Showing posts with label Ford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ford. Show all posts

Monday, July 20, 2009

EEStor Article

This is an excellent article on the EEStor program to produce an ultra capacitor battery. It is easy to read and work through the issues which have been difficult to unearth to date.

I would like to make a couple of comments. The core working component is a sphere coated with a thin layer of aluminum. It could not be any simpler. Their contribution has been to size down to nanometer scale. That way they are able to approach physical limits of charge concentration while also maximizing available surface area. So far so good.

Rather importantly, third party participants can observe demonstrations of the characteristics of the spheres even one at a time. That makes a convincing proof of concept long before anyone sees real product.

Further work as reported on permeability confirms issues from scaling attempts.

Before you attempt a battery, you must prove the sphere element itself. It is unimaginable that this has not been successfully accomplished.

The second issue revolves around actual fabrication of a device that performs as demanded. It is here that I am at least hesitant. I will be until I see a proof of concept battery performing as expected. They believe they have a protocol that will do the job. My own expectation is not quite so optimistic but I do expect to soon see a working device short on performance. That is not a bad thing

After that, it is all about perfecting the manufacturing process.

When the first flat screens came out, the manufacturing cost was a few hundred dollars each. The problem was three out of four did not work at all so they had to be sold in the thousands. I expect as big a problem with this technology initially.

And yes, at this time too little is been said about safety itself. It may have a natural dampening feature, but that would be simply lucky. More likely it produces an expanding cloud of explosive vaporized aluminum. In any case this is still R&D and we have a lot of time for crash tests.


Who Killed the Electric Gas Tank?

Posted by
JoulesBurn on July 15, 2009 - 11:09am
Topic:
Alternative energy
Tags: eestor, electric car, ultracapacitor [list all tags]

A few months from now, or perhaps 5-10 years from now, we will know whether or not EEStor can make good on its promise to sell a electrical storage device capable of propelling a reasonably-sized automobile down a freeway for a couple hundred miles before needing a recharge. There are some indications that they are making progress and that this could happen, but there are many reasons to remain skeptical. In this post, I will wade into these waters -- and then get out quickly. Will EEStor revolutionize motor transportation and more? Will it even work?

The human quest for energy is an interesting topic. Mostly by burning things, we have transformed our relationship with the planet and each other. It has been said that we are addicted to oil, but it is more the case that we are addicted to what harnessed energy can do. As it is learned that some utilization of energy is not sustainable for environmental reasons, or for lack of supply, the natural response is to search for other ways of doing the same activity but with another energy supply. And conventional economics promises us that something will come along.

In modern times, one of our sacred rights (or rites?) is the ability to drive a 1-2 ton vehicle up to a fuel station, fill it up without spending a fortune or more than a few minutes of time, and then drive around at 70 miles per hour without worrying about needing more fuel for awhile. A car with a battery and an electric motor, for whatever reason, didn't bring us to this present state of mind. But take away the gasoline (or diesel), and the dream lives on -- even better, because maybe we can skip the trip to the gas station and refuel the car at home. Zenn Motor Company makes and sells electric cars, and they are clearly
appealing to those with this dream:

Imagine a car that was whisper quiet at highway speeds, could go for hundreds of miles and left no trail of emissions behind. This car would never need to visit a gas station, and would top off its ‘tank’ within a few minutes.

The car is electric…and it’s powered by a revolutionary energy storage system: EEStor’s EESU (Electrical Energy Storage Unit). To put this into perspective, imagine a car that enabled guilt-free driving, eliminated dependency on foreign oil and that completely changed transportation as we know it.
Ah yes, "guilt-free driving". I won't get into that right now.

What is the EEStor EESU?

The aforementioned EESU is essentially a capacitor which is designed to be charged up and then slowly drained to power an electric vehicle, similar to a battery or fuel cell. In the simple model below, an external voltage is applied across two conducting plates separated by a small distance, usually with a dielectric or insulator in the gap. Charge flows until the voltage across the plates equals the applied voltage.

