|
Future Energy
eNews IntegrityResearchInstitute.org Sept.
9, 2006 |
1) Flywheels
Make Electrical Grids More Reliable - Megawatts from clusters
of 25 kW flywheels
2) STOERN
Technology - Collection of articles & emails on the Irish claim to
free energy
3) Floating
Wind Farms - 3 to 7 megawatt turbines to be located far out to sea
4) Who Killed the
Electric Car? - Movie at COFE2 teaches a vital future energy lesson
5) EEStor
Ultracapacitors - Replaces rechargable batteries and have longer life, faster
charging
6) Planktos Inc. - COFE2
Speaker solving the other energy problem - too much CO2
7) Solar Silicon from
Feedstock - Industrial
metallurgical silicon promises cheap solar cells
1) Making Electrical Grids More
Efficient
By Peter Fairley ,Technology
Review, August 10, 2006 http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17285&ch=biztech
Beacon Power offers a new way
to keep the juice flowing steadily.
Beacon Power's flywheels can absorb and release power in less than four
seconds, balancing supply and demand on the power grid faster, cleaner, and
cheaper than conventional power plants.
Electric transmission and distribution has long been a tough nut for technology
innovation. But deregulated power markets are helping technology developers
bypass notoriously tight-fisted, conservative utilities.
TransÉnergie led the way, using DC power technology to build
its own "merchant" power lines that carry power for the highest
bidder, rather than simply serving the local utilities (see "TransÉnergie:
Playing Two Power Games http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=14287&ch=biztech
).
Now energy storage developer Beacon Power Corp. <http://www.beaconpower.com/> of
Wilmington, MA, is proposing a similar end-run around slow-moving utilities. Rather
than marketing its flywheel-based energy storage systems to utilities, the
company plans to build its own merchant flywheel plants that move power on and
off a power line to stabilize the grid.
It is an idea that's attracting attention from the independent system operators
(ISOs), the regional organizations charged with operating the nation's power
grids. California's and New York's ISOs are already testing Beacon Power's
equipment. And Matt Lazarewicz, the company's chief technical officer, says an
equally important constituency to impress is Wall Street. According to him, the
merchant model is the only model Wall Street will finance. "The returns
are higher that way," says Lazarewicz. "As soon as you say a
utility's going to buy something or do something, investors roll their eyes and
walk away."
Beacon Power's flywheel energy storage systems are designed to provide
frequency regulation -- a service for which ISOs paid more than $600 million
last year. Grid operators need help with frequency regulation because the
frequency of a grid's alternating current is constantly fluctuating as electric
devices and generators turn on and off, causing temporary imbalances in power
production and demand. Unmet demand puts a strain on a grid's power plants,
slowing them down and dragging the grid frequency below its set-point (60 hz in
North America, 50 hz in Europe and most of Asia). Excess supply has the
opposite effect. And either condition can cause utility lines and power plants
to automatically disconnect from the grid, thereby preventing damage to utility
and customer equipment, but also increasing the risk of blackouts.
ISOs currently rely on fossil-fuel power plants -- primarily gas turbines -- to
smooth out a grid's frequency variations. Utilities bid to provide this
service, in doing so, placing a set proportion of their power plants' capacity
(some 1-2 percent of a grid's total power generation) under the ISOs' direct
control. On signals from ISOs, designated plants ramp up and down to roughly
balance supply and demand. It's a costly and polluting process because power
plants burn their fuel most efficiently when run steadily and at full capacity.
"Doing regulation with fossil-fuel generation is the tail wagging the
dog," says Imre Gyuk, who runs the U.S. Department of Energy's energy
storage research program.
Gas-fired frequency regulation is also increasingly expensive, due to the
increasing cost of natural gas. Dan Mears, president of the San Diego-based
energy consultancy Technology Insights, says high-cost gas hits the ISOs twice.
In addition to boosting the cost of gas-fired frequency regulation, high gas
prices are accelerating the installation of wind turbines, whose gusty, choppy
power output may increase the need for frequency regulation. "It's a
problem feeding on itself," says Mears.
Beacon Power's flywheel storage systems are programmed to zero out frequency
fluctuations by recycling energy: an electric motor uses excess grid power to
accelerate magnetically levitated carbon and fiberglass flywheels to as high as
22,500 rpm, then discharge that stored kinetic energy by regenerating the
electricity when the grid frequency dips. Unlike batteries -- the leading
competitor in energy storage -- Beacon's flywheels can withstand continuous
deep cycling without losing capacity.
The most recent test of its technology, a four-month trial begun last week at
Pacific Gas and Electric's San Ramon research center, employs seven
6-kilowatt-hour flywheels, each the size of a small refrigerator, ganged
together to form a system that can absorb or discharge 100 kilowatts of power
for 15 minutes. For commercial systems, Beacon Power is building 25-kilowatt
flywheels the size of tall refrigerators, which would be combined in
clusters to deliver 1 to 20 megawatts.
The flywheels' rapid response should also make every megawatt go further than
the equivalent output from a gas-fired power plant, say officials at the
California Energy Commission <http://www.energy.ca.gov/>
in Sacramento, which is cofunding the California demonstration with the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE). Mike Gravely, the California Energy Commission
project manager tending the San Ramon tests, says gas-fired generators can take
five minutes or more to respond to California ISO's frequency control signals
(issued every four seconds). By then, the system has often moved back toward
equilibrium on its own. In contrast, Beacon's flywheels are capable of switching
from full power absorb to full power discharge faster than Cal-ISO can send its
commands. "There's a possibility that if you can respond to the needs
faster, you may not need as much energy -- you can do more with less,"
says Gravely.
