The technology may work but is it practical for the uses it was developed for?

Your Technology Review article stated that Zenn expects to have an EEstor powered CityZenn commercially available in late 2009.

Can you tell me if Richard Weir’s prediction for a commercial release “as early as possible in 2009″ was limited to “potential partners in the solar and wind industry”, or was Weir also stating that Zenn would not receive the first production line EESUs until 2009 as well?

The company is also in serious talks with potential partners in the solar and wind industry, where EEStor’s technology can, according to Weir, help put 45 percent more energy into the grid. He says that the company is working toward commercial production “as soon as possible in 2009,” although when asked, he gave no specific date. “I’m not going to make claims on when we’re going to get product out there. That’s between me and the customer. I don’t want to tell the industry.”

Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach–the success of any campaign is determined as much by energy as by weaponry. In WWII Hitler’s first move was to secure a reliable supply of Norwegian oil. I’m sure that in the US, the politicians are the ones interested in deathrays, but the generals are probably more interested in mobile energy.

Think about it: the technology EEStor promises is HUGE for any end use: military, domestic or transportation. It’s like cold fusion.

I have no doubt that they’re on to something good, but we all know that the road from “good idea” to implementation is long, complicated and risky.

Imagine a lottery ticket that has a 10% chance of winning 10 million dollars: those are great odds, considering the payout, and you’d be crazy not to buy it. Indeed it’s the chance of a lifetime. But you’d also be crazy to bank on it: there’s a 90% chance it won’t be the winner.

I think that’s the situation that EEStor finds itself in. They’re either sitting on a goldmine, or nothing at all. And they won’t know which until the process of development has played itself out. I’m sure they’re right to be excited by whatever it is they’re on to–whatever it is that makes them think they’ve got a good chance of developping this technology to commercialisation.

But they’re also right to be cautious, to not count their eggs till after they’ve hatched, because even with a great idea, and the best people working on it, and some serious investors/partners, the whole thing could still fizzle. There are no guarantees in this business. Ever heard of Ballard?

http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?IA=IB1997000985&DISPLAY=DESC

The idea is quite similar to EESTOR’s superficially in that its about making a super capacitor out of Barium titanate at astronomical energy densities.

Like EESTOR’s first patent, there is no mention of dielectric saturation and they appear to assume k will remain high at high field strength.

The applicant is ENERGENIUS from the Toronto area (try google). If you go their website you will see very encouraging activity until suddenly all went quite in 2003. I wonder what ever happened to their “Proprietary Triple-S Energy Storage Technology”. I also don’t know how much funding they ever got but it would certainly be interesting to find out and compare…

Anyway, the Asian countries will soon rise to lead the world and they have already shown that they do not like the US bringing “democracy” and “peace” to the world. The game is changing.

That leaves: China, India, Brazil, Australia, and Canada. Canada and Australia don’t have large military budgets. Brazil and India are still relatively poor countries, and they will be for the next couple decades. That leaves ONE country that can buy a fair number of these things, and that’s China. And even China can’t spend more than a trillion or two.