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/capacitor.gif

Figure 1. Charging a capacitor

The charge that is dislocated per volt applied is termed the capacitance. With the external voltage is removed, the charge remains. Place an external load across the plates, and current will flow through the load (providing power), with the voltage available decaying with time.

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/capacitor_def.gif


The energy stored by the capacitor is thus a function of the specifics of the capacitor and the voltage to which is is charged. Typical capacitors found in electronics store very little charge (or energy) compared to what is needed to power devices (not to mention cars) in continuous operation. There would seem to be two options a) find new capacitor technology with a higher capacitance, or b) ramp up the voltage. At first glance, it would seem logical to take the latter route, as the energy stored increases with the square of the voltage. As we will see, it hasn't work out that way in practice up to the present. Most research and development has focused on new materials.

Before continuing, it might be helpful to highlight a few terms used to characterize capacitance:

Capacitance Terms

dielectric: another term for an insulator, which emphasizes the fact that it polarizes in response to an external electric field (as when placed between the plates of a capacitor connected to a voltage source)
permittivity: a measure of how much a dielectric can be polarized (i.e. how it responds to an electric field)
dielectric constant: the permittivity of a material divided by that of free space (therefore, dimensionless)
The capacitance is determined by the geometry of the two plates, the distance between them, and the electrical properties (permittivity) of the gap material. For large plates relative to the separation distance, the following approximation can be used:

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/capacitance.gif

To make capacitors with large values of C, the most common approach is to (dramatically) increase the area. One way to do this is to employ porous materials with intrinsically large surface areas. The term
ultracapacitor is usually used to characterize such devices which are designed to store a lot of charge. One common type of ultracapacitor, electrochemical double layer capacitors, utilize high surface area materials and also the charge-storage properties of the interfacial region between the surface and an electrolyte in solution. An internet search will reveal a wealth of information about recent developments in ultracapacitors.

Why the Fuss About EEStor?

What has raised much cash and many eyebrows are the stated specifications for the EESU:

52.22 kW-h of energy storage, or 188 MJ
Weight of 281.56 lbs, or 127.71 kg

31,351 capacitors stacked and connected up in parallel, each with dielectric layers of 9.732 micron thickness

Each capacitor layer consists of alumina-coated composition-modified barium titanate (BaTiO3) powder sandwiched between two thin poly(ethelene terepthalate) layers and aluminum electrodes. The BaTiO3 has relative permittivity (dielectric constant) of 21,072 and the overall dielectric permittivity (including PET layers and alumina coating) is 18,543.

Total capacitance of 30.693 Farads, and total volume of 2.628 cubic feet.

Temperature stable to 85°C and voltage stable to 5000 V, with 0.1% discharge over 30 days
One million recharge cycles from 0-3500 volts and back again
Can be charged in 3-6 minutes
Manufactured by screen printing and sintering

The above information was obtained from the
patent which was granted to EEStor, Inc. in December, 2008 (EEStor has applied for more). The key material, alumina-coated composition-modified barium titanate powder, is made in a process described in a patent application by the same inventors. The modified powder is then mixed with about 6% PET and binder and suspended in nitrocellulose resin and solvent for use as a screen printing ink. The surrounding PET and aluminum layers are also formed via screen printing. Put the layers down in succession, baking in between until golden brown. Let cool and then serve.

One thing that catches one's attention is the excessive number of significant digits in the figures. What is apparently the case is that the configuration of the overall EESU is designed to match the energy storage density used by the battery in the Tesla. Measured capacitance values for a proof-of-concept unit (100 layers) were then used to determine the overall requirements for the full unit. The values for energy storage, volume, and weight translate to energy densities of 1.47 MJ/kg and 2.52 MJ/liter, a 2-3 fold improvement over lithium batteries, but still wanting when compared to gasoline (~45 MJ/kg and 33 MJ/liter). (Note that, because an internal combustion engine is much less efficient than an electric motor, the comparable values will be perhaps 20% of these figures.)

