Patent No. 7,033,406 - Read About it Now, It will Soon Vanish I am Sure

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070904/ap_on_hi_te/no_more_batteries_4

bolds are mine

AUSTIN, Texas - Millions of inventions pass quietly through the U.S. patent office each year. Patent No. 7,033,406 did, too, until energy insiders spotted six words in the filing that sounded like a death knell for the internal combustion engine.

An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline.

By contrast, some plug-in hybrids on the horizon would require motorists to charge their cars in a wall outlet overnight and promise only 50 miles of gasoline-free commute. And the popular hybrids on the road today still depend heavily on fossil fuels.

"It's a paradigm shift," said Ian Clifford, chief executive of Toronto-based ZENN Motor Co., which has licensed EEStor's invention. "The Achilles' heel to the electric car industry has been energy storage. By all rights, this would make internal combustion engines unnecessary."

Clifford's company bought rights to EEStor's technology in August 2005 and expects EEStor to start shipping the battery replacement later this year for use in ZENN Motor's short-range, low-speed vehicles.

Bullshit. You'd need to tap into a power main to get that kind of voltage.

We are not sure what they are plugged into, it does not say... so it is possible...

An average car traveling 60mph requires (about) 45 horsepower. A 500 mile trip takes 8.3 hours. That's 373 hp-hrs. A horsepower is .75kw. The trip consumes about 280kwh.
500m/60mph * 45hp * .75 = 280kwh or 280,000 watt/hrs.

To recharge after this trip in 5 minutes, the plug would have to deliver power at a rate of 3400 KWH (280kwh*60/5). A 120 circuit can handle 15a. A normal 240 circuit as much as 60a. A specialized one, perhaps 100a.

15a @ 120v = 1.8 kw
60a @ 240v = 14.4 kw
100a @ 240v = 24.0 kw
This car requires 1400a of current at 240v to charge at the rate advertised.

Disregarding any efficiency losses, you'd have to install 60a breakers and run extension cords to 237 of your neighbors homes to supply the charging current.

Thanks for doing the math, because that is hilarious.

...the five minute charge time refers to the use of custom equipment. Home charging from a wall socket would take longer. The 5 minute figure refers specifically to how fast the ultracap can take up the power without damage.

But then, my car spends at least 8 hours in the garage unused at night.

FWIW, my Prius only takes somewhere in the 20kW area to go 60mph. The 500 miles figure is a bit out of whack still, but...

Behold the power of common sense.

unless it's some kind of high-voltage power line.

Doing the math for air drag at highway speeds...

F_d=½·ρ·v²·C_d·A

ρ = 1.2 kg/m³ (density of air)

v = 70mph = 113 km/h = 31.3 m/s (velocity of the car)

C_d = 0.33 (drag coefficient for an average modern car)

A = 26 ft² = 2.42m²

So, the force of drag F_d = ½·1.2·980·0.33·2.42 = 470 newtons or about 106 pounds of force


Work = force times distance

Work = 470·31.3 = 14,711 joules/second = 14,711 watts

It takes 14.7 kilowatts to cruise at highway speeds, or about 19.7 horsepower.

It's a 7.14 hour trip at 70 miles, so the entire trip takes about 378 megajoules in total energy.

A standard 110-volt household plug is rated at 15 amps, so power output is 110·15=1,650 watts, or 1.65 kilowatts, or 2.2 horsepower. A five-minute charge is 495 kilojoules.

A standard 220-volt plug (like for your stove) is rated at 100 amps, so the power output is 22,000 watts or 22 kilowatts, or 30.3 horsepower. A five-minute charge is 6.6 megajoules.

It would take a 10,000 volt line at 126 amps to pump enough power into a battery in five minutes for the trip.

This part is sort of confusing me.

But I just don't see how you can possibly charge a car that quickly to travel that far. There is no way an outlet like this could be installed in someone's home as too many people would probably kill themselves charging their cars. I could maybe see it on "Load stations" but I still don't understand how you could drive that much power to one station.