Gyuk at the DOE predicts that just 100 megawatts of flywheel reserve -- half of
what California buys from conventional generators today -- could handle 90
percent of the state's frequency problems. And, if the costs come in as Beacon
Power predicts, the resulting savings could be substantial. Lazarewicz says a
one-megawatt plant will cost about $1.5 million to build and can expect to earn
about $400,000 per year from the ISOs for its services. As a result, Lazarewicz
says the plant should pay for itself in four years, even after covering the
cost of the power lost in running the systems (about 15 percent of the total
energy handled).
Mears says the flywheel's quick response could also have a welcome
side-benefit: improving the grid's reliability. Flywheel plants could free up
gas-fired plants to provide extra peaking power on sweltering summer days when
air conditioners are at full blast and interstate power lines are full. What's
more, the flywheel's quick response could keep a tighter hold on the grid's
frequency, squelching power deviations that start small but, when the system is
overstressed, can initiate a cascading failure. "Keeping the grid stable
is the whole idea behind frequency regulation," agrees Lazarewicz.
"This is simply a way that we can do that better, and cheaper."
2)
STEORN-Technology
Steorn Free Energy For details of the new
Irish Magnetic Technology see: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Steorn_Free_Energy http://pesn.com/2006/08/21/9500298_Steorn_free_energy_gauntlet/ http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO2006035419&F=0
PCT-Patent Publishing date: April 6,
2006, priority date: Sept. 27, 2004 These men think they're about to change
the world Heard the one about the two
Irishmen who say they can produce limitless amounts of clean, free energy?
Plenty of scientists have - but few are taking them seriously. Steve Boggan
investigates. Do you remember that awful
feeling as a child on Christmas Day when Santa left you the toy you wanted . .
. without any batteries? This feeling comes to me as I meet Sean McCarthy and
Richard Walshe, two men making the claim that they are about to change the
world - for ever. .... Last week, McCarthy, Walshe and the other 28
shareholders of Steorn, a privately owned technology research company,
took out a full-page advertisement (for £ 75'000) in the Economist. In
it, they called upon scientists to form a 12-member jury to decide whether
their free-energy system is real, hoaxed, imagined or incorrectly
well-intentioned. ... There is a test rig with wheels and cogs and four magnets
meticulously aligned so as to create the maximum tension between their fields and one other magnet fixed to a point opposite. A
motor rotates the wheel bearing the magnets and a computer takes 28,000
measurements a second. The magnets, naturally, act upon one another. And when
it is all over, the computer tells us that almost three
times the amount of energy has come out of the system as went in. In
fact, this piece of equipment is 285% efficient. ...Their discovery came by
chance...We wanted to improve the performance of wind generators - they were
only about 60-70% efficient - so we experimented with certain generator
configurations and then one day one of our guys [co-founder Mike Daly] came in
and said: 'We have a problem. We appear to be getting
out more than we're putting in.'" That was 2003. Since then,
McCarthy says, the company has spent £2.7m developing the technology. Steorn
has also gone into partnership with a European micro-generator company to
develop prototypes. ... According to McCarthy and Walshe, the marketing
manager, there have been no fewer than eight independent validations of their
work conducted by electrical engineers and academics "with multiple
PhDs" from world-class universities. But none of
them will talk to me, even off the record. "It's the
Pons-Fleischmann factor," says McCarthy, and he and Walshe look at each
other darkly. ..."No one in the scientific community wants to become
embroiled in the kind of controversy that Pons and Fleishmann faced....With our
challenge, we're hoping to provide a respectable public platform for serious
evaluation of the technology. Then, perhaps, scientists will feel confident
enough to challenge the conventional view." ... "Some people have
said our offices don't exist and one accused us of simply being a call centre
in Australia because one of our telephonists has an Australian accent. My
favourite is the one that says we are a CIA or oil-industry front intended to
discredit research into free and clean energy. Steorn says it has seven
patents pending on its technology, though it is difficult to see what can be
patented; magnets already exist and so do the 360 degrees of a circle. Yet it is the positioning of the magnets that seems to be at the
heart of this "new" energy. ...We've conducted meticulous
research and we're getting such phenomenal
results - up to 400% efficiency - that small
glitches and errors in testing can be ruled out. We really believe we've found
something that can change the world." In the meantime, I ask Martin Fleischmann, the cold-fusion scientist, now 79
and retired, what he thought of the Steorn project. "I am actually a
conventional scientist," he says, "but I do accept that the existing
[quantum electro-dynamic] paradigm is not adequate. If what these men are
saying turns out to be true, that would be proof that the paradigm was inadequate
and we would have to come up with some new theory. But I don't think their
claims are credible. No, I cannot see how the position
of magnetic fields allows one to create energy." Scientists
flock to test 'free energy' discovery
McCarthy claims it provides five
times the amount of energy a mobile phone battery generates for the same size,
and does not have to be recharged. Within 36 hours of his advert appearing he
had been contacted by 420 scientists in Europe, America and Australia, and a
further 4,606 people had registered to receive the results. Continued discussion about Steorn
Technology Email from Koen van
Vlanderen from Aug. 25, 2006: Hello Adolf, Additional Google research results (info
by A. Schneider) Design and preparation of a
bulk magnet exhibiting an inverted hysteresis loop http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v64/i13/e132404 Email from von
