Things may be about to change
...In a big way
While our attention was elsewhere, a truly earth-shattering change has been in the wind--a development most experts have dismissed as impossible, but which now increasingly looks like it is going to happen.
According to Lyle Dennis over at the AllCarsElectric blog, EEStor has applied for certification from the Underwriter's Laboratories for its ultracapacitor technology. If this is true, then the secretive company may really have succeeded in creating the ultimate in electricity-storage technology: a device capable of running your car for hundreds of miles on one charge, and of recharging in under five minutes. A device that is not a battery, and hence never wears out. A technology that would make intermittent power generation sources such as windmills directly competitive with baseload generation sources such as coal.
Canadian electric car company Zenn Motors has licensed EEStor's technology for a soon-to-be-built fully electric sedan. Zenn is betting the farm on EEStor, and they seem remarkably confident. Naturally, we hear outrageous claims about new technologies nearly every day; and many industry watchers have been skeptically tracking EEStor for years. The expectation has been that any day now, the company would disappear, and its executives would later be found living high off the land in Ecuador or somewhere. That hasn't happened, and now the company appears poised to release an actual product--according to Zenn, by the end of the year.
If it happens, this will be a truly disruptive change. It would be nothing less than the first nail in the coffin of the fossil fuel age.
And here's more on the developing story, from Zenn's point of view.
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However, I remain highly skeptical. The story has smelled slightly fishy for years now. What they claim is not so outrageous that it can be easily dismissed, yet is still a bit fantastical. Which is just the stuff of successful scams as well.
I guess we'll see.