1 horsepower is defined as about 746 watts. There is a very slight difference between a mechanical horsepower and an electrical horsepower, but since we're talking about electricity I used the electrical horsepower definition. That is 1 hp is exactly equal to 746 watts. Or 1,000 watts equals 1.34 horsepower

14.7 kilowatts·1.34 hp/kilowatt = 19.7hp

Charging up the car in 5 minutes for the trip I described means pumping energy at the rate of 1.26 megawatts. Your average domestic home is only wired for about 10 kilowatts maximum power, so it would take the power of 126 households, running at maximum, for five minutes, to get that car charged up for the trip.

It is important to understand that a 'watt' is a rate of power, like gallons per minute. One watt is one joule per second. 'Joule' is the metric base unit of energy.

I hope this helps you realize how much power is contained in gasoline, as well, and why it's so difficult to replace. A tank of gas in a Honda Civic can also take the car for 500 miles (or something close), so those 14 gallons of gasoline contain a hell of a lot of energy.

It would be interesting to see the patent documents....

This might be it

... so you may want to double that 19.7hp (14.7kw) for rolling resistance, etc.

I'd say 45 hp is probably more accurate (33.5kw)

I think what we are seeing here is a media inflated representation brought-on by ignorance and hype.

From the patent description:

"The components are configured into a multilayer array with the use of a solder-bump technique as the enabling technology so as to provide a parallel configuration of components that has the capability to store electrical energy in the range of 52 kWh. The total weight of an EESU with this range of electrical energy storage is about 336 pounds. "

So you're looking at about a 2 hr trip for a 400 lb capacitor at highway speeds. Say you double it to 800 lbs (assuming weight is linear with charge capacity) which puts it in range of an ICE, then you're looking at about a 4 hour trip with an 800 lb capacitor and around 100kWh which would take a few hours to charge with conventional electrical means.

Evolutionary, not revolutionary in my opinion.

Radios playing, instruments running, HVAC (which is now entirely electrical) blowing, and lights at night. Plus rolling resistance losses, plus mechanical drivetrain losses, plus electical losses.

75 watts for the radio, say. 200 for the running and head lights, 25 for instrumentation, and 500 for HVAC. 800 total.

I may be off on the VHAC number. Maybe 1,000 watts is a better number.

1,300 watts extra.

Then maybe another 1,000 watts for the losses.

Another 2,300 watts, bringing us up to 17 kilowatts, or just under 23 horsepower.

At least if you're just going up and down hills, you get the energy back. But an overall elevation change will also suck up juice.


Let's see, 1 kWh is 3.6 megajoules. 52kWh is 187.3 megajoules. So, yeah, we need at least a 900 to 1,000-pound EESU. Maybe 600 megajoules.

That's doable, I think. Too powerful for a quick home charge, but I can see "recharging stations" that have that kind of power on tap that could do that kind of charge in a few minutes.

A standard household 220 volt, 100-amp circuit pumps out 22 kilowatts, so it would take about 7.6 hours to charge the car up at home.

That's also doable, as long as there was some sort of meter on the charger so road taxes could be properly collected.

With ~100k members, there are people with exactly the right knowledge to point out exactly what the problems with something are. The point about delivering the energy from a wall socket makes sense (and saves me from having to do the calculations myself).

I'm curious where the value of 45HP to keep a car going at 60MPH on the freeway comes from. Can somebody provide a link for that? Also, is there similar data for a bicycle? I looked into supercaps as a was to power, say, a reclining bicycle and figured it wouldn't get you very far (like just down the street). Iestimated energy loss by coasting my bike for a ways and looking at the speedometer, which was not the most accurate to say the least.

The wikipedia entry on EEStor didn't have an estimation of energy density. They say it rivals that of batteries though, so that could provide a good starting point.

-mwalker

> I'm curious where the value of 45HP to keep a car going
> at 60MPH on the freeway comes from.

45 HP is a bit too high. A '65 VW bug of my acquaintance
(with, IIRC, a 40 HP 1200cc engine) could manage up to
about 80 MPH (beyond the rated speed, yes, I know) on
the highway, and the drag coefficient of modern cars is
better than that bug's.

In my calculations (below), I used 10 HP; that's too low,
but I was trying to prove the point that, even with opti-
mistic assumptions, a "5 minute charge" was unlikely to
be practical.