W.D. Bauer , Berlin, 26.8.06 Sehr geehrter Hr. Schneider
! I did this derivation
because for me a question came up: What happens if you want to include in the
Maxwell theory the generation of charges, for instance generated by high energy
experiments in accelerators, by electron hole pair generation in
semiconductors, by ionisation of salts and so on. The answer is: you have to
add a source term of charge generation into the continuity equation. This third (source) term
may be what Bearden denotes as regauging. However I do not believe that it is a
real regauging. G.W. Bruhn has a criticising article of Koen van Vlaaenderen's
theory in this respect on his website and I believe that he may be correct. In
deed without modifying the continuity equation above you can say as well that
drho/dt is composed by drho/dt=drho*/dt+ S_L where rho* is the observed charge
density rho* and S_L is the Lorenz-source term S_L. Therefore, in the meantime,
I believe that this concept of regauging is born in the following way: Tom
Bearden heard it from one of these crazy inventors he is in contact
permanently. The inventor found that a source term could explain his
observations and attributed it to the S_L in the theory without 3) Floating Wind
Farms Kevin Bullis, Technology
Review, Tuesday, July 11, 2006, http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17069&ch=biztech General
Electric has a
solution to the eyesore problem. Even some energy-conscious
Massachusetts residents oppose a plan to put dozens of electricity-generating
wind turbines on towers about eight kilometers off the southern coast of Cape
Cod, saying they would be an eyesore. But huge turbines in development at
General Electric could make battles with coastal residents a thing of the past.
Researchers say the turbines could be placed on floating platforms, far at sea
and invisible from the shore. In March, GE announced a
$27 million partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop 5- to
7-megawatt turbines by 2009, supplanting the company's current 3.6-megawatt
turbines. Each of these giant energy factories, with rotors 140 meters in
diameter, would produce enough electricity to power up to 1,750 homes -- and at
a more economical rate than smaller turbines, since the cost of building
offshore wind farms depends more on the number of turbines than on their size. Meanwhile, a group of MIT
researchers led by Paul Sclavounos, a professor of mechanical engineering and
naval architecture, have demonstrated the feasibility of placing such turbines
atop large floating cylinders ballasted with concrete and anchored to the
seafloor by cables. With this design, wind farms could be located in water
ranging from 30 meters deep to 300 -- far out on the continental shelf, where
they not only would be invisible from shore but also would catch more wind. Giant Wind Turbines Kevin Bullis, May 9, 2006 http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16801&ch=biztech Huge turbines mounted on floating platforms could make wind power
competitive with fossil-fuel-generated electricity. These advanced wind
turbines, which are in development, could be situated far from the shore, too,
avoiding battles with onshore residents who object to the presence of large
wind farms. GE has announced a $27 million partnership with the U.S. Department of
Energy to develop 5-7 megawatt turbines by 2009, each of which could power well
over 1,000 homes. Supplanting the company's current 3.6 megawatt turbines,
these giant energy factories should make wind power more economical, since the
major cost of building and installing offshore wind farms does not depend
primarily on a turbine's size, but on the number of them that need to be
erected. By 2015, GE could have even bigger, 10-megawatt turbines, according to
Jim Lyons, leader of advanced technology for GE's wind energy business. [For images and illustrations of wind turbines, click
here ( http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16801&ch=biztech#
)] Making the turbines larger, however, comes with technical challenges. The
new turbines will be mounted to towers rising 90 to 95 meters and will have
rotors measuring 140 meters in diameter. Imagine a structure larger than a
football field rotating at a leisurely ten to twelve revolutions per minute. To
decrease the weight of the massive rotor blades and tower, GE plans to use
composite fibers, as well as alternatives to the weighty gearboxes now used to
transfer energy from the rotor to the electrical generator. The new turbines will also need to be more reliable than their onshore
counterparts, because maintenance will be far more difficult and expensive. GE
is developing new ways to deal with the extreme battering the turbines will
receive from the wind. Today's turbines compensate for changes in wind speed by actively turning
their blades to catch less wind. The new turbines will adapt to gusts by using
sensor-based technology that will quickly angle the blades out of the wind to
reduce the wear and tear on the turbine. These sensors could include basic
accelerometers, embedded fiber-optic sensors that detect shape changes in the
blades in response to gusts, and forward-looking, laser-based "radar"
that allows the turbine to anticipate wind-speed changes. None of these technological advances will make a difference, however, if
erecting monstrous turbines is blocked by shoreline residents who see them as
visual pollution. A potential solution is floating platforms that allow the
turbines to be located farther out in the sea -- and out of sight. Current
projects locate wind turbines in waters less than 20 meters deep. Going farther
out on the continental shelf, which extends several hundred kilometers from the
U.S. East Coast, would mean locating them at depths up to 50 meters, which is
probably too deep to build towers or trusses that support turbines standing on
the sea floor, at least at an affordable cost. MIT researchers recently demonstrated the feasibility of
"tension-leg" platforms, a technology that oil companies have
recently adopted for deep-water rigs. The wind turbines and towers would be
assembled at a shipyard and placed on top of large floating cylinders (see images).