As of now, there is a lot of scattered information including this patent and previous filings as well as some apparent verification of some aspects of the manufacturing and materials by supposedly independent experts. There is also some investors and some negotiated agreements with partners, most prominently
Zenn cars (see the news item bar on the home page), and Lockheed Martin. A lot of initial reaction is detailed in an issue of MIT Technology Review from January 2007. Reactions by everyone else run the gamut from giddy true belief to skepticism to accusations of fraud. For some interesting reading, check out the following discussions:

The EEStory.com, with occasionally heated discussions and some poetry

Wikipedia
entry for EEStor and a talk page with lots of angst

A
timeline detailing the play-by-play.

Sort of a game of "choose your F word" (fact, feasible, fantasy, fallacy, fiction, fraud, ...). But unlike other controversies that get batted about endlessly, this one would seem to have a clear endpoint: either EEStor can make it or they can't. Of course, a negative result might take awhile, as exemplified by the example of cold fusion research twenty years from the initial media splash. In that case, the dream that abundant energy can be obtained quite easily has kept research alive, despite the absence of either clear evidence or a plausible physical explanation. In contrast, some ideas that "should" work take awhile to become reality because of engineering difficulties. Conventional fusion-based electricity generation and high-temperature superconductors probably fall into this category. Which is the case with the EEStor capacitor?

The Road Less Taken

The principle material used in the EESU, barium titanate, has been of interest for along time. If you have access to the bound set of the Feynman's Lecture Series (1963), you will find it discussed in depth in Volume 2, Chapter 11. Barium titanate is a common material for both capacitors and actuators (a related application where an applied voltage deforms a material, allowing precise movement of objects).
This article provides a good background on the utility of barium titanate as a dielectric in capacitors in general and in multilayer capacitors in particular. EEStor's improvement over what is currently available is an increase in the voltage to which the capacitor (or a stacked set of capacitors) can be charged to. Thus, though the target capacitance of 30 farads listed above is not particularly high in the world of ultracapacitors, by assuming a large voltage, the energy that can be stored goes up considerably (with the square of the voltage). What is the downside, and why doesn't everybody just design for a higher voltage? First, high voltages (3500 volts) in many situations would not be practical. Second, the capacitor has to withstand the voltage applied (i.e. not break down). But there is one more problem: the simple formula for energy stored in a capacitor assumes that the permittivity of the dielectric is constant. In practical application, there exists the phenomenon of dielectric saturation.

Getting Saturated

A material with a high permittivity means that it distorts in response to an external electric field. This can be just a displacement of the electrons with respect to the nuclei, or it can include relative displacements of the nuclei. In the case of electrochemical double layer capacitors, it also includes relative positions of ions and solvent near the surfaces. Perovskite oxides (which includes barium titanates) have high permittivities because they can, in effect, store a lot of energy by distorting when an electric field is applied. But there are limits to the amount of distortion possible; with increases in voltage above a certain point, permittivity begins to decrease, with large changes in voltage moving less and less charge. Companies have spent a lot of money trying to develop capacitors which do not have this limit, but without success. (See
http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/2009/04/intelligibility-of-eestors-re...)

Skeptics have
politely mentioned this "feature" of dielectrics in discussions for awhile now, but EEStor and Zenn have recently put out PR which says that independent permittivity tests on EEStor's barium titanate powders have shown that they support their claims. Their patent clearly suggests that dielectric saturation is not observed for their samples. Much of the recent debate is thus about whether this is really plausible, based on a review about is known about BaTiO3 from prior research or first-principles calculations. One unabashed enthusiast (I'll call him "true believer", or TB) has reported that (according to Zenn and/or EEstor) their materials are in a particular phase (paraelectric) which does not exhibit dielectric saturation at these voltages. However, there is a paper published which indicates that dielectric saturation does indeed occur in the paraelectric (cubic) phase. Meanwhile, TB from above has contacted the independent tester and found that the voltage used in the test was 1 volt, but that measurements were made at multiple temperatures and there was no observed temperature dependence to the permittivity. And according to a source of TB, temperature dielectric saturation always accompanies the voltage kind. Maybe they perhaps have some phase that hasn't been seen before. Even more interesting is TB's blog post with interview snippets with other researchers in the field. This snippet is from a discussion with Dr. Eric Cross of Penn State:

B: So your view is EEStor is possibly on to something but the information they have released is not a good body of evidence from which to draw any conclusions.

