy, it seems our future is likely to become progressively more energy-constrained, to put it very mildly. --Teratornis (talk) 00:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Richard Weir interview at Blogspot.com

Below is a three-part blogspot interview with Richard Weir.

part one: http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/2008/05/to-hype-or-not-to-hype-part-1-interview.html

part two: http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-fast-can-you-partner-part-2.html

part three: http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/2008/06/going-into-production-part-3-interview.html

63.3.15.130 (talk) 15:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

UFTO Source

I added what I think is some interesting information about EESTOR that I haven't seen anywhere but UFTO. Unfortunately I'm a newbie and have undoubtedly screwed up the source citations. Please feel free to correct if I've done these wrong.

Tvillars (talk) 23:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Charge Time

In the article, it says:

Also according to Ian Clifford a normal household outlet with 110 volt supply can fully charge the EESTor powered CityZENN in 4 hours for a 250 mile range and a normal household outlet with 220 volt supply can fully charge the EESTor powered CityZENN in 2 hours for a 250 mile range.

This is clearly BS. 4 hours from a standard household outlet (15A), assuming 117V actual, is a mere 7kWh. The pack is 52kWh. To put it another way, a typical streamlined EV gets about 200Wh/mi. That'd be 35 miles. Even if it had the aerodynamics of the hyper-streamlined Aptera, it'd only be about 85 miles. Not 250.

If someone can find a citation for him saying this, then we need to leave it in. Wikipedia's standard is verifiability, not truth, and if he said that, we have no right to point out the real facts. But it's transparently not true. -- 129.255.93.219 (talk) 16:33, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I have seen a clarification by Ian Clifford in an interview that the 5 min charge time claimed is in the case of storing energy in one capacitor unit (like attached to solar cells or at a "gas" station) to quickly charge another unit in a car. It would require nearly 1" diameter copper cables, but it's realistic. Yes, the numbers you mention that he gave do seem like an exaggeration. Even with 30A circuits, it would still take 3 times longer than he claims. 24.214.120.227 (talk) 17:53, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The Wiki article is currently as above (Also according.......can fully charge .... in 4 hours for a 250 mile ....). However the article it references doesn't quite say that; See the last three sentences of the third paragraph of http://gm-volt.com/2008/06/01/exclusive-ceo-of-zenn-motor-company-on-eestor-eestor-storage-units-cityzenn-and-zennergy-drive-systems/ '(Had the quotation, pulled it as not sure of GFDL)'

It seems (IMO) that this time/outlet reference is to the 'charging algorithms'. Likely this is only a reflection on the ability of the charging circuit to choose the right selection of coils (on transformer) or timing (on Switch mode power supply) to adjust to incoming voltage/capacitor voltage. As this quotation contains no reference to 'fully charged', nor to drivable range, I'm guessing the author assumed (of the wiki quote in question) incorrectly. MarkD-Chem-EE (talk) 12:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)MarkD-Chem-EE

I think you could assume 220V w/ 30A service. But keep in mind that RMS value of AC is ~0.707, so you can only get about 4.6KW out of a typical household outlet. Even a reasoanble 50A service would get you ~7.7KW. Still, it would take at least 7 hours to charge assuming 100% charging efficiency. 100% efficiency is impossible because you require 3500V to charge the darn thing. --Bk1022 (talk) 18:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Just a correction to you Bk1022 - Voltage on household (mains) ie- 220V is always stated in RMS, but still your point is taken. MarkD-Chem-EE (talk) 22:04, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually Bk1022 is perfectly correct. 220 V (RMS) x 30 A (RMS) is 6.6 kVA which as he states is only about 4.6 kW of real power. The shortfall is the consequence of multiplying two sine waves together. 96.54.53.165 (talk) 01:22, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

No, 220 volts and 30 amps will get you 6.6 kW at 1.0 power factor , but less when considering the odd waveshapes that battery chargers make. The fundamental problem isn't the power level at a household outlet but the non-existence of the "EEStor" putative device. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:16, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:OR Permittivity/Capacitnce Questions

Unfortunately, by Wikipedia's policy, we're not allowed to make claims about something even if we back it up with references to our arguments; we can only report on what others have said. The references need to specifically make the argument that we're making, and they need to meet the WP:V standard. In the case of the criticism, we need verifiable sources criticizing EEStor's technology; only then we can report on it. Because of that, this whole section qualifies as WP:OR.

I agree that the section would be good to have; surely there is some verifiable source criticizing EEStor on this ground? -- 129.255.93.219 (talk) 16:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I am the primary author of the section that you pointed out has WP:OR problems. I moved the WP:OR notice to isolate the paragraph on capacitance which i don't have a primary link to refer to. Here I'll defend my position that the other paragraphs do not present a critical WP:OR problem. In the first paragraph, I am summarizing what is told in a lot of blogs and comment additions to articles on EEStor. But the complaints rise above just blogs and comments because primary articles mention them too. I came to wikipedia to try to find out exactly what the vague complaints the primary articles were referring to, but it was not in wiki either. Only blogs and comment sections went into great detail. So I had to go into the patents to find the information i needed. Then i came back to wiki and used the data from the relevant patents to clarify the vague complaints made elsewhere on the internet. This helps wikipedia to make valuable contributions to the internet rather than just a restatment of popularist articles. Just as journal articles are allowed to be used as references throughout wikipedia without requiring Time or NewsWeek to summarize the journal articles, i believe patents are a valid source of primary information for wikipedia. If wikipedia never went deeper than National Geographic, would it be useful? I would prefer that it go at least as deep as the encyclopedia brittanica, and it does, but only because wikipedia frequently goes deeper than newspapers and magazines. Its ability to summarize and clarify a variety of information sources in appropriate depth is the key to what makes wikipedia great.