Tesha

A gallon of gas has about 37kWh in it. Most gas engines only get 30% to 40% efficiency, so at best 18kWh get to the wheels.

So a car with a mileage of Xmpg going about 60mph (which is about where mpg is measured) for one hour goes 60 miles
and uses 60mi/Xmpg gallons of gas.

# of kilowatts needed = (60mi/Xmpg gallons times 18kWh / gallon) / 1 hour

# of kilowatts needed = 1,080 divided by the car's highway mpg

# of HP needed = # of watts needed / 750 watts-per-hp

That is a tremendous amount of joules worth of work you are replenishing in five minutes. Whenever you telescope joules, wattage skyrockets.

Laws of Physics still apply...I don't care what the invention is. It would have to resemble something out of Fantastic 4 movies to work like that.

(Cross-posted from the Energy forum)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=111015&mesg_id=111020

Okay, the miracle product is an improved ultracapacitor.
Nothing revolutionary, but let's assume it actually meets
its claims (of storing enough energy in a small enough
volume to finally be practical as a replacement for the
chemical batteries in electric cars).

(Important note: Ultracapacitors are already used today
in hybrid vehicles as adjuncts to the chemical batteries.)

Let's say a car needs 10 HP to run at highway speeds
with the radio and air-conditioner blasting. (That's
probably a bit optimistic, but it's a useful starting
point.) That's 7.4 kilowatts (KW) of electric power.
Let's say the car goes 300 miles at 60 MPH. That's 5
hours of driving. So we used 37 kilowatt-hours (KWH)
of electricity.

Now we want to recharge the car in the same 5 minutes
or so that it takes to fill your gas tank with stored
chemical energy in the form of gasoline. Let's assume
that the input-output process is 90% efficient so we'll
need to put 41 KWH of electricity back into the system
to eventually get back those 37 that we'll eventually
consume. To put 41 KWH into the ultracapacitor in 5
minutes, we'll need to run at a power level of 820
kilowatts.

Pick a charging voltage: 300 is a convenient and typical
voltage used for modern high-power electronics. To
achieve 820 KW, we'll need to run 2,733 Amps through
our power connector. That's a mighty big plug! Even
if we design a connector that safely moves 1000 volts,
we'll still need 820 Amps, still too big for a practical
plug that lives through tens of thousands of mate/unmate
cycles, works in the heat and the snow and rain, and
survives use by fools.

Furthermore, if we assume that half the energy losses
occur during charging and half occur during discharging,
we'll need to throw away heat that's arising at the
rate of 41 kilowatts! That's 27 toasters all operating
simultaneously under the hood of our electric vehicle.
There must be a might big fan spinning under our hood,
or maybe we're using cooling water supplied by the
filling station.

Furthermore, we're not the only car recharging at
the Kwik-E-Charge; there are five other "pumps" in
use, so the "filling station" is drawing a total of
almost 5 million watts of electricity (or about
6700 horsepower, more power than the most powerful
railroad locomotives). Where's *THAT* power coming
from? And we're drawing this huge power load during
the day, 'same as so many other "peak" loads!*

I think we can safely conclude that even if this
new ultracapacitor works, five minute charging
won't work. Overnight charging (or charging while
you work) will continue to be the dominant paradigm
for electric vehicles and some sort of liquid
chemical fuel or whole-battery-swaps remain the
only practical alternative for the Kwik-E-Charge
stores.

Tesha


* For you electrical engineers out there, that
represents about 50 amps of load on a 33,000
volt three-phase distribution circuit; not an
insurmountable load, but quite a bit more than
the power company is used to delivering to a
"filling station".

Really, well written and even I could follow the point. I have a friend who is an electrical engineer and he is forever causing a blank, glazed stare of incomprehension to appear on my face.

Thank you for your explanation.

that "blank, glazed stare of incomprehension" is just what I was feeling reading all those numbers and formulas ... mixed with an almost motherly pride of all the brainiacs who contribute to this site.

Perhaps the real feature is the storage capacity and mileage - rather than the amount of time to charge. I doubt I drive my car 500 miles a month. One night charge for that would be great. Is that feasible with these improved ultracapacitors?