The canisters would be ballasted on the bottom with high-density concrete to
keep the structure from tipping over, and the whole turbine assembly would be
tugged out to sea. There, four steel cables would be attached to the platform, anchoring it to
the sea floor. First, though, some water would be allowed into the cylinder,
causing the structure to sink more into the water. Once the cables are
attached, the water is pumped back out again, allowing the turbine to rise,
tightening the cables, and preventing the turbine from bobbing up and down, yet
allowing some lateral movement that would help cushion the impact of storm
waves on the tower. (The blades themselves would be high enough to avoid even
waves from hurricanes.) The cable tension can be adjusted for different weather
conditions, says Paul Sclavounos, professor of mechanical engineering and naval
architecture at MIT. Based on wind-speed measurements, researchers at MIT, led by Stephen Connors, director of the
Analysis Group for Regional Electricity Alternatives, calculated that large
turbines located far offshore could ultimately cost less per power generated
than either land-based turbines or near-offshore ones, even factoring in extra
costs, such as much longer underground electricity transmission cables. The
upside: much more fast and steady wind, which would allow the turbines to
generate power at 50 percent capacity on average throughout the year, compared
with 30 percent or less with on-land turbines. Offshore wind farms could also have the advantage of being close to big
cities, unlike wind farms in remote areas, which require significant power grid
upgrades to transport the power to places where it's needed. "I personally
see this as the endgame," says GE's Lyons. "We'll see gigawatt-scale
projects delivering clean energy to the East Coast. But making the technology cheap enough to be feasible will not be easy.
"You've got to push all the buttons to get the costs down," Lyons
says. Using a combination of far-offshore and land-based farms, however, one
day it may be possible to provide 20 percent of U.S. energy from wind, he says. 4)
"Who Killed the Electric Car?" SONY Classics Movie at COFE2 Thomas
Valone, Integrity Research Institute, Sept. 9, 2006, http://users.erols.com/iri/cofe.html One of the
most important movies for those who think that just good, clean green
technology is all that we need to solve our dependence on foreign oil will be
screened at the Second International Conference on Future Energy,
September 22, 2006 at 7:30 PM. (Movie screening is open to the public
- see IRI website for tickets.) Narrated by Charlie Sheen, it is set up
like a murder mystery, with chapters on evidence, suspects, witnesses, etc.
Very entertaining and heart-wrenching at the same time. How could GM do
it? See the movie for clues to the answer. Who
Killed the Electric Car Presskit It was
among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on
electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology
to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove
it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its
fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert? WHO KILLED
THE ELECTRIC CAR? chronicles the life and mysterious death of
the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and
how they reverberated through the halls of government and big
business. The year is
1990. California is in a pollution crisis. Smog threatens public
health. Desperate for a solution, the California Air Resources Board
(CARB) targets the source of its problem: auto exhaust. Inspired by
a recent announcement from General Motors about an electric
vehicle prototype, the Zero Emissions Mandate (ZEV) is born. It required
2% of new vehicles sold in California to be emission-free by 1998, 10%
by 2003. It is the most radical smog-fighting mandate since the
catalytic converter. With a jump
on the competition thanks to its speed-record-breaking electric
concept car, GM launches its EV1 electric vehicle in 1996. It was a
revolutionary modern car, requiring no gas, no oil changes, no mufflers,
and rare brake maintenance (a billion-dollar industry unto itself). A
typical maintenance checkup for the EV1 consisted of replenishing
the windshield washer fluid and a tire rotation. But the
fanfare surrounding the EV1’s launch disappeared and the cars followed.
Was it lack of consumer demand as carmakers claimed, or were other
persuasive forces at work? Fast
forward to 6 years later... The fleet is gone. EV charging stations dot the
California landscape like tombstones, collecting dust and spider webs. How
could this happen? Did anyone bother to examine the evidence?
Yes, in fact, someone did. And it was murder. The
electric car threatened the status quo. The truth behind its demise resembles
the climactic outcome of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient
Express: multiple suspects, each taking their turn with the knife. WHO
KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? interviews and investigates automakers,
legislators, engineers, consumers and car enthusiasts from Los
Angeles to Detroit, to work through motives and alibis, and to piece
the complex puzzle together. WHO KILLED
THE ELECTRIC CAR? is not just about the EV1. It’s about how this
allegory for failure—reflected in today’s oil prices and air quality—can
also be a shining symbol of society’s potential to better itself and
the world around it. While there’s plenty of outrage for lost time,
there’s also time for renewal as technology is reborn in WHO KILLED THE
ELECTRIC CAR? Director’s Statement Here's what
happened: I fell in love with my car. I've never
been a car guy but that all changed when General Motors leased me
its all-electric car, the EV1, in 1997. Designed by
one of my childhood heroes, Paul MacCready, who had also
designed some of the most famous airplanes in the world, the EV1 was truly
21st century. It was fast, quiet, ran without exhaust, and meant I
never had to go to the gas station. It made me feel like the 21st
century had arrived. I thought
it would be my second car, but within days, it was my primary
car. I drove it everywhere. And everywhere I went, people wanted to
ride in it. $3 to fill up on electricity and you charged it overnight.
I quickly joined the ranks of those who had driven and loved
electric cars. But deep
and mysterious currents were stirring. Politics, economics and
corporate power stopped California's electric car program in its tracks.