EC: I would go along with that yes. I think they have something interesting and they may not know that they have a tiger by the tail.

B: Meaning that the complexity may lie ahead for what they are working on?

EC: I think that's true. One needs to understand in detail what one is doing. This is an area of extreme interest at the moment. I can't say more about it.

B: It's of extreme interest just because of the applications, right? Not because there's some sort of breakthrough? I do not understand.

EC: I think these people are scientists and I think they have made an interesting discovery but their explanations of what they have discovered are not reasonable...which is not to say that what they have discovered is not itself reasonable. That I won’t say any more about it.

A Peaceful Queasy Feeling

As I have looked into what is known about the EEStor technology, and read as much as I could stand, I have gone back and forth as to whether I believe they have indeed created a dielectric material which has the necessary properties to make the EESU function as promised. It's hard for me not to root for these guys, as there is something noble about someone striving for 20 years to bring one's ideas to fruition. The problem is that, while creative ideas and persistent attention to detail in engineering can solve almost any problem, you are sometimes stuck with what nature hands you. That they came up with a secret recipe which has eluded so many others sure seems very unlikely -- but not impossible. Will it work? Ask me tomorrow.

At this point, the only people who really know what their technology is and whether they have something that can really be brought to market soon is EEStor (and they probably don't either). Everybody else (including Zenn, until they get one in hand) is relying on partial information. But if EEStor succeeds, it will be an amazing scientific and engineering achievement by a couple of people with limited resources.
Seem Warm To You?

But what if it works? Before it can be used in automobiles, many other questions remain -- although many of these apply to electric cars in general. Where will the electricity for this really come from in the next few years? Charging infrastructure? Safety? Assorted colors?

Some of these I will reserve for another article. But I will consider here the issue of safety, which is given scant mention in the EEStor patent.

None of the EESU materials used to fabricate the EESU, which are aluminum, aluminum oxide, copper, composition-modified barium titanate powder, silver-filled epoxy, and poly(ethylene terephthalate) plastic will explode when being recharged or impacted.

The inherent danger is not necessarily the risk of explosion, but simply the sudden release of 52 kilowatt-hours of energy if the capacitor self-discharges. As shown in this illustration from the patent,

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/eestor.gif

the individual energy storage units (capacitors) are connected in parallel such that, at full charge, a potential of 3.5 kV sits across each of the 31,351 units of 10 microns thickness. Although the dielectric breakdown voltage is sufficiently high such that leakage current is low, there is a finite probability that a stress fracture from impact due to an accident or a manufacturing defect propogated as the EESU ages results in electrical breakdown in one of the units. If this occurs, all of the energy stored in the EESU (52 kilowatt-hours) could potentially be released in a very short period. It is somewhat disingenuous to stress the large amount of energy which can be stored in the device and the rapidity of charging and discharging without acknowledging the downside of these.

In a rapid electrical breakdown of the device, the stored energy would essentially result in the instantaneous generation of a vast amount of heat. For example, the EESU is made primarily of barium titanate, which has a
heat capacity of 434 J/kg-K. The 52 kW-hr released will heat the 280 lb unit to about 3400°C. Of course, it would probably start heating up everything around it before it got that hot. One ton of steel (with about the same value for heat capacity) would heat up to 460°C. Best to get out fast.

There are
possibly ways to deal with this risk, but preferably not the Ford Pinto strategy. In any case, an extensive testing phase is warranted to assess both damage and age-related risk for a catastrophic self-discharge event. Crash-test dummies are cheaper than lawyers.
Disclaimer: I own no stock whatsoever

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Don Weil on the Auto Industry

Yes, the politicians are talking themselves into bailing out the big three when what the big three desperately need is a trip through chapter 11.

In fact, it is probable that these companies can be nicely reorganized and even refinanced as a group of separated companies worth much more than the original entities.

At the end of the day, I believe there is great merit in GM splitting into seven separate companies. They are there in practice and are burdened by an actual lack of internal competition. GM is set up to do just that.