> Is overnight for 500 miles possible?

Let's do the math...

We'll stick with my "10 HP" (optimistic projection) but
I'll recalculate for 500 miles and assume 60 MPH.

8.3 hours at 10 HP is 83 HP-hours. Let's still assume
90% efficiency so we need to put in ~93 HP-hours.
That's about 69 KWH of electricity.

Let's optimistically assume a 12-hour night. That means
we need to put in power at a rate of just under 6,000
watts. From your house's 240 volt power, that's 24 amps.

So yes, a 12 hour charge for 8.3 hours of runtime is
practical on "house power". Even if our car draws 20 HP
instead of 10, that's about 48 amps and still in the
range of an electric dryer or electric range running
for those 12 hours.

By the way, from my local electric utility (which gets
just under 14¢/KWH), that means it will cost you about
$9.66 to "fill" the tank of our hypothetical *10 HP*
car.

Tesha

Hehe, high school algebra about made me lose my mind.

Thanks for the info. This sounds like it will be useful for some application, whether it's cars is another matter.

...and since only 1/16th of the power in it is stored below 1kV, rarely would anyone need to downstep an HV source below 1kV to charge it. 3/4ths of the energy would go in above 2kV. Likely the charging station would use a constant-current, variable voltage charging regime.

The 500 mile claim is the one that the journalist obviously got wrong, since the individual cap is in the 40kWh range and bulky enough you wouldn't have more than two or three of them in a single vehicle.

No, 5 minute charges in your driveway from a wall socket is obviously not going to happen, and likely only the more ambitious "gas stations" would offer 5 minute charges. If I had one of these, I'd never go to a gas station, I'd just slow charge at night.

90% round trip efficiency may be a bit pessimistic. 10HP is probably optimistic.

... no matter how good a lightening rod the vehicle had. :shrug:

Your average lightning strike can produce about 10 million volts at about 30,000A.

You could charge a lot of cars on that if you solve the little problem of the 50,000 degree air heating.

Those heavy cables would be a drag. :rofl:

and never heard from again...

exactly! that is why I posted on it, so we can at least say, "You know, I remember the promise of..."

"technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," does not necessarily mean "a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip". Now, if anyone actually produces a part that can be tested, and such unusual and tremendous gains in efficiency are realized, then great. Some startups are quiet and focused on the technologies. Some startups make are loud, brash and make outrageous claims but deliver little or nothing. Patentable ideas don't have to actually work.


There is no magic in engineering. There is the doing. We will have to see if they in fact can do anything.

The patent law allows the government to issue patents to "anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof."

A thing that doesn't work isn't useful, hence can't be patented.

An idea can't be patented. A tangible expression of that idea can be.

You do not have to demonstrate that you can produce a thing or that the thing is produceable. Sure, there is a vetting process, and well-written and well supported claims are more likely to be accepted.

so it will stick around longer!!

Great story, made my day!! I can work now!

Thanks!

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.

...

EEStor claims that, using an automated production line and existing power electronics, it will initially build a 15-kilowatt-hour energy-storage system for a small electric car weighing less than 100 pounds, and with a 200-mile driving range. The vehicle, the company says, will be able to recharge in less than 10 minutes.

...

Safety is another concern. What happens if a vehicle packed with a 3,500-volt energy system crashes?

Weir says the voltage will be stepped down with a bi-directional converter, and the whole system will be secured in a grounded metal box. It won't have a problem getting an Underwriters Laboratories safety certification, he adds. "If you drive a stake through it, we have ways of fusing this thing where all the energy is sitting there but it won't arc … It will be the safest battery the world has ever seen."


http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/page1/

And even if someone bought all rights to the patent, how would that affect use of the claimed technology outside of the US?

And the patent number to which you are referring was.... what?

Purchasing ownership of a US Patent does not make the patent "disappear" somehow.

You are saying that someone runs around to the dozens of patent depository libraries and erases them from the microfilm? Someone else runs around and finds the thousands of printed and delivered copies of the USPTO Gazette that are mailed out weekly, breaks into law firms and snips them out of the pages with scissors?