Then the carmakers started taking our cars off the road. I thought
about stealing mine, but the prospect of a felony and legal fees gave
me pause. So when our
best efforts failed and our cars started disappearing, there was
only one thing left I could think to do: get this apparently forgotten
story to the press. Where were
the major investigative news programs on this story? Not only
had billions been invested, but hundreds of amazing engineers,
citizens, politicians, and corporations had been involved in getting
chargers installed and cars on the road all over California. And then I
realized that no one had ever put the actual pieces of this puzzle
together. And no one was going to. What began as a series of questions
began to turn the story into a murder mystery. Some of the evidence in
this story still shocks me. As we put
the whole chain of events together, I realized our tale was a lot more
then just a car story. It demonstrated why America is having such a
tough time getting out of the 20th century and breaking its addiction
to gasoline. - Chris Paine For
more information and movie trailer www.WhoKilledtheElectricCar.com
See the story here by Toronto Star's Tyler Hamilton. The company doesn't even want its response published, but Toronto
Star publishes it anyway: This isn't entirely new. We mentioned EEStor before, pointing to a piece that said Kleiner had led a $3M investment into the company. But Toronto Star has more details. January 27, 2006 --- The Energy Blog http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/01/eestor_ultracap.html
Clean Break has an interesting post, much of what I have copied verbatim, on
a new ultracapacitor made by start-up company EEStor of Austin TX. I
thought the technology was potentially so important that a record of it was
needed on the Energy Blog. The company is very wary of publicity and the
following, which Tyler meticulously chased down, is about all that is known
about their technology: None of these claims except
construction and cost are significantly better than other ultracapacitors.
Although they sometimes refer to the technology as a battery, it is clearly an
ultracapacitor. Clean Break's resources were: Kleiner Perkins' Latest Energy Investment,
BusinessWeek online, Sept., 3, 2005 Technorati tags: ultracapacitors,
energy
storage, energy, technology Kleiner Perkins' Latest Energy Investment
Justin Hibbard,
Business Week, September 03, 2005 www.businessweek.com/the_thread/dealflow/archives/2005/09/kleiner_perkins_1.html
Menlo Park, Calif. VC firm Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers in July led a $3 million preferred stock investment in
EEStor Inc., a Cedar Park, Texas startup that is developing breakthrough
battery technology. The company was founded in 2001 by Richard D.
Weir, Carl Nelson, and Richard S. Weir, who have backgrounds as senior managers
in disk-storage technology at such companies as IBM and Xerox PARC. They
previously co-founded disk-storage startup Tulip Memory Systems, where they won
16 U.S. patents. According to a May, 2004 edition of Utility
Federal Technology Opportunities, an obscure trade newsletter, EEStor claims to
make a battery at half the cost per kilowatt-hour and one-tenth the weight of
lead-acid batteries. Specifically, the product weighs 400 pounds and delivers
52 kilowatt-hours. (For battery geeks: "The technology is basically a
parallel plate capacitor with barium titanate as the dielectric," UFTO
says.) No hazardous or dangerous materials are used in manufacturing the
ceramic-based unit, which means it qualifies as what Silicon Valley types call
"cleantech." As of last year, EEStor planned to build its
own assembly line to prove the battery can work and then license the technology
to manufacturers for volume production, UFTO says. Selling price would start at
$3,200 and fall to $2,100 in high-volume production. Of course, all of this may
have changed since KPCB got involved. KPCB's investments are closely watched
because the firm has made some of the most successful bets in VC history
(Google, Amazon.com, Netscape, AOL, etc.). Energy investments carry a little
extra risk for the firm since it is relatively new to the sector. Speaking at
Stanford University in February, KPCB general partner John Doerr said the firm
had made four energy investments so far, including fuel-cell maker Ion America.
It will be interesting to watch how these companies develop. EEStor Capacitors- "This could change everything" Lloyd Alter, Toronto, March
6, 2006 www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/eestor_capacito_1.php
Tyler Hamilton of the Toronto Star
and website Clean Break has been digging around a very secretive
company. Asking them for information they said: "EEStor is not making
public statements at present time," company co-founder and chief executive
Richard Weir replied when the Toronto Star requested an interview via email.
"EEStor would also like to have you and your paper not publish any
articles about our company and the Toronto Star is certainly not authorized to
publish this response." which of course he published instantly in Canada's
biggest newspaper, BoingBoing style. . What they are doing in Austin with their
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers money is developing a "parallel plate
capacitor with barium titanate as the dielectric" or hypercapacitor as
John recently coined. Says Tyler: "BusinessWeek reported an interesting
comment from Kleiner's John Doerr, who recently spoke at a California event
where tech VCs gather to make their predictions for the year. Doerr reportedly
referred to an investment in an energy storage company he declined to name,
calling it Kleiner's "Highest-risk, highest-reward" investment."