In the next three paragraphs, I have cited the patents that EEStor referenced in their patent. Those paragraphs are just a summary of the relevant information found in the patents and i don't think count as original research. There is also the last part of the 2nd paragraph that discusses why zirconium and other impurities are used which can be found in good, relatively new references on barium titanate. The best source i found was a hard-to-link reference (a google book) and i don't know if i could find it again. It might also be mentioned in the Philips patent that is referenced by the EEStor patent and some journal articles.

The last paragraph before the capacitance section is to add balance to the permittivity complaints. It's not new or original information, or easily citable, but i believed it was necessary to "remind" the reader that a private company is much different from a public company and that there could be good reasons EEStor is not "explaining itself".

As you have said, and as many above in discussions above have said, SOMETHING needs to be said about the permittivity question. My proposed solution is that sections of patents can be extracted and restated, just as journal articles often are, and that this does not qualify as original research.

I continue to look for ways to improve the permittivity section and to make it more citable and less of an "OR" section. 24.214.120.227 (talk) 18:23, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the section below, as I believe it constitutes speculation (and presumably was the part that led to the 'OR' tag), and belongs here rather than in the main article. I discuss it below:

Another source of concern about the reported permittivity is the 10 nm aluminum oxide coating
which reduces the overall capacitance. A lower capacitance means a lower permittivity will be
measured. Coatings act as capacitances in series which lowers the overall capacitance and the
measured permittivity. EEStor states in the world patent that the coating reduces the
permittivity by only 12%. They report a measured capacitance of 19,800*e*A/9.8 micron =
2,020*e*A, where "e" is the permittivity of free space and A is a given area of the
electrodes. However, the permittivity for aluminum oxide is only 10 so that a 0.01 micron
coating has a capacitance of 10*e*A/0.01 = 1000*e*A. There may be 30 layers of these coatings
because the patent states the particles are 0.64 micron in diameter and the electrodes are
spaced 10 microns apart. This gives about 15 layers of the particles between the electrodes,
or 30 layers (top and bottom) of the aluminum oxide coating in series with the barium
titanate that it coats. Using the series formula for capacitance as an overestimate, 30
layers gives a maximum capacitance of 1000*e*A/30 = 33*e*A. This is 60 times less than what
EEStor is reporting which means the permittivity and storable energy are at least 60 times
lower than EEStor is reporting if the coating information in the patent is correct. Similar
capacitance concerns can be stated for the PET (permittivity ~ 4 )which occupies about 5% of
the volume according to the patent.

My observations (I'm not connected with EEstor, just been working in thin films/MEMS and with BT for a couple of years):

1. EEstor state a dielectric thickness of just under 1um, not 10um as stated above, so there won't be the equivalent of 30 layers of Alumina. (minor point)

2. If the method for calculating the change in capacitance due to the Alumina and PET given in the above para were correct, the eestor cells would be roughly equivalent in capacitance to the capacitance of a 20-30nm film of PET. This is orders of magnitude lower than they claim. They'd have to be incompetent to try to build something that worked this way, and they'd have to have filed fraudulent patents and obtained their outside investments fraudulently (the world patent contains experimental results of measurements of the capacitance of the devices they've produced). I expect they're not idiots, and the patent demonstrates a better working knowledge of the subject than I, for one, have. I believe the error in the para above is that it assumes that the PET and alumina form their own films above/below the layer of BT. But the patent is very explicit that the capacitors are compressed at 100 bar (about 1500 psi) at 180C for 45 minutes after screen printing. The bulk properties of the dielectric produced by this method won't just be a 'capacitors in series' product of the constituents (as above para assumes). The breakdown voltage of thin films of BT is highly dependent on film quality; very small pinholes in the BT are the usual breakdown initiation sites, along with areas of lower than desired film thickness. I believe that the point of EEstors technique is that under heat and pressure, the alumina and PET will mobilise to create a dielectric matrix with a very uniform thickness and no pinholes. We would expect this to give a capacitance less than the pure BT (12% lower, as they claim, sounds believable to me) but with much improved breakdown characteristics. I wish I'd thought of this.

If you don't buy that argument, well, that's fine - but before you start adding to the main page on this you need to have some proper sources that back up your disbelief. A bunch of other people on the web who also don't like the claims doesn't really qualify. A PhD working in the area going on record probably would.Cerireid (talk) 18:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The distance between parallel aluminum plates in the EESU is 10 um as stated in the blocked quote above, not 1 um. The alumina-coated cubic shaped particles of composition modified BT are 1 um in diameter, plus the 10 nm coating. Under this scheme as described in the patent, the decrease in CMBT permittivity has to be about 40 times lower than EEStor reports in the world patent application, not a mere 12% lower. An error in the blocked quote is that it's 10 layers instead of 15 layers since the newest press release stated they were using 1 um particles instead of 0.67 um. 24.214.120.227 (talk) 12:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

---

       *Regarding the above permittivity analysis...

Assume this model: ten repetitions of 1 micron layer Barium titanate [e relative=20k] seperated by .02 micron layers of aluminum oxide [e relative=10]; all between two electodes. This is further simplified as a single 10 micron layer of BT adjacent to a .2 micron layer of AO. The capacitance of the BT layer would indeed be 40 times as great as the AO, and the capacitance of the whole would would only equal that of the AO layer! But note, the voltage across the AO would be (3500volts/0.2microns) = 17500 volts/micron...assuming a 3500 volt source. This is >10x the breakdown voltage of AO! Therefore, in this model, the AO would not behave as an insulator for source voltages above ~(3500/10) = 350 volts. This modeling of the eestor capacitor layer may be overly simplified. But, perhaps the AO is only being used as a crystalline buffer matrix between adjacient discontinuous BT crystal particles; not as an electrically insulative layer (which would make no sense in a capacitor design anyway, as was suggested). This is, of course, pure speculation. In any case, the capacitance of this model would then equal that of the BT layer alone...where the AO layer is seen as conductive under high voltage conditions. Comments are welcome. Mdmill (talk) 02:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

