[LINK] ultracapacitors

[Richard Chirgwin]

Karl Auer wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-09-05 at 10:05 +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>   
>> Five minutes in a normal power outlet ...
>>     
>
> Richard, YOU invented the "normal power outlet". Neither the journalist
> not the company mentioned a normal power outlet. Now the patent may be
> snake oil or it may not be, but this is what the it has to say about
> recharging:
>   
...Sorry, I used it as a familiar application example, because if you or 
I are to buy a car using this as its power store, we need to plug it in 
somewhere.
> "The EESU can also be rapidly charged without damaging the material or
> reducing its life. The cycle time to fully charge a 52 kWh EESU would be
> in the range of 4 to 6 minutes with sufficient cooling of the power
> cables and connections."
>   
...now, 52kWh in 5 minutes is:
52 * 12 = 624 kWh

Which is non-trivial in terms of supply.

As you say ...
> They say that it will be safer than gasoline - hm - I sure wouldn't want
> to get a hit fom a charging connector! And if the cables need that much
> cooling, I wonder how much energy is being wasted. I'd have thought
> they'd want BIG cross-section connectors to avoid that...
>   
Yeah. Big, thick copper busbars (ha! there's also probably not enough 
copper lying around to kit out millions of homes with the ability to 
recharge something like this!).

The snake-oil isn't in the concept of high-capability capacitors, but in 
the "pitch" to the newsagency (in this case an Associated Press feature 
writer) that the "five minute" charge is actually feasible or useful for 
a consumer electric car.

Personally, when people spin a pitch to a newsagency (which has low 
responsibility for stuff-ups and worldwide syndication), I tend to think 
"looking for suckerdollars for investment. Just a nasty suspicious mind, 
I guess. And I do have a very low regard for the sort of journalism 
which gives a straight play to anything ... "Gravity Wrong Says 
Inventor" stories, so to speak.

The problem - I mean editorially - is that "electric car" is a hot 
topic, the desire for a greener world (if only this were really true) is 
a hot topic. Scepticism doesn't take much effort, but when everybody 
just wishes it were true...

RC
> Regards, K.
>
>