Tyler's source describes it: (warning: if you continue reading you have to eat
this post) The batteries fully charge in minutes
as opposed to hours. Whereas with lead acid batteries you might
get lucky to have 500 to 700 recharge cycles, the EEStor technology has been
tested up to a million cycles with no material degradation. EEStor's technology could be used in more
than low-speed electric vehicles. The company envisions using it for full-speed
pure electric vehicles, hybrid-electrics (including plug-ins), military
applications, backup power and even large-scale utility storage for
intermittent renewable power sources such as wind and solar. Because it's a solid state battery rather
than a chemical battery, such being the case for lithium ion technology, there
would be no overheating and thus safety concerns with using it in a vehicle. Finally, with volume manufacturing it's
expected to be cost-competitive with lead-acid technology. "It's the holy grail of battery
technology," said my source. "It means you could do a highway capable
electric city car that would recharge in three or four minutes and drive you
from Toronto to Montreal. Consumers wouldn't notice the difference from driving
an electric car versus a gas-powered car." From his Toronto Star article: Energy storage has long been the bottleneck
for innovation, holding back new energy-sucking features in mobile devices and
preventing everything from the electric car to renewable power systems from
reaching their full potential. Build a radically better battery at lower cost,
experts say, and the world we know will be forever transformed. "There's been nothing big or disruptive,
and we're due for it," says Nicholas Parker, chairman of the Cleantech
Venture Network, which tracks investment in so-called clean technologies. He
says energy storage is one of the hottest areas for venture capital funding
right now. "Right across the board, better energy storage is
essential." Among EEStor's claims is that its
"electrical energy storage unit" could pack nearly 10 times the
energy punch of a lead-acid battery of similar weight and, under mass
production, would cost half as much. It also says its technology more than doubles
the energy density of lithium-ion batteries in most portable computer and
mobile gadgets today, but could be produced at one-eighth the cost. If that's not impressive enough, EEStor says
its energy storage technology is "not explosive, corrosive, or
hazardous" like lead-acid and most lithium-ion systems, and will outlast
the life of any commercial product it powers. It can also absorb energy
quickly, meaning a small electric car containing a 17-kilowatt-hour system
could be fully charged in four to six minutes versus hours for other battery
technologies, the company claims. According to patent documents obtained by the
Star, EEStor's invention will do no less than "replace the electrochemical
battery" where it's already used in hybrid and electric vehicles, power
tools, electronic gadgets and renewable energy systems, from solar-powered
homes to grid-connected wind farms. "If everything they say is true, then
that's pretty amazing," says MacMurray Whale, an energy analyst at Sprott
Securities and a former professor of mechanical engineering at the University
of Victoria. "To do all of that is unheard of when you look at any other
battery technology out there." Tyler Hamilton does not impress easily- he
was not impressed with us for falling head over heels in love with the magenn
turbine Don't bother googling for a website for EEStor- you will get a clothing
site. But do read ::Clean Break and ::The Toronto Star before
they send in the lawyers or break his fingers. For more information Full Collection of EEStories at http://www.rexresearch.com/weir/weir.htm US Patent # 7,033,406 - April 25, 2006 -
"Electrical-Energy-Storage Unit (EESU) Utilizing Ceramic and
Integrated-Circuit Technologies for Replacement of Electrochemical
Batteries" [ PDF Format ] http://www.rexresearch.com/weir/us7033406.pdf Russ
George, Planktos, Inc. SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 31, 2006---Thanks to
Governor Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature, the world's
eighth-largest economy and 12th largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) has
boldly jumped to the forefront of the international climate change battle.
California's Global Warming Solutions Act just passed today pledges to reduce
the state's GHG emissions by a whopping 25% by 2020, targeting an annual
reduction of over 125 million tons. Although some critics claim such mandatory reductions could
harm the state financially, a closer reading of the legislation reveals a
hidden win-win-win solution for the climate, economy and natural environment,
too. Specifically, the new law supports atmospheric CO2 reductions via
eco-restoration projects like growing new forests and other forms of plant
life. San Francisco Bay area eco-restoration firm, Planktos Inc., has been working
to deliver ocean and forest restoration as the most beneficial, cost-effective
and largest volume answer to both global warming and the equally severe CO2
crises in the sea. The company will soon be launching a pilot series of
commercial scale phytoplankton restoration projects to revive
failing ocean life and produce millions of tons of tradable low cost GHG
emission offset credits (aka "carbon credits") to finance the work.
Restoring these tiny ocean plants, that the company calls the ocean forest, to
1980 levels of health and activity will generate billions of tons of CO2
sequestering biomass and feed the entire marine ecosystem from the bottom up.
Our plummeting populations of fish, whales and sea birds might well rejoice
that California's climate change solutions may now help rescue them, too. The Case for Ecosystem Restoration 1) Troubled Waters: While the public and politicians have finally focused
upon the approach of global warming, they continue to ignore our greatest CO2
threat, the here and now calamity of accelerating oceanic collapse. The
CO2-driven acidification and iron starvation of the seas are decimating the
phytoplankton on which all life depends. These tiny marine plants generate most
of our oxygen, remove more than half our CO2, and are the foundation of the
entire marine food pyramid. Plankton desperately need trace micronutrients,
especially iron, to grow and photosynthesize, and have traditionally received
it in wind-borne dust from arid regions of the world. Modern agriculture and
high CO2 levels have increased drylands groundcover to such a degree that 35%
less iron rich dust is reaching the sea than two decades ago. This has already
caused a 25% drop in plankton life in the hardest hit regions of the North
Pacific, and a 6-9% dieoff worldwide. The knock-on effects are immediate and
lethal, starving fisheries, great whales, millions of sea birds, etc. The
climatic effects are equally formidable. Compared to 1980 baselines, plankton
photosynthesis is now pulling down 3 billion fewer tons of CO2 each year, an
amount equivalent to about half of our annual manmade CO2 emissions worldwide.