In the news

I noticed a bot-revert today, and it was reverting a link in a section I didn't even realize that this article had: "In The News". I don't feel that such a section is relevant to the article, and I think it should be removed. Any objections/comments? Gopher65_talk 21:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Since EEStor is currently operating in stealth mode, I think an In The News section is important to have. Without it there is no way to judge progress or the lack there of for this company. I suppose once they have their own website back up, then it would be reasonable to take this section out but until then I say leave it. tvillars (talk) 01:44, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I saw the same and was glad to see you do what I was tempted to do myself... maybe the bot nabbed it because it was from an IP address, I don't know. Either way, the article was a bit... oh, ad heavy... but it was interesting anyways. jeturcotte (talk) July 16, 2008

Hi guys, a link to the interview is on this discussion page under the title Richard Weir interview at Blogspot.com. Wikipedia's bot has removed that link about 3 times or more and I don't think it will give up.  :-) In the past I have been placing Blogspot.com references on this page. 63.3.15.1 (talk) 16:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the section. It's not Wikipedia's role to provide news links, that's what search engines are for. Besides, a bunch of poorly formatted mostly untitled random links from 2008 is no longer "News". If any news article had something relevant to EEStor, someone can add the information to the article with citation. I would advise sentences of the form "In 2007, EEStor claimedto be 'ready for full throttle production' after certification[1]" , but a lot of such information is already in the section #Status and delays. Adding more damning quotes would just be piling on. -- Skierpage (talk) 20:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Blogspot.com -- Good source of information on EEStor

Hello. Blogspot.com continues to produce original information on EEStor. They have submitted questions to EEStor that reportedly will be answered in the next few days. Here is a link to the website http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/, if you are interested. In addition, they report the EEStor website, http://eestor.us, will be operational soon. 63.3.15.129 (talk) 05:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been over 2 weeks and EEStor's website isn't up and running. I guess maybe blogspot's definition of 'soon' differs from mine.  :-) But, if the website ever gets up and running, that is the correct address. 63.3.15.1 (talk) 02:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, here is another really good site for information on EEStor: http://www.theeestory.com. 63.3.15.129 (talk) 12:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Do they exist?

I edited to change lots of "is" to "would be" because there's nothing that indicates an EESU exists or has been shown to store the energy claimed. An anonymous edit reverted and inserted claims that the WIPO application has test results for 10 of them. Nope. It says, "The leakage current was multiplied by 31 ,351 to reflect the full EESU value." When they say "component" they mean one of the 31,351 that are needed to make an EESU. They tested to components, one 3135th of an EESU. I'm tempted to revert by that might constitute an edit war and I don't want to get into that. So I'll await discussion here before I do that.Ccrrccrr (talk) 19:50, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Under the section talking about leakeage the statement says, "Leakage current of ten EESUs that contain 31,351 components each and having the capability of storing 52.22 kW»h of electrical energy measured at 85° C and 3500 V. EESU Leakage Current - μA 1. 4.22 2. 4.13 3. 4.34 4. 4.46 5. 4.18 6. 4.25 7. 4.31 8. 4.48 9. 4.22 10. 4.35"

"Average leakage current 4.28"

But, even if the leakage current was multiplied, this is still evidence the technology exist. 63.3.15.130 (talk) 11:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll redo my edits based on the idea that EESU's are not known to exist yet, but that there's at least some indication that components do. Anyone else care to comment on this, hopefully signed in to an account?Ccrrccrr (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 02:24, 27 November 2008 (UTC).

Skepticism from Experts

Three technology experts hired by potential investors to investigate EEStor's technology have stated "it's not possible", "extremely unlikely that it's possible", "there's extreme skepticism", "there's nothing there", "it's ridiculous thinking", "it's beyond science fiction", and "I'm surprised that Kleiner has put money into it". Ywaz (talk) 21:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

This got added to the article and is now the subject of an edit war with opponents claiming it is pseudoskepticism, meaning that the critics claim that it is impossible without offering evidence. (True skepticism is saying that it's uncertain until prove true; pseudoskepticism is saying it's false until proven true.) The short paragraph above is not really sufficient to categorize the skepticism into pseudo, ordinary, or true disproof. However, reading the references, I see a lot more true disproof and ordinary skepticism than pseudoskepticism. And suppose it was pseudoskepticism--would it not be notable that that was the reaction of the experts? I think it should be included in the article.Ccrrccrr (talk) 22:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Reaction from experts is notable only when they expressly indicate scientific points on which their reaction is based. To not indicate scientific points is equivalent to gossiping. I have no problem with skepticism being entered in the article as long as the included text actually has scientific points and not unreasoned personal opinions. I believe this is reasonable. --AB (talk) 23:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The quotes from the experts which are currently used in this article do indeed contain nothing in the way of content. This is, however, not the case for the cited sources, which set out specific objections (indeed the explanations are more detailed than anything provided by EEStor). Perhaps we need to expand the "skepticism" paragraph. LeContexte (talk) 12:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The paragraph needs to be rewritten using specific technical points. (Possible dummy example: John Doe of XYZ Labs has indicated that the proposed technology has problems as the metal rods corrode rapidly under normal use.) --AB (talk) 15:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for editing to put in specific technical points, but I think it's weird that prohibit the previous content that was missing those. There's no wikipedia policy that prohibits non-technical content. The article on Galileo has a long section discussing his critics even though his critics had no valid technical points to base their criticism on. This is different because the critics do have substantial technical points, but it feels to me like we have EEStor supporters here making up rules to prohibit criticism, and I get nervous when there's something that sounds like a conspiracy to silence critics.Ccrrccrr (talk) 02:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

