EEstor: More Clues Emerge
January 23rd, 2007In Pay No Attention to the General as “Liberals” Launch Green Energy Fund, I attempted to show that EEstor is a “connected” front for the release of military technology into the private sector. Now, in the following MIT Technology Review article, we learn that EEstor’s CEO previously worked for TRW. Although TRW has been sold off into several companies, for decades TRW served as one of the main vectors for delivering military technology to the private sector (automotive, electronics, telecom); that is, privatizing innovations that had been developed in secret, with public funds.
To sum up: We have a company developing the “holy grail” of energy storage devices, with a CEO who formerly worked for TRW, with the financial backing of a venture capital firm that has Colin Powell, a former four star U.S. Army general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on its board. In Texas.
Richard Weir, EEStor’s cofounder and chief executive, says he would prefer to keep a low profile and let the results of his company’s innovation speak for themselves.
No shit.
Indeed, people might be so dazzled by the black box that they won’t bother to look into the black bag ops that got the thing built.
And why now? So you and I can drive our electric cars around? Right?
Let’s look at couple of quotes from the article. You’ll love this:
“It’s really tuned to the electronics we attach to it,” explains Weir. “We can go all the way down from pacemakers to locomotives and direct-energy weapons.”
and…
“I have no doubt you can develop that kind of [ceramic] material, and the mechanism that gives you the energy storage is clear, but the first question is whether it’s truly applicable to vehicle applications,” Burke says, pointing out that the technology seems more appropriate for utility-scale storage and military “ray guns,” for which high voltage is an advantage.
Well, well, well… We already know that Americans will soon be saying hello to the goodbye weapon, and who wouldn’t enjoy a missile punch at bullet prices?
In other words, the touchy-feely, clean green electric Hummers of the future are going to be spunoff from Pentagon death ray and super cannon projects. (Same as it ever was.) The military needs the energy density that this EEstor thing provides for weapon systems. Weirdly, there was no mention of the autonomous hunter/killer robots. Oh yes, those projects need power too…
What else is there to learn about EEstor? (Yep, that’s the right page. They just don’t have a site up.)
Via: MIT Technology Review:
A secretive Texas startup developing what some are calling a “game changing” energy-storage technology broke its silence this week. It announced that it has reached two production milestones and is on track to ship systems this year for use in electric vehicles.
EEStor’s ambitious goal, according to patent documents, is to “replace the electrochemical battery” in almost every application, from hybrid-electric and pure-electric vehicles to laptop computers to utility-scale electricity storage.
The company boldly claims that its system, a kind of battery-ultracapacitor hybrid based on barium-titanate powders, will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety. Pound for pound, it will also pack 10 times the punch of lead-acid batteries at half the cost and without the need for toxic materials or chemicals, according to the company.
The implications are enormous and, for many, unbelievable. Such a breakthrough has the potential to radically transform a transportation sector already flirting with an electric renaissance, improve the performance of intermittent energy sources such as wind and sun, and increase the efficiency and stability of power grids–all while fulfilling an oil-addicted America’s quest for energy security.
The breakthrough could also pose a threat to next-generation lithium-ion makers such as Watertown, MA-based A123Systems, which is working on a plug-in hybrid storage system for General Motors, and Reno, NV-based Altair Nanotechnologies, a supplier to all-electric vehicle maker Phoenix Motorcars.
“I get a little skeptical when somebody thinks they’ve got a silver bullet for every application, because that’s just not consistent with reality,” says Andrew Burke, an expert on energy systems for transportation at University of California at Davis.
That said, Burke hopes to be proved wrong. “If [the] technology turns out to be better than I think, that doesn’t make me sad: it makes me happy.”
Richard Weir, EEStor’s cofounder and chief executive, says he would prefer to keep a low profile and let the results of his company’s innovation speak for themselves. “We’re well on our way to doing everything we said,” Weir told Technology Review in a rare interview. He has also worked as an electrical engineer at computing giant IBM and at Michigan-based automotive-systems leader TRW.
On a positive note, I suppose all of this means it’s more likely we’re going to get something pretty close to what is promised, given this guy’s track record.
One thing I learned from hanging around with ex-CIA assets in Costa Rica is that there are some good people on the inside working somewhat towards the same ends as the readers of this blog.
Could be they’re letting another cat out of the bag in a similar way they produced the technology underlying the Internet – probably one of the most disruptive technologies against centralized power.
[…] weeks ago, I wrote the following about EEstor, “[The] clean green electric Hummers of the future are going to be […]
Eestor’s patent describes a 52 Kw/hour weighing 330-400 lbs. While 52k looks good for a car realising this power in a single device is not very flexible or practical from a mechanical perspective. The traditional approach would be multiple lighter 15kw devices. This implies that the iniial design was not intended for an automobile. owever, the Navy and the power industries have such large unit requirements. bob bangkok
Wow. Some people just love to look for the dark side of everything. If this truly is what they claim it to be it is a huge step towards eventually eliminating our dependence on foreign oil and slowing down global warming. So what if this was originally military technology? I’d be happy to know that all of our tax dollars that have been spent on the military in our lifetimes is resulting in something positive.
There are dozens, if not hundreds of serious laboratory, company, and individual efforts going on worldwide on ultracapacitors. Many efforts are coming to fruition at the same time. Let’s just hope that Eestor and the other American developers can corner the huge potential global market for mobile electrical energy storage before our competitors do. More likely, as our currency has become worth much less internationaly, and trading “partners” such as China have unbelievable reserves of dollars, eestor (if its product meets the hype) will be lured into selling to a foreign entity and we can return to the downward economic spiral that Bush/Cheney has sold us into.
By the way, military research applications, especially for lasers, have always been a major client for large capacitors. However, that market will become miniscule compared to the automobile market clientelle if some of the new claims for ultracapacitor performance is true.