In other words, simply restoring plankton populations to the strength they
enjoyed a few decades ago would remove four to five times more CO2 from the
atmosphere than universal compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, and generate
gigatons of fish and whale food in the bargain. 2) Disappearing Forests: According to UN studies, we have now lost nearly
half of the Earth's natural forests, most of them within the last 30 years.
Although a few are being replanted--often with "tree farms" or worse,
the pace is entirely too slow and the overall impacts on biodiversity, wildlife
habitat, water supplies and the global carbon cycle remain pernicious and
immense. While large-scale mixed-growth forest restoration in protected reserves
seems to offer so many ecological and climatic benefits, this approach has at
times been disdained or opposed by both high tech geoengineering advocates and
source reduction purists. 3) The Real Meaning of GHG Mitigation Plans like California's New Legislation
and the Kyoto Protocol. Critics accurately observe that even universal
compliance with California's law or the Kyoto Protocol would do little to solve
the true enormity of CO2's global threats. Happily, the real value of such
reforms lies not in their minimalist reduction targets, but in their creation
of well funded markets for CO2 reductions that generously incentivize
innovations for climate redress. Overseas robust Kyoto-spawned markets are
already stimulating immense creativity, and even promise major funding to
address the sea and forest crises, which would likely remain unheeded if not
for their new found "carbon credit" value. According to Russ George, founder and CEO of Planktos, Inc, a pioneer in the
eco-restoration field, "Whether source reduction and/or techno-wizardry
can cool the atmosphere a little or a lot, neither hybrid cars nor underground
CO2 injection, have any lasting environmental merit beyond the direct
greenhouse gas reduction involved. Ecosystem restoration, in contrast, not only
reduces atmospheric CO2; it simultaneously regenerates the most vital ecologies
on Earth. Now thanks to California's leadership, it can also soon perform this
healing in a profitably self-funding way." "Our wounded planet desperately needs ecosystem restoration first and
foremost," says Mr. George. "It is the most important triage decision
of our day. Its large effect and low cost also deliver us from the Scylla and
Charybdis dilemma of choosing between environmental or economic apocalypse, and
we can begin making a big difference right away. Of course, eco-restoration
cannot solve the whole climate problem, and conservation and source reductions
also have key roles to play. Indeed all approaches are urgently welcomed now
because we clearly need the large CO2 reductions California's legislation
prescribes both to heal the climate and rescue the seas." For more information Science and economics of environmental restoration: see the Planktos
website at www.planktos.com.
Planktos is dedicated to marine and terrestrial ecosystem renewal, and is a
subsidiary of Solar Energy Limited which trades on the NASDAQ as SLRE.ob.
(OTCBB:SLRE).
Rudy Miller, Global Market
Manager for Photovoltaics at Dow Corning Solar Solutions, said
that the product and the manufacturing process is a breakthrough for the solar
industry.
Distributed in the public interest by www.IntegrityResearchInstitute.org
sponsors of the Second International Conference on Future Energy
(COFE2), Sept. 22-24, 2006 in the Washington DC area.
The Guardian
Unlimited, August
25, 2006 http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,1858172,00.html
David Smith, The
Observer, Sunday August 20, 2006
A man who claims to have developed a free energy technology which could power
everything from mobile phones to cars has received more than 400 applications
from scientists to test it.
An inverted hysteresis loop means a violation of the 'second law of
thermodynamics', which should be possible. See for instance http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physics/9912022.
If indeed the material of some type of permanent magnets shows an inverted
hysteresis loop, then that might explain the OU of several magnetic motors. One
should expect a cooling effect, since probably thermic energy is converted into
motion. If this is not observed, then another source of energy might be the
chaotic ZPE ("always an easy way out").
A PM with negative hysteresis loop means that it takes relatively little energy
to de-magnetise the PM (partially), such that the return to the a fully
magnetised state of the PM results into a surplus of magnetic field energy. In
many setups of magnetic motors a PM is confronted with an opposite magnetic
field that may de-magnetise the PM partially, such that the PM's
"H-field" follows an inverted hysteresis loop
Steorn's discovery might involve other materials with an inverted hysteresis
loop. For instance, a high-mu material with inverted hysteresis loop can be
used as magnetic shield and can be magnetised with little energy.
Non-linearity is also an issue, since inverted hysteresis and non-linearity are
closely related (critical behaveour, phase transitions) Magnetic properties are
manifest many scales of magnitude, and therefore magnetic properties form an
excellent candidate for non-linear and negative entropic effects. I suppose an
inverted hysteresis loop for magnetic materials at room temperature is as much
a holy grail as room temperature superconduction.
A Google search: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001PhRvB..64m2404O
Design and preparation of a bulk magnet exhibiting an inverted hysteresis loop.
Analysis of the Hysteresis Loop of Permanent Magnets by the Energetic
Model /M.-H. Yu, R. Grössinger, M. Küpferling, Z.-D. Zhang,H. Hauser,
R. Sato and B. Enzberg-Mahlke/ ······· S105 On the Origin of Anomalous Magnetic
Aftereffects and _*Thermal Remagnetization*_ /K/
Regards,
Koen
At 15:49 24.08.2006 +0200, Adolf Schneider wrote:
I can not see here a direct connection that a scalar field ( whatever it may
be) has to do anything with a non-conservative field and longitudinal forces.