That is a ridiculous accusation of me being a EEStor supporter or being otherwise biased. I suggest you stick to well established facts. If you get nervous and see a conspiracy where there isn't one, that's your personal concern that you have to deal with individually. Even if the Galileo article mentions his critics, that may be okay for solid historical reasons, and therefore does not carry over to EEStor. It is generally useful to not include useless information on Wikipedia, which is essentially what the section was. The section read like a tabloid, and makes an educated reader look like a fool by telling them personal feelings of individuals without going into the technical meat of the matter. Feel free to rewrite the section with the technical points that do exist, and the case of the skeptic will be stronger than ever before. --AB (talk) 03:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I seemed to be accusing you of anything. I didn't intend to be directing my comments at any individual--I haven't been particularly following individuals here. My impression is that generally criticism of EEStor gets squelched quickly while dubious claims for them tend to stick in the article for quite a while. I have no idea whether that's a few people or a succession of hundreds each making one edit. And I didn't literally mean a conspiracy, so I shouldn't have used that word. What I mean about being nervous isn't literal either--just that it's dangerous to be silencing one side of a dispute. We agree that the right solution is to re-write it better. Perhaps we can both agree to contributing towards re-writing it better.Ccrrccrr (talk) 05:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I also agree the section should have been removed. I saw it when it was first entered into the article. It was clearly subjective opinion and throughly unencyclopedic. 63.3.15.130 (talk) 02:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The entire article is an example of extraordinary claims without any evidence. All the sources cited as references to the validity to the technology are patents which are far from scientific evidence. There is no peer-reviewed literature to support EEStor's claims, and lots of literature showing what the true limits are. In light of this, if no paragraph on skepticism is included, the entire article should be deleted until it meets wiki standards. Otherwise, it is purposefully misleading investors. 24.214.120.227 (talk) 15:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I rewrote the skepticism section to address the valid concerns of the 2 people who were complaining. 24.214.120.227 (talk) 16:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

There are no investors. EEStor is a privately owned corporation. What gives you the right to say the entire article should be deleted? This article meets wiki standards. Wikipedia seeks to provide all relevant information regarding this exciting new company/technology. This article is neutral in tone. Negative information should be referenced just as positive information is. Nor should Skepticism from the Experts be the first section even before the technology is defined. Your POV is obvious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.15.129 (talk) 10:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I moved the Skepticism section below the Technology section. The article makes more sense if you first describe the technology then provide the skepticism. There is no Wikipedia requirement for skepticism to be included in the introduction for controversial articles as was erroneously reported in the edit summary. 63.3.15.1 (talk) 07:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Note that using phrases like "exciting new technology" (if it were to appear in an article, and not as a quote) would violate Wikipedia's WP:PEACOCK guideline, so it's a good idea to avoid using such phrases on a talk page, especially when accusing someone else of having a point of view. And until EEStor releases working product for independent testing, it doesn't have any commercially viable technology, only potential technology. The whole energy field is littered with an endless stream of hoax products such as water powered cars, and therefore the burden of proof is squarely on whoever claims to have some revolutionary new breakthrough product (as Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"). If EEStor can deliver on its press-release hype, then soon enough we will see its products in millions of electric cars, hybrid locomotives, grid energy storage banks, etc. So really there is nothing to debate here - in due course, EEStor will either deliver the goods, or vanish into the junkpile of overhyped failed startups. Including some reliably-sourced criticism in the article now is a good idea, because Wikipedia needs to fairly represent the kind of skepticism that tends to greet all revolutionary ideas whether they eventually work or not. If EEStor does what it claims, then the critics will all end up looking silly, and Wikipedia will have documented that, just as we document how silly the Flat earth and Phlogiston theory advocates look today. It's perfectly encyclopedic for us to document the kinds of arguments people have made both for and against various things, because students of the future can learn from arguments that once seemed plausible but later turned out to be flat wrong. Either EEStor or its critics are going to be wrong, and Wikipedia's readers deserve to know the argument and (someday) its outcome. Wikipedia has the same situation with Global warming - there's a big controversy about the scientific predictions, which we won't fully settle for maybe another 25 to 100 years. But it is important to document the history of the controversy as it unfolds - future generations will probably study this for years to come. Even if objections to Global warming science aren't scientific at all, these objections can still influence policy, and that has a big effect. So we need to know who is objecting to what, what their stated reasons are, and who they might be convincing. --Teratornis (talk) 01:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Defacing This Article

Arguments, sometimes heated, run rampant on the EEStory forum <http://theeestory.com>. Looks like some of that spilled over here. I just removed defacing insertions from the first paragraph, "total scam" and "Anybody who believes this garbage..."

This article may need to have updates restricted to prevent further defacing. --Lensman003 (talk) 01:06, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

75.46.78.125 is out of control--reverting every few minutes now. If you are 75.46.78.125, here's my plea to you: if you just keep up vandalizing like that, it will just result in you being blocked, the article being locked, etc. I actually agree that EEStor is a scam, and I think this article is biased for EEStor. I think it would be great to carefully, rationally, with good evidence for each step, shift the tone of the article closer to a crtical review, using NPOV rather than ESstor POV. It would better serve your cause to help that project than to vandalize this.Ccrrccrr (talk) 02:22, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks like we need to request a block. Is anyone experienced with that working on it?Ccrrccrr (talk) 02:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Is the article an advertisment of EEStor?