And, again, this affects parties outside of the US, how?

It's not an idle question. I'm a patent attorney, and some of the folklore about patents is astounding.

...and I'm really familiar about the folklore about "disappearing patents" that is repeated on pages discussing the topic of the ev1.

The ev1 came out in 1989. Patents at that time lasted 17 years from the issue date. There was nothing in the ev1 in 1989 which was covered by a patent which would not have expired in 2006. So the patent issue is a canard relative to the ev1 in the first place.

I am asking you about this process by which issued patents "disappear". You do not seem to understand that every issued patent is widely published and distributed to a whole bunch of places from which they cannot be "retrieved" by some process of "disappearing" them. It would be like trying to "disappear" an issue of Time Magazine from 1989.

But does not explain why the Japanese, who do not have large oil companies, would not develop a similar car for their entire vehicular fleet. Granted, the Japanese do certainly use more electric cars, but it is precisely their high level of motivation to reduce oil consumption that led to their significant penetration into the US auto market in the 1970's in the first place, and it is why they again lead in the development of hybrid vehicles now.

GM's decision not to pursue electric vehicles may well be noted on their tombstone eventually, but they are not the only auto company on the planet, and no patent with a filing date later than 1987 can be in force today (with a minor exception for patents extended through an express act of Congress). Further, extremely few patents issued as late as 1990 can be in force today.

The patent issue is irrelevant, and the patent folklore associated with a lot of the "they killed alternative energy" narratives is incorrect.

Of course, I'm sure the oil industry assholes would have something to say about that.

... the amount of energy it takes to go, say 500 miles I haven't much quibble with, I do think it is important to note that I've seen nobody say anything like "you can plug this thing into your garage outlet and charge it right up".

If the technology is made to work (and it really is just a big capacitor and I actually think that it could), accommodations for charging these things would have to be made.

Getting a high amperage circuit is not that big a deal on most modern (build within 15 years or so) homes, that have a 200 amp or more panel. Many homes already have circuits of that capacity to run, for example, electrical central heating.

IF this thing can be made to work, it is a revolutionary approach because it is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from a chemical battery, and personally I don't think a chemical battery will ever be able to be charged fast enough.

A capacitor can be charged as fast as you can get current to it. It is a breakthrough idea, it is only a matter if they can perfect the films and manufacturing processes to make it practical.

http://www.a123systems.com/newsite/index.php#/technology/power/pchart5/

...the reason why all the EV folks are salivating over it is that capacitors are known for good round-trip charge efficiency, low charge leakage, long calander life, nearly unlimited cycle life, and in this case a high gravimetric, if not volumetric, energy density. If it actually has good specs in these areas, and can meet a good price point, it will be a game changer.

The charge/discharge rate for acceleration and braking is not a big deal -- a much smaller ultracap can easily buffer the battery for the small spurts of energy needed there.

This is clearly a hoax. :rofl:

A device that could act as capacitor and charge as fast as you could dump power into it and deliver regulated energy would be remarkable.

Ummm, no thank you. I'll stick with the math and physics otherwise it's just a science fiction pipe dream.

Instead of focusing on one piece of data that may be a gross overstatment, look at the thing itself. A battery that could charge at capacitor rates would be a major breakthrough

LLNL was going to allow for commercialization years ago, around the 2000 Sydney Olympics time, but nothing happened.

Zinc oxide pellets with a potassium hydroxide catalyst.

Despite the breathless pronouncements above, while a patent may say any number of things in the text, the only thing that is legally protected as 'the invention' in patent is defined by specific numbered statements at the end.