The driving force behind gigantism in industry came from the huge need for capital to carry huge inventories literally from mine face to end buyer. This has abated thanks to modern industrial practice. It makes total sense for a stand alone auto company to design a model line and run a nimble assembly line using parts suppliers who are now already well established.

Multiple auto companies would spread the financial risk which surely is a benefit to the nation. We are getting this through the back door as foreign automakers continue to set up shop here.

Four Big Lies about the Big Three Automakers

Monday, December 8, 2008 3:58 PM
By: Dan Weil

With Congressional Democrats and the Bush administration agreeing in principle over the weekend to drop a few billion on General Motors and Chrysler, all signs point to a government-backed auto industry bailout. But could the crisis in Detroit be the product of myth, spin and outright lies?

As the nation inches closer to an unprecedented investment in private industry, Newsmax has examined the falsehoods being spread to promote the deal. Indeed, the exact amount of money to be doled out isn’t clear yet. GM and Chrysler executives testified before Congress last week that they need $14 billion to survive until March 31.

Whatever the total, a number of financial experts say it would be money better left unspent until the Big Three and their supporters agree to level with the American taxpayers. Until the car makers can offer convincing proof that they will be able to produce cars at a reasonable price that customers will want to buy, here are four of the biggest whoppers they are relying on to get a massive infusion of American tax dollars:

1. Detroit’s wages really aren’t out of synch with those of auto workers in other countries.

It has been well established that total compensation for U.S. auto workers, including pensions and benefits, comes in around $70 per hour. That compares to $45 per hour for Japanese workers.

But some auto industry supporters have distorted the argument. They use the American workers’ hourly wage without benefits – about $30 an hour – and compare that number to the $45 hourly total compensation for Japanese workers. Then they claim that U.S. auto makers are actually more labor efficient than their Japanese counterparts.

Obviously that’s not comparing apples to apples. If you are looking at apples versus apples, a new auto plant in India offers hourly pay of only $19.
And it’s not just line workers who are overpaid. Ford’s chief executive Alan Mulally earned $22 million in total compensation last year – a year that helped push the company toward oblivion. Asked last month if he thought he deserved a pay cut, Mulally said, “I think I’m all right where I am.”

Top executives at Bear Stearns, AIG, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch probably felt the same way right before their companies went under.

2. The auto industry is unique and therefore must be bailed out.

It’s true that auto companies, including suppliers etc., account for about 3 percent of economic output and employ at least one million people. But those numbers aren’t dependent on the financial status of the Big Three.

If the companies go into bankruptcy and come out stronger, the industry will employ about the same amount of people. If not, foreign auto makers will produce more cars in the U.S. and pick up many of these workers.

Plenty other uniquely American industries are taking it on the chin, and no one is calling for a bailout of those sectors. Take newspapers for example. One could argue they are far more important for the functioning of our democracy than the Big Three auto companies.

Newspapers are firing workers right and left and shifting more of their operations to the Internet. And they will have to continue doing so until they can put out a news product cheaply enough and well enough so that readers will pay to read it, and advertisers will pay to appear in it.

That’s called adjusting to a changed market place, something the Big Three have largely failed to do since first facing foreign competition in the 1970s.

3. Bankruptcy for the Big Three will mean the end of the U.S. auto industry.

That is simply poppycock. A prepackaged bankruptcy could actually leave the major auto makers in better shape than they were prior to the financial crisis. Since the mid-1990s, the Big Three made most of their money on gas guzzling SUVs and trucks. That simply won’t cut it anymore. Bankruptcy will force the auto makers to quicken their shift to smaller cars.

Plenty of companies have emerged stronger from bankruptcy. Nearly all the major airlines have gone through that process and came out stronger than when they entered. Some industry apologists have argued that American consumers won’t buy any cars from the Big Three if they are in bankruptcy because of concern that warranties won’t be honored.

But as long as the companies offer quality autos at reasonable prices and make it clear that warranties will remain in place no matter what happens to the companies themselves, American drivers will want the cars.

Meanwhile, bankruptcy would give the Big Three an opportunity to rework their labor contracts, cutting compensation, and to jettison incompetent executives.