This article has been tagged with the advert tag by user Dougweller. I was thinking about trying to fix it up so it sounded less like an advertisement. After looking over the article the only real problem I found is where is says "EEStor is a company based in Cedar Park, Texas, United States that has developed a type of capacitor...". There seems to be no concrete evidence that they have ever publicly demonstrated this. Although there seems to be indirect evidence for its existance. Likewise there is no evidence that it does not exist except for some experts believe it to be theoreticly imposible. I will change this to "claims to have developed" and will remove the advert tag. If Dougweller or anyone else thinks this change is not sufficient for removal of the advert tag, then by all means put it back, but please add a comment here as to your thinking on the matter and what you believe would be required for it to be less "advertismenty". Stephen Luce (talk) 19:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I hoped someone would remove the advert tag. There is no advertisement in this article whatsoever. Furthermore, the article has 49 references, and an advertisement would not be as referenced. Please do not replace the advert tag. 63.3.15.130 (talk) 05:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Current Status?

The article does not clearly address the current status of this technology, either to say how close it is to production, or if it is simply unknown. Nave.notnilc (talk) 01:13, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Zenn cars are now shipping. I guess the skeptics are just plain out of luck. The page should be updated to reflect this. 216.116.87.110 (talk) 17:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure? The article here: [3] suggests that they are shipping conventional battery powered cars, with capacitor powered cars still on the horizon, expected fall 2009.LeContexte (talk) 18:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Zenn cars are shipping with conventional batteries. They're still waiting on those production EESUs. Have a great day! 63.3.15.129 (talk) 13:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

As of 2009 EEStor is widely acknowledged to be a scam (or at least "naive wishful thinking"). After years of waiting, there hasn't been a hand-built prototype tested by even their investment partners (Zenn) or their review partners (Lockheed). 69.134.54.59 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC).

Verifiability

The only source of information about EEStor's technology are their patents and press releases. Wikipedia rules require that articles be based on 3rd party sources. In particular, information should not be based on patents unless the authors have previously published peer-reviewed research on the subject and are recognized experts on the subject (they have not and are not), and in no case should articles be based primarily on patents.

All references to patents in the article should be deleted. All information based on the patents should be deleted. This includes Zenn press reports that include references to claims made in the patent, otherwise it is self-referencing for purposes of advertising both Zenn and EEStor. Ywaz (talk) 15:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there is no credible source that indicates that EEStor's technologoy is likely to work. However, I think that the story is notable, and belongs in WP, even if it turns out to be a notable case of fraud. The patents don't prove anything, but it is useful information about what EEStor claims. We need to present the information as what it is--unsubstantiated claims--rather than delete it.Ccrrccrr (talk) 22:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. The article is well sourced and should remain as is. This user has consistantly attempted to take information out of the article, and has erased large sections of the article without discussion. I believe he is a vandal. 63.3.15.130 (talk) 09:27, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

63.3.15.130, according to wiki rules, patents are not allowed as sources, especially if the authors have not published peer-reviewed research as in this case, and especially if most of the article is based on patents. This is explicitly explained in the link I gave above. 63.3.15.130, this will be your 8th instance of vandalism, insisting on breaking wiki rules. Ywaz (talk) 12:27, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I also agree that the article, while not technically following all of the guidelines, is important and should be kept, becahse this fraud may turn out to be noteworthy. The article sufficiently puts "EEStor claims" in front of nearly every sentence. In no way would a reader of this article be convinced that EEStor is real. If you're concerned, you could ramp up the "skepticism" section, and include the recent discussion of fraud among EEStor's investors. 69.134.54.59 (talk) 13:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Primary sources, such as the patent applications, are perfectly valid (and indeed essential) for citing what EEStor claims. Reliable third party sources are required for any text which states that these claims are true. The claims EEStor has made are in and of themselves notable and fit for inclusion in Wikipedia based on the extensive verifiable media coverage. Skepticism of those claims is also notable and fit for inclusion to the extent that reliable sources can be found. --12.42.51.27 (talk) 11:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Excellent explanation, 12.42.51.27. Thanks.Ccrrccrr (talk) 12:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

Ywaz, your erasure of most of this article qualifies as vandalism under Wikipedia guidelines. If you persist I will report you as a vandal and request that you be banned from editing this article. 63.3.15.130 (talk) 09:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

That's funny coming from someone with 7 vandalize warnings and 2 blocks. You are the one vandalizing and of course I will report you for violating wiki rules. None of my edits qualify as vandalizing. Especially since I am the author of most of the text I am wanting to delete. Ywaz (talk) 12:12, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

And there is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_%22Ignore_all_rules%22_means —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.31.106.34 (talk) 15:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Rules aside (see above), I find the information deleted to be useful, and a valuable part of the article. By all means, identify them as unsubstantiated claims, but if we ignore them entirely, then this article ceases to be a good source of information. Lordyak (talk) 15:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

There has not been any information deleted (yet) that did not look like primarily advertising for Zenn or LightEVs. Just 2 paragraphs. I agree the information might be of some use to those who like to speculate, but ignoring 3 or 4 wiki policies (greater weight than guidelines) is a big step to take. Wiki is supposed to be a source of source-based facts. I don't think source-based speculation is allowed. The patent information might belong on this talk page. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:REDFLAG (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence) Ywaz (talk) 18:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Lordyak, the information that was deleted was useful. You are wrong about my vandalism. I have never vandalized an article. This ip is shared and someone else might have vandalized using it, but I have never vandalized.