This patent has a single independent claim, and is breathtakingly narrow in scope:


What is claimed is:

1. A method for making an electrical-energy-storage unit comprising components fabricated by the method steps as follow;

a) preparing a wet-chemical-prepared calcined composition-modified barium titanate powder derived from a solution of precursors: Ba(NO.sub.3).sub.2, Ca(NO.sub.3).sub.2.4H.sub.2O, Nd(NO.sub.3).sub.3.6H.sub.2O, Y(NO.sub.3).sub.3.4H.sub.2O, Mn(CH.sub.3COO).sub.2.4H.sub.2O, ZrO(N.sub.3O).sub.2, and .sub.2Ti(OH).sub.2 in deionize water heated to 80.degree. C., and a separate solution of (CH.sub.3).sub.4NOH made in deionized water and heated to 80.degree.-85.degree. C., then mixing the solutions by pumping the heated ingredient streams simultaneously through a coaxial fluid mixer producing coprecipitated powder, then collecting the coprecipitated powder in a drown-out vessel and refluxing at a temperature of 90.degree.-95.degree. C. for 12 hours, then filtering, washing with deionized-water, drying, and then calcining 1050.degree. C. in air;

b) fabricating an aluminum oxide (Al.sub.2O.sub.3) coating of 100 .ANG. thickness onto the wet-chemical-prepared calcined composition-modified barium titanate powder, with the use of aluminum nitrate nonahydrate precursor applied by wet chemical means, then calcining at 1050.degree. C., resulting in a single-coated calcined composition-modified barium titanate powder;

c) fabricating onto the alumina-coated composition-modified barium titanate powder, a second uniform coating of 100 .ANG. of calcium magnesium aluminosilicate glass derived from alcohol-soluble precursors: calcium methoxide or calcium isopropoxide, magnesium methoxide or magnesium ethoxide, aluminum ethoxide or aluminum isopropoxide or aluminum isopropoxide, and tetraethyl orthosilicate are applied by wet chemical means which upon calcining at 500.degree. C. results in a double-coated composition-modified barium titanate powder;

d) blending, this double-coated composition-modified barium titanate powder with a screen-printing ink containing appropriate plastic resins surfactants, lubricants, and solvents to provide a suitable rheology for screen printing;

e) screen-printing into interleaved multilayers of alternating offset nickel electrode layers 12 and double-coated calcined composition-modified barium titanate high-relative-permittivity layers 11 with the use of screening inks having the proper rheology for each of the layers;

f) drying and cutting the screen-punted multilayer components 15 into a specified rectangular area;

g) sintering the screen-printed multilayer components 15, first at a temperature of 350.degree. C. for a specified length of time, then at 850.degree. C. for a specified length of time, to form closed-pore porous ceramic bodies; and

h) hot isostatically pressing the closed-pore porous ceramic bodies, at a temperature of 700.degree. C. with a specified pressure, into a void-free condition;

i) grinding and each side of the component to expose the alternating offset interleaved nickel electrodes 12;

j) connecting nickel side bars 14 to each side of the components 15, that have the interleaved and alternating offset nickel electrodes 12 exposed, by applying nickel ink with the proper rheology to each side and clamping the combinations together;

k) heating the components and side nickel bar combination 14-15 800.degree. C., and time duration of 20 minutes to bond them together;

l) wave soldering each side of the conducting bars;

m) assembling the components 15 with the connected nickel side bars 14 into the first array, utilizing unique tooling and solder-bump technology;

n) assembling the first arrays into the second array;

o) assembling the second arrays into the EESU final assembly.


In other words, what this patent is for is a process of making a thingamabob by following that sequence of awfully specific steps. This is a patent of the "anybody can get a patent" variety, in which the claims are so specifically drawn that there is no way an Examiner was going to find a prior art reference that suggested doing the same thing. None of the specific temperatures, measurements, or compositions are claimed within an approximate range of what's covered, and the claim even includes reference numbers to specific drawings in the specification (which, while used in certain other jurisdictions, is generally frowned upon in US practice).

The flipside of the narrowness of the only independent claim is that you'd really have to go out of your way to infringe this patent.

I don't know whether EEstor will succed in their endeavor or not, but... since it seems they will be laying this card on the table within the year, if they do, I think I'm going to come back to this thread and see who needs to eat their hat.

:evilgrin:

...would not have any correlation to the apparent scope of the patent.

See if the patent "disappears", though.

I keep a copy of US Pat. No. 1 in my desk. I check it every now and again to see if anyone has invented the second time machine. Figure - he'd get into a patent race with the guy who invented the first time machine, so....