For me the generation of magnetic longitudinal forces is equivalent with the
generation of magnetic monopoles, see my article in arxiv.org under
physics/0401151.pdf.
It would be good if Koen van Vlaenderen would give a reference here. Not every overunity
claim may fit to this idea. For instance Graneau's experiments with the water
arc explosions point out more to cold fusion effects than for longitudinal
Ampere forces. Anyway, I have seen Koen van Vlaenderen's article in arxiv.org:
From the intention it is a typical top-to-bottom article. If I remember it
correctly he overtakes Bearden's hypothesis that the Lorenz gauge relation has
to be modified and has to be expanded by a scalar term S. Using this he build
together a modified Maxwell theory. However he never comes to the bottom and
discusses no concrete examples near to technology with his theory. In my
article in arxiv.org under physics/0401151.pdf I tackled the same theme until
to the bottom without mentioning Bearden. But anyway his ideas are investigated
there. In a appendix of my article you find a classical derivation of the
Lorenz gauge from the continuity equation of charge i.e. drho/dt + div j =0.
If you look to the derivation of the Lorenz gauge in the mentioned appendix it
is immediately clear, that if source terms are added the Lorenz gauge has to be
modified as well and a third term appears. Indeed (I agree with Koen van
Vlaenderen here) this extension of the theory is important to describe
overunity experiments. It is concretely applied in the description of the
Yusa-Sakaki FET which is a real overunity device as I believe to have shown in
the same article .
understanding it fully. Tom Bearden took it over this concept making his
impressing science fiction out of that.
And today the whole world babbles about the theme in this way.
Concerning the additonal comments of Thomas Bearden, like : > There are no
"static" EM fields in nature, electrical engineering notwithstanding.
Instead, what is called a "static" field around a charge, an
electret, a magnet, or any dipolarity, is rigorously the result of a
nonequilibrium steady state (NESS) system, in thermodynamics terms....etc. see http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/031304.htm
That sounds more near to science if compared to earlier times. Thanks also for
the URL
http://www.fdp.nu/free_energy.asp?book=90
Dieter Bauer
5) Kleiner's
Secretive Battery-Ultracapacitor Company, EEStor
Matt
Marshall, March 12, 2006, http://www.mercurynews.com/
Kleiner
Perkins, the well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, is backing an
obsessively secret company called EEStor, which says it has developed a
battery-ultracapacitor technology that "blows away" current
lithium-ion technology in all aspects of performance.
"EEStor is not making public statements at present
time," company co-founder and chief executive Richard Weir replied when
the Toronto Star requested an interview via email. "EEStor would also like
to have you and your paper not publish any articles about our company and the
Toronto Star is certainly not authorized to publish this response."
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EEStor
Ultracapacitor Shuns Publicity
Feel
Good Cars, Toronto, ON, Canada
MCL Capital Inc. announce Agreement in Principal with
Feel Good Cars (In section on History and Nature of the Business
this agreement refers to FGC's agreement with EEStor)
6) Planktos Inc. Offers
California Affordable Green Tech to Fulfill New Global Warming Law
Ecosystem
Restoration: Life-Giving Key to CO2 Reduction and Economic Progress
7) Development at Dow
Corning Could Ease Silicon Shortage
by Stephen Lacey,
September 5, 2006 www.RenewableEnergyAccess.com
Leading silicon producer
has begun large-scale manufacturing of metallurgical-grade silicon feedstock
for PV cells.
"Our process [for manufacturing metallurgical silicon] is industrial, and
that is something that nobody else has been able to do. There's been some lab
work publicized, there's some pilot lines out there, but we've got the only
industrial facility operating," said Miller.
That could be just what the industry needs. Over the last four years, demand
for silicon has far exceeded production capabilities. This year will be the
same.
According to "The Gun has Gone Off," a solar market report from
Photon Consulting's Michael Rogol, the solar market's 2006 demand is for 5
gigawatts (GW) of power. But because of silicon feedstock constraints, the
industry will only be able to produce between 2.2 and 2.4 GW.
PV 1101 needs to be distributed quickly in order to ease the silicon shortage,
said Ted Ciszek, a national silicon consultant who once worked for the Dow
Corning Corporation.
"If they can get the product to market fast enough and if there's a
substantial cost advantage, then it will most likely have an impact,"
Ciszek said. "The silicon shortage may not be as big a problem in two to
three years, so it's important that the product go out now."
Dow Corning has already allocated its initial supply of PV 1101 to select
customers. Representatives from the company would not comment on which
customers received the material or how much was shipped due to nondisclosure
agreements. However, they did say that demand has exceeded their supply
capabilities.
PV 1101 is not a replacement for traditional silicon. It must be blended with
polysilicon to remain suitable for PV cells. According to Dow Corning, the
typical amount of metallurgical silicon in their tested PV cells is 10%. Miller
said that customers had a higher blend in some cases based upon their business
model and technology, but he did not comment on specific percentages.
The company hopes that continued development of metallurgical silicon will help
the solar market expand. PV 1101 is only the beginning, said Gaetan Borgers,
Director of Dow Corning Solar Solutions.
"This product is an option for further growth. We want to gradually gain
confidence in our process. Our customers will help us understand the capability
of PV 1101, and eventually we will have more generations of this product."
The silicon production facility is located in Santos Dumont, Brazil. It is run
by Companhia Brasileira Carbureto de Calcio (CBCC), a wholly owned subsidiary
of Dow Corning.