I don't think you realize that a lot of people have edited this article and when you come in here and start to delete large swaths of information without discussion you are vandalizing their work. 63.3.15.129 (talk) 10:37, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Over 50% of the article, including the portions that should be deleted according to wikipedia policy, were written by me. My POV has varied, as indicated by the permittivity section that I wrote, that needs to be deleted based on wikipedia policy. Your POV however, has always been consistently biased like an advertisement for EEStor and against wikipedia policy as indicated by your posts above. Ywaz (talk) 15:22, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Yvaz... i think it's great you figured out that EEStor is bogus but the world needs documentation of what people *who were tricked* thought of EEStor. And I think your edits reflect that. Taking them back might be an effort to save your reputation but a the loss of documenting *why* EEStor succeeded in fooling so many people. 69.134.54.59 (talk) 13:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Tvillars POV

Tvillars is reverting my edits that report the skepticism of experts and other comments that question the validity of EEStor's extraordinary claims. He works for the web site that reported the skepticism, and yet he is calling the citations "not well sourced". I believe he has a biased POV in favor of making EEStor look good. I do not know if he gets paid for this service, but if he does, I believe he should not be making edits. He sees no problem with breaking Wikipedia policy by allowing patents by EEStor to support most of the article. See also anonymous user 63.3.15.xxx above that has 3 or 4 times on this talk page referred to the web site for which Tvillars works. (edit) To explain futher, he refuses any skeptical comment that does not strictly adhere to wiki guidelines, but allows any pro-EEStor comment that violates 2 or 3 wikipedia policies. The article needs the skeptical comments or all the pro comments that violate wiki policy need to be deleted. Ywaz (talk) 15:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Couple of corrections and clarifications to the above. I am merely an unpaid co-Moderator on the blog zawy mentions TheEEStory, while zawy is a registered user and as of 14-Feb-09 has 460 post making him one of the top contributors to the blog. As to the patents supporting the majority of the article, I count only 7 patent references out of 35+ references. I agree the skeptical comments should be added but need to be properly sourced; otherwise there is no difference between a WIKI article and a blog. If I have refused "any skeptical comment" please point out my error(s) as preventing skepticism is not my objective. tvillars (talk) 16:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Over half of the references are from EEStor patent or press release, a blog, or an EEStor partner quoting EEStor. Most of the others are derived from these sources. Why haven't you deleted the other blog citations? I guess I will. I did not complain you deleted every skeptical claim, I complained that you require following strict rules for skeptical comments but you have no complaint about positive comments that clearly violate wikipedia rules. Ywaz (talk) 17:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe I have cleaned up the last of b's references from the WIKI which I assume is what you are referring to by "postive comments," but feel free to double check. The only other blogs cited are GM-VOLT which is written by Dr. Lyle Dennis and The Energy Blog written by James Fraser which makes their posts citable. tvillars (talk) 19:42, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

There is an issue with parity of sources here - the bulk of this article is composed of sources that are not particularly reliable; critical articles need therefore not necessarily be held to high standards of reliability. LeContexte (talk) 00:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree skeptical references are lacking from this article, but regarding parity of sources I've never seen a Wiki policy that allows for third-party referencing of an anonymous source whether it be pro, con, or neutral. This is why I've tried to remove ALL references to b (a.k.a. the EEStorBlogger) who has chosen to blog anonymously. Those wishing to add skeptical references have plenty of reputable third-party sources starting with Tyler Hamilton's excellent articles on EEStor which stretch over several years. tvillars (talk) 02:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Tvillars, can you find any wiki policy or guideline that says anonymous sources can't be used? I can't. It seems the primary criteria is that the source be trustworthy. I can find wiki policy that says 80% of the article needs to be deleted, as stated above. Actually we should be saying "anonymous journalists". We know the names of the sources. Ywaz (talk) 13:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm done with this until there is a group consensus on whether or not anonymous blog postings are allowed to be used as references. I find it ridiculous to have to have something so obvious being questioned, but that seems to be what is happening. I see no point in continuing with an article where hearsay is allowed.tvillars (talk) 16:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

zawy recently reverted my edit because he somehow "knows" the reporter made a mistake and replaced it with the original text that that references anonymous blog postings. Imagine what would happen if a bunch of creationist were allowed this leeway on the evolution page. Since zawy has decided his pov is supreme and all others must be reverted into oblivion, I no longer wish to be assocaited with this article. I'll be removing my contributions as time allows. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tvillars (talk • contribs) 13:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey, don't remove your contributions. We need all the clear, level headed, insightful research we can get. 63.3.15.1 (talk) 13:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that ordinarily one shouldn't accept anonymous Internet postings as a source worthy of quoting in a Wikipedia article, the Anonymous EEStor Blogger known as "B" has certainly established his credibility in this area. Much of the information in this blogger's posts, and his interviews with EEStor executive Richard Weir, have been later confirmed by articles and subsequent interviews at other websites. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." Even if there is a Wikipedia guideline against quotes from an anonymous source, I think it would be small-minded to apply that rule here.--Lensman003 (talk) 05:54, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

when you can find websites that "confirm" infos from the "Anonymous Blogger's" blog, then this simply proves, that other websites do nothing else but copy information from the blog to their site. I believe that the "Anonymous Blogger" ist a person from inside Zenn with an enormous personal interest in good news about EEstor and Zenn. And yes: I believe that EEstor is a hoax, with the main purpose to boost the stock value of Zenn. --79.218.107.143 (talk) 15:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

(1) When I said "later confirmed by articles and subsequent interviews at other websites", I didn't mean other articles which merely regurgitate info posted by the Anonymous EEStor Blogger. I meant new articles based on new interviews with the principals.