The points are - patents don't disappear, and seldom cover the marketing information.

Actually I kinda view the scope of the patent as a positive sign that they feel confident enough in their head start not to try to lawyer out potential competitors.

Patents have a legitimate place, but being first to market with a good product is usually more important.

There was also started this earlier this morning in Environment/Energy:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=111015

This one in the media section:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=109&topic_id=30588

where I pointed out from the Top Post Link:

" Perry is not alone in his doubts. An ultracapacitor industry leader, Maxwell Technologies Inc., has kept a wary eye on EEStor's claims and offers a laundry list of things that could go wrong.

Among other things, the ultracapacitors described in EEStor's patent operate at extremely high voltage, 10 times greater than those Maxwell manufactures, and won't work with regular wall outlets, said Maxwell spokesman Mike Sund. He said capacitors could crack while bouncing down the road, or slowly discharge after a dayslong stint in the airport parking lot, leaving the driver stranded."

Maxwell is probably the leading company developing Ultracapacitors.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=109&topic_id=30588#30628

My post above has links to my link collections on UltraCapacitors.

The short response to EEStor's claim of a 5 min. charge is: Don't try this at home.

My thanks go out to the above posters who have shed light on the subject through scientific analysis.

charging gilowats and pillosqats have proven the car a has been before the patent was approved, but at least someone is working on a better fucking idea. :applause: K & R

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/krispos42/2

It that car, it had a small auxillary generator that outputted about 10 horsepower at 220 volts, which would be the same voltage as the high-powered home charger, just at a lower amperage. Say about 35 amps.

The idea was you could charge car at home for normal, everyday driving during the week, but if you had to take a long trip the auxillary engine would kick on the minutes you left the driveway, fighting to keep the battery (or in this case, the ultra-capacitor) charged up. Or if you were someplace where a recharge wasn't easily available, like on a vacation.

The little generator I envisioned would not have enough power to fully move the vehicle at highway speeds, but it would generate enough power to drastically extend the range of the battery/ultracap. Maybe by 50-60% on an average car. And it would keep pumping power into the battery/ultracap during bathroom stops and meal breaks, or while you were stuck in traffic.

Of course, we can upgrade the generator. I envisioned, for long trips, a 40-horsepower generator on a small trailer (or that hangs suspended from a trailer hitch) with a big gas tank. The generator would run at full power, keeping the battery/ultracaps charged and providing all motive and parasite power for cruising. When a power surge was required, such as for a hill or passing, the system would draw the extra power from the battery/ultracap as needed.

The generators would be standardized, so you could rent them as needed from your local rental place.

What you are describing is a serial hybrid car.

Sort of like a Chevy Volt with a smaller motor?

And I had the idea a few months before. I just didn't have a forum to discuss it until I joined the DU.

My hybrid has a bigger battery and a smaller engine.

My idea is to have the electric motor big enough so that it would perform just like your average Ford Fusion or Honda Civic. Say, 120 hp or peak output. The auxillary engine would ONLY kick in when the battery got low.

The car would have two operating modes, "City" and "Highway". In City mode, the auxillary would only kick in when the battery levels got down to like 15% or so, the idea being to limit gasoline consumption and maximize home charging. Perhaps making use of wind power.

In "Highway" mode the auxillary would kick in immediatly to minimize battery drain and maximize range.

If my car had a 200 mile range, then for nearly everybody it would have enough juice to operate solely on battery power and recharge at night in your garage. Only a handful of times a year would you be driving in conditions that required the auxillary to operate.

For example, in the past two years I have never driven more than 200 miles in one day, so I would not have needed it at all.

Well, for a month I was commuting 150 miles a day, so maybe the home charger would not have been able to quite keep up.

But you get the idea. The idea of burning zero gas for the past two years is an appealing one.

I suppose the car's computer would have to run the auxillary a few minutes a week just to keep all the moving parts lubricated and the fluids mixed properly.

to supply electric power to the vehicle like a train?

on edit: Or just take the train!

Then you could get rid of the battery all together!

Kind of thinking of slot cars.

:shrug:

where highways would have power cables embedded underneath them that would supply the power to vehicles by induction. IIRC.