Just figured I’d stamp out a rumour circulating the blogosphere that Lockheed has some kind of investment in EEStor. A reliable source close to the company told me that Lockheed has not invested a single dime in EEStor and that the agreement between the two announced last January strictly relates to Lockheed’s role after EEStor has developed its product. In other words, Lockheed will be more than happy to market, sell, and integrate EEStor’s EESUs into military applications if it is handed a working product.

This isn’t to say EEStor’s relationship with Lockheed is no big deal. The fact that Lockheed would lend its brand to a press release that includes EEStor, and has even named EEStor in a patent, is significant. Also, because we’re dealing with military applications, who knows what kind of collaboration is going on behind the scenes? However, contrary to what’s floating around out there, Lockheed is not an investor. (ed. note: for clarification my source says Lockheed has “not given EEStor a dime,” which would indicate there is no investor or fee paid).

If you want a full story on EEStor’s latest “permittivity” milestone (updated version) and its impact on ZENN shares, check out my Toronto Star article here.

A new Lockheed Martin patent published last week by the World Intellectual Property Organization gives us a glimpse of the miltary contractor’s relationship with Cedar Park, Tex.-based EEStor. It could also explain why EEStor has been reluctant so far to reveal its progress.

Lockheed’s patent details plans for “body armor having an electrical energy storage unit formed as a layer that substantially conforms to an armor plate.” According to the document, the electrical energy storage layer has “a plurality of sections.” The idea being that if one section is damaged in combat the other sections would remain operable. Two or more sections can be electrically coupled, either in parallel or series. Electrical connectors would “provide access to electrical power stored in the electrical energy storage layer.”

The armor would be a form-fitting utility garment worn like a vest. The patent goes on to say the electrical energy storage would be composed of lithium ion polymer batteries, or alternatively “one or more solid state, capacitive, electrical energy storage devices, such as those provided by EEStor Inc. of Cedar Park, Texas… Such solid state electrical energy storage devices comprise calcined composition-modified barium titanate coated with aluminum oxide and calcium magnesium aluminosilicate glass. (more…)

EEStor is citing funding problems to explain what is likely to be another delay of its allegedly disruptive energy storage technology. At least that’s what you can read over at the GM-Volt site, which has posted a dispatch from EEStor CEO Dick Weir about the likely timing now of commercial production of the company’s Electrical Energy Storage Units. “The funding that we did receive was not sufficient to meet the production status late in 2008,” Weir wrote. (more…)