(2) Your personal beliefs without evidence, such as who the Anonymous EEStor Blogger may or may not be, have no relevance to how this article should be written or edited. Since you have stated a very clear bias, my opinion is that you should recuse yourself from editing this article.--Lensman003 (talk) 07:27, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

As an EEStor/Zenn skeptic, I believe all the interviews conducted at theeestory are accurate. I believe the moderators there want very strongly for EEStor to have something real, and that they are even biased in favor of EEStor/Zenn. However, they allow all negative comments to be posted and have reported even the most negative information anywhere when transcribing their interviews. "B's" status is so high that he has been able to get interviews with everyone involved and more traditional news sources are feeding off of his blog. All patent information should be removed from this article in accordance with wiki policy before theeestory.com is called into question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.120.227 (talk) 14:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Why is a picture of a fuel cell stack still being used as a graphic reference on the EEStor wiki page for an ultra-capacitor module? It's not like pictures of actual ultra-capacitor module products aren't available: . I'm sure Maxwell Technologies would be more than happy to have a picture of its product used as a much more representative "stand in" for how an "EESU" module would most likely appear. Using what is obviously a fuel cell stack does not exactly instill confidence in the accuracy of this article's contents. Officious Martinet (talk) 03:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

"Anonymous EEStor Blogger known as "B" has certainly established his credibility in this area." That is a bunch of horse manure. The Air Force Research Lab. employees believe "B" to be a clown and they know theestory.com is a pump site for EESTor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.45.19.10 (talk) 15:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Low importance? Maybe not

IMO, the EEStor scam (it is widely acknowledged as a multimillion dollar scam by now) is just the tip of the iceberg. Yes, it's hardly noteworthy that some R&D startup company overstated its claims in order to raise captial.

However, EEStor may be at the center of a multibillion dollar fraud being perpetrated by GM. GM has repeatedly used claims that the "battery technology" is what they are "waiting for" and "investing in" in order to produce new electric vehicles. They may have used EEStor's documents in talks and closed-door negotiations in Washington. GM has negotiated and accepted government support, contingent on investment in clean tech, and they may be using EEStor's delays as "proof that this is hard to do" ... in order to string along public officials.

The rumors is that they will try to blame EEStor for delays possible failure of their "investment" in electric vehicles. None of their competitors has received anywhere near 1 billion in investment help, and yet many of them have production vehicles. Somehow they manage to delay and bewilder Washington, despite the fact that it's been repeatedly demonstrated (RAV4, EV1, Tesla) that LiIon, NIMH and Ovonic batteries produce *more than adequate* density for consumer use and strong consumer demand for entry-level EV's. 69.134.54.59 (talk) 13:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget the Obama budget invests hugely in energy. EEStor should surely be entitled to government investment dollars. EEStor and this article may become even more important. 209.247.21.121 (talk) 16:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Both comments above are just speculative political talk. They don't belong here. Ywaz (talk) 20:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The comments appear to be U.S.-centric. The U.S. is not the only nation with an energy problem, nor the only nation attempting to develop battery electric vehicles. General Motors may or may not be exaggerating its difficulties with developing consumer-grade EVs, but it doesn't appear any other country is much farther ahead in terms of EV development. Successive generations of inventors have been trying to replace the petroleum-fueled internal combustion engine for the past 100 years; if it was an easy task, someone would have succeeded. --Teratornis (talk) 05:17, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Cost vs. Lead Acid

Regarding the point: "For a 52 kWh unit, an initial production price of $3,200, falling to $2,100 with mass production is projected.[7] This is half the price per stored watt-hour of lead-acid batteries, and potentially cheap enough to use to store grid power at off-peak times for on-peak use, and to buffer the output from intermittent power sources such as wind farms."

There is a citation for the price of an eesu, but what about a citation to back the claim that this is "half the price per stored watt-hour of lead-acid batteries". I don't believe this is half the price per watt-hour of lead-acid batteries. I have a battery bank and I have always paid about $50 for a 100Ah 12V lead acid battery from Costco. This equates to $50 for 1200Wh, which equates to $2000 for 48kWh - and this is retail, so I would think the lead acid battery prices are comparable, not half. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.159.129 (talk) 19:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Potential impact of the Eestor technology

If all what Eestor claim and apply patents for is true their technology will be a total game changer in the whole energy business and globally - something like the Google in the energy market. Now the article does not contain such an analysis. I really believe that the power of wikipedia does not constrain in the replication of the regional encyclopedia media, but in the ability not only to describe the current status and the history based on the facts but also a prediction kind of analysis about future impacts etc. Please correct me if I am wrong ... See the following links: —Preceding unsigned comment added by YordanGeorgiev (talk • contribs) 19:17, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I mean the following:

• The production of alternative energy will get more attractive and profitable - imagine wind and solar with cheap energy storage
• The established producers of all type of devices for electic energy storage - lithium-ion manufacturers, all battery manufactures will be under extreme pressure , both on price and quality pressure and most of them will simply go into bacruptcy
• The whole established carbon-fueled production + storage chain - big oil + natural will start to decline - since once people switch to non-carbon based vehicles the whole chaing will collapse and why not - if your future car will to to 100 km/h in 4 s, have 800 km range with 5-6 minutes load times and 100 km will cost you some less than 5 $ + the car will be much cheaper how long would take for all the cars to become electric?
• the mobility in all type of electronic devices will increase and create a totally new ways of using those - image your Iphone lasting for 20 h and being recharged in 3 minutes ...
• the production of electric energy will get more decentrilized - the pressure for smart grid will be really market based
• new type of transport vehicles will be invented - imagine an electric helicopter airplace hybrid , every transport vehicle based on carbon fuels will eventually switch to EESU + electric motor propulsion
• —Preceding unsigned comment added by YordanGeorgiev (talk • contribs) 20:01, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. When I first heard of this idea I was reminded of science fiction. In my opinion as important as the EV use would be, it would be equally important to fill up a downtown substation with rows of modules and hook it up to the grid to provide megawatt-hours of load levelling. But I got all excited about cold fusion a few years ago, too, and that fizzled out. I don't know enough physics to settle my mind on this question - there's only so many dipoles that can flip in a given volume of dielectric, after all. Just *one* appearance with a shoe-box sized prototype hooked up to a bunch of 100 watt bulbs would greatly ease my mind - even if it was only 10% of the performance of the gadget described in the patent, it would show *something* to the world. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Range

"...and that it could be used to propel a small car for about 300 miles[2]. This potential for making electric vehicles fully competitive with gasoline-powered vehicles has created much interest,..."