4. A limited aid package now will insure the industry’s long-term future.

The amount of money being bandied about, $15 billion to $25 billion, is chump change. GM and Chrysler are bleeding $2 billion in cash per month. So the high end of the bailout range keeps them in business for about a year. Then what? Without major changes in their business model, they’ll simply be coming back to Washington with their hands out again.

The Big Three have had so many opportunities to change their practices since the first oil crisis of the early 1970s, yet they have been reluctant to budge. GM still has eight brands of cars, even though critics have pointed out for years that’s probably about seven too many.

As recently as last month, GM CEO Rick Wagoner had the gall to tell Congress: “What exposes us to failure now is not our product lineup, or our business plan, or our long-term strategy.”

Until Wagoner and others at the Big Three come to realize those are exactly the factors that have put the industry on the brink of failure, there is no hope for improvement. And it’s not a bailout that’s going to make auto companies implement the adjustments they need to survive.

And remember, this current "bailout" bears no resemblance to the rescue of Chrysler in 1980. In 1980, Congress passed, and President Carter signed, a law giving a U.S. government guarantee of a private $1.5 billion loan to Chrysler. Not one dollar of taxpayer funds was ever used in the deal. It's also important to remember that import tariffs sheltered Chrysler and the Big Three from Japanese competition in the 1980s. And unlike today, Chrysler also had a clear plan to make a comeback and the loan was relatively small.

All of the automakers should follow Chrysler's 1980s success story: create a viable business plan for the future and get private sources to fund it.

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Chapter 11 Solution for USA Auto Industry

A question now needs to be asked about the current state of the global economy. The banking system has been stabilized because it had to be. The magic of reserve banking is that if your reserves expand you are allowed to expand your loan portfolio by the appropriate multiple. This all works because the banks have a monopoly on deposit management and it is all tightly regulated or at least used to be in order to prevent the type of crisis we just got hit with. It is the natural nature of competition that forces the imposition of regulation on this particular business. After all if you lend recklessly for a short while, your earning performance will give you bragging rights among your peers.

Unfortunately the reverse magic happens when confidence fails. The limited cash evaporates and the loan contracts can never be sold for immediate liquidity. In these circumstances, governments must step in and provide liquidity. Once confidence returns, the multiples will reexpand and the banks will repay the bail out loans. And everyone will wonder what it was all about.

The best assurance that an investor can have is to hear bankers complaining about their rules.

That begs the next question. What about the auto industry? Their lease portfolio is good and likely needs a mere assist there to get access to cheap money. After all they are not deposit taking institutions.

The manufacturing situation is a vastly different story. This industry has moved heaven and earth to accommodate the cost structures imposed by their employee unions and the grossly distorted medical insurance system. They have shifted as much manufacturing off site as possible and they demanned as much as possible. The bottom line is that they are premium prices for labor in a market were their competitors are not and that includes their newly built North American competitors. It must be fixed and fixed now.

The simplest solution is not to write large governments checks unless it is to provide bridge financing while the industry passes through chapter 11. That puts all union contracts and debt obligations and other such contracts into the proverbial cocked hat for a complete restructuring and puts all stakeholders on the same side working together to stave of sudden death.
And done properly, there is no reason to destroy the shareholders or the debt holders since the industry will be immediately profitable, though needing time to rebuild reserves and reduce debt.

The point that I am making is that the woes of the auto industry stem from its structural problems, not visibly shared by their competitors. Re structuring now will end the charade that they can compete against competitors on the world stage where their cost structures do not apply.

Starting immediately, the US auto industry needs to manufacture small electric auto carts as fast as possible. Their range may be only forty miles, but everywhere except the USA and Europe, this will not matter much, and we will get over it.

The real emergency is that the USA must begin reducing oil consumption very aggressively and our personal transportation is essentially obsolete. Very likely you will receive a fuel ration that will let you drive the old SUV 5,000 miles per year. And second cars will become hanger queens. An electric auto cart solves the problem by providing urban transportation. And surprise, surprise, you will discover that occasional long haul travel will generally not exceed that 5000 miles for the majority.