I'm certainly no expert, but how does a 300 mile limit with a minimum 4 hour recharge make this competetive with an internal combustion engine? It does not take 4 hours to pump 20 or thirty gallons into a gas tank. Am I missing something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smythdav (talk • contribs) 15:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It's all persepective. How long did it take to rest the horses after a long day?

How many automobile users drive 300 mile legs with no time to recharge? For 320+ days per year my car does no more than 30 miles in a day and sits in the driveway for 14+ hours a day. True, for two weeks every year I drive 500 miles a day and a 4-hour recharge would be intolerable...but I speculate that very many people who drive less than 300 miles in a day would consider an overnight recharge to be of interest, especially in a vehicle that didn't cost $30,000 and that used 10 cent kilowatthours instead of $5 gallons. (Actually, if I had a 300-mile EV I probably would take in on the big summer trips and just plug it in at lunch time and stretch breaks, and plan my stops a little closer together. Or rent some kind of trailer-generator that could supplement the EV during long days.) This is a general EV issue and not particular to EESTOR's system, though. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Quite .. or even more sense .. rent a vehicle better-suited to those 'big summer trips' for when you need them. Makes no sense at all to run a vehicle bigger (thirstier) than you need for 95% of the year; and it might make a whole lot of sense to rent (say) an RV for the summer which you certainly would not want to be driving around for the rest of the year. quota (talk) 18:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Most people drive about 40 miles per day. I have to fill up my car about every 2 weeks. It adds about 10 minutes to my trip. I've timed it. About 6 minutes for the actual filling. The rest is getting to/from the gas station. So assuming I had to charge my theoretical electric car twice a week. Also assuming it takes about 30 seconds to plug it in at night and 30 seconds to unplug it in the morning. That's 4 minutes in 2 weeks. Seems like the electric car takes less time to fuel up.Stephen Luce (talk) 01:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Why no section on the leaked phone interview with Dick Wier?

Why is there no section on the leaked phone interview with Dick Wier? Is it not considered a reliable source? Stephen Luce (talk) 01:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not a reliable source. Even if it were known to be authentic--if somehow there were proof that it was Wier speaking candidly to a investor--a statement made by a company executive to an investor is not a reliable source. Add to that the fact that the whole thing could be a hoax, and you have nothing that belongs in Wikipedia. A story about the recording, published in a reliable source, presumably discussing whether or not it is a hoax, might lead to some content that belongs here. For example, if the whole thing ends in legal proceedings against EEStor for fraud, this might be a significant part of that story. But as reliable information about EEStor, it's not useful. --Ccrrccrr (talk) 01:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

EEStor Patents

I have no idea whether this information is appropriate for the EEStor WP page, so I will put it here on the talk page. If it is worthy of moving to the main page, I wll let more authoritative editors make that move.

As of Sept. 26, 2009, EEStor has two issued patents that are assigned to it: 7,033,406, and 7,466,536.

Richard Weir and Carl Nelson also have four patents pending with the USPTO :

1 - 20080031796 - Method of preparing ceramic powders using ammonium oxalate

2 - 20070148065 - Method of preparing ceramic powders using chelate precursors

3 - 20060210779 - Electrical-energy-storage unit (EESU) utilizing ceramic and integrated-circuit technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries

4 - 20040071944 - Electrical-energy-storage unit (EESU) utilizing ceramic and integrated-circuit technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries

Besides the two EEStor issued patents, the team of Weir and Nelson have collaborated on 16 other patents - all primarily dealing with thin film technologies, up to 15 years before founding EEStor:

1 - (EEStor) 7,466,536 - Utilization of poly(ethylene terephthalate) plastic and composition-modified barium titanate powders in a matrix that allows polarization and the use of integrated-circuit technologies for the production of lightweight ultrahigh electrical energy storage units (EESU)

2 - (EEStor) 7,033,406 - Electrical-energy-storage unit (EESU) utilizing ceramic and integrated-circuit technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries

3 - 6,110,557 - Vertical-magnetic-recording medium with barium ferrite magnetic layer

4 - 6,103,367 - Coating of metal substrate for magnetic recording medium

5 - 5,961,792 - Method for making titanium or titanium-alloy substrate for magnetic-recording media

6 - 5,900,126 - Method for manufacturing austenitic stainless steel substrate for magnetic-recording media

7 - 5,855,951 - Method for making ceramic substrates for magnetic-recording media 8 - 5,811,182 - Magnetic recording medium having a substrate and a titanium nitride underlayer 9 - 5,707,705 - Titanium or titanium-alloy substrate for magnetic-recording media

10 - 5,681,635 - Magnetic recording medium having a ceramic substrate, an underlayer having a dense fibrous zone T structure, and a magnetic layer

11 - 5,635,269 - Precision-etched textured stop/start zone for magnetic-recording disks

12 - 5,626,920 - Method for coating metal disc substrates for magnetic-recording media

13 - 5,624,725 - Protective overcoatings for magnetic-recording disks

14 - 5,536,549 - Austenitic stainless steel substrate for magnetic-recording media

15 - 5,490,910 - Circularly symmetric sputtering apparatus with hollow-cathode plasma devices

16 - 5,457,298 - Coldwall hollow-cathode plasma device for support of gas discharges

17 - 5,453,168 - Method for forming protective overcoatings for metallic-film magnetic-recording mediums

18 - 5,232,569 - Circularly symmetric, large-area, high-deposition-rate sputtering apparatus for the coating of disk substrates

All patents referenced from www.uspto.gov

I believe that these patents give a bit more insight into the backgrounds of the the two EESStor founders.

skipcave 01:01, 26 September 2009