If you watch the winning videos for the so-called “Crazy Green Idea” video contest, developed by the X-Prize foundation to find topics for a new X-Prize contest, you’ll quickly realize that the ideas are not — in any way, shape or form — wild and crazy at all. No geoengineering plots to re-ice the Arctic, blueprints for massive space mirrors to reflect sunlight, or plans to tweak trees to suck up more CO2. Yep, they’re all proposals for serious, slightly geeky, and very important energy problems.
And the winner…is rightly so, the most reasonable of all — the capacitor challenge. The team asks the audience to solve the problem of energy storage by creating an advanced, cheap capacitor that has no toxic chemicals. The device has to exceed the energy density of lead acid batteries, fully recharge in under one minute and for up to 500,000 cycles, and cost less than two times the price of average lead acid batteries. Wow, inventors who could enter that contest would already have a revolutionary device that could transform handheld gadgets and vehicles. Check out the pitch that won $25,000 via the most YouTube votes.
I know a few folks already crazy about capacitors. Including – come to think of it – a few who work for National Laboratories. This could end up being a contest that changes everything about energy use.
I think a company called EEStor has such a capacitor.
You guys realize that a capacitor and a battery are essentially the same thing. The major difference is the time during which it’s assumed the charge will be dissipated…. (Charging time is also interesting….)
Still, something to think about. And, even our current rechargeables won’t do that cycle count, whereas a typical capacitor may do more cycles than that while you’re sitting there reading this.
(‘Course, we’re talking bazillionth’s of a volt, and very short cycles, not 12 volts and up, and over a few hours, or days….)
It IS nice to see realistic suggestions and goals in this one. Fridges that can sign on the Internet and tell that your lettuce is expiring are a fun idea, too, but….
Regards
I think this is a great idea, it’s just a shame our government isn’t as skilled at motivating technological advances.
The most important aspect would be controlled discharge. There is a Texas company that says that it is close to the goal I stated above…
# 3 amodedoma said, “I think this is a great idea, it’s just a shame our government isn’t as skilled at motivating technological advances.”
The gov’t has never been the major driving force of invention in this country. And, this country has lead the world in invention…
Bureaucrats don’t innovate.
Can’t wait to see which corporation will pay the inventors twice the X-price’s amount for either the patents or to not continue their research.
#5–Paddy-Zero:
1. Center for Disease Control
2. Genome Project
3. Space Program
4. Internet
5. Transistors
6. Computers
Seems to me if a capacitor system can last 10 times longer than a battery, it should be allowed to cost at least 10 times more==or even 20?
#2. Capacitors are not batteries.
I guess $25,000 is needed for those who are not motivated enough by the billion dollars that would be made from such a device.
RBG
#2,
You are mistaken. Batteries store the current chemically. Capacitors store the current electrostatically. They are different processes.
The problem with capacitors has always been power retention. It is already trivially easy to make a capacitor that can store more current/power than a comparable lead acid battery. The problem is the inherent high voltage that you get with a capacitor means the thing is gonna leak. There is some fancy math to preduct it, but think in terms of… In 15 minutes any given capacitor will have lost 1/2 its charge, and in an hour it will be virtually dead.
This contest is more about building a capacitor that can hold a charge for a couple of hours while you drive 100 miles, than it is about making one that can hold a lot of current.
Nevermind that though, there are a number of premises (for example the idea that batteries pollute) of this contest and make it wrong headed. Dead lead acid batteries are filled wiht precious materials. Even dead dry cell batteries are filled with desirable and inherently recyclable materials.
The trash vultures get just about every last valuable battery out of the trash before it goes into the landfill.
You can buy all the batteries you want and pitch them into the trash guilt free;)
#9,
I think the idea is to get exposure for the inventor who has already developed this technology, but the institutional engineers laugh at the guy whenever he calls them and says “I have an invention and it does x”
Mmmmm…i smell Longitudinal EM waves wafting in the air.. 😀
-this sounds like a slick way to *finally* introduce scalar tech into the mainstream..
“i love the smell of capacitors and pulsed magnets in the morning”
our military already has some crazy arse Caps
in use for its rail gun and electric boat visions..(not to mention all the real nasty EM tech they’ve been toying with since the 60’s) now..if the military does go awol on us in the next two years, maybe we wont have to wait 20yrs for tech that’s been around for a decade.
i highly recommend browsing http://rexresearch.com
for an endless supply of what has been possible for a century. (also recommend spending the $13 on his (3) CD archive set of the website. it has an additional bonus cd of stuff that is very sweet..a website dl’r wont get it all.. -it’s something to keep you busy when the net gets hax0red by the “everything is terror police” and all your allowed to surf is all manner of adverts for “civil service”
my cd’s arrived 5days after clicking the paypal button.. -trust me, no tech rat should be without this treasure trove of energy tech plus all manner of other technology and simple solutions to stupidly simple problems that we’ve made overtly you never dreamed of. many original scans of old patents too…
-s
[Please drop the WWW from URLs as WordPress doesn’t display it properly… plus it’s unnecessary. – ed.]
Caps and batteries are not the same thing. EESTOR claims to have a 30+ farad cap with a 5kv operating voltage. This meets the prize criteria, if they ever actually produce one.
Switching gear to drop the voltage to a 100V or so is going to be a problem.
An auto accident with a fully charged 30 farad 5kv cap could be something like a huge xenon flash. Gasoline is tame by comparison.
#5
Maybe you’re to young to remember the NASA of the 60’s or 70’s.
The best industry for the US to control is the high tech and there for a while they did. Till they got behind. Now the only things foreigners buy from the US are condiments and fast food franchises.
(1) #10 GregA,
What? Capacitors can hold a charge for decades. In fact that is one of the dangers of high-voltage capacitors, especially in military applications. If they are accidently thrown away without being discharged, someone could pick it up later and get electrocuted. It is standard procedure to fully discharge any capacitor before throwing it away for this reason.
(2) Yes, EEStore in Dallas claims to have created a nano-material based super-capacitor. But this claims has not been independently verified. They were recently granted a patent for this process.
(3) The problem with using capacitors as energy storage devices is the controlling the rate of discharge. Unlike a chemical battery which can produce a given amperage and voltage over a period of time, capacitors dump all their power at once. To be practical as a battery replacement, they require something to control the discharge rate. Something like a cascading capacitor sub system can try to do this, but they cost power, reducing the overall efficiency.
#11 GregA posted an excellent synopsis of a capacitor. Good work!
As with many X-Prizes, this one is a tad unrealistic.
“The device has to exceed the energy density of lead acid batteries, fully recharge in under one minute and for up to 500,000 cycles, and cost less than two times the price of average lead acid batteries.”
Wha??!! Why not just build a rocket to the moon for the price of a Buick?
Current research involves billion dollar nanotech, and even they may never reach these requirements.
Not to mention another deal killer is “no toxic chemicals”.
The wording should be “disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner”. At least something reasonable.
This reminds me of that PETA challenge to have vat grown beef on the store shelves…
I would still research these capacitors because I could make billions of the tech, but this X-Prize has a poison pill and will never be paid out.
amodedoma…nope, he’s just a troll. fwiw, NASA and ARPANET flashed instantly in my mind when I read his troll.
Back around 1986, there was a company that built a PC with huge capacitors designed to act as a built-in UPS. I don’t remember the company name, but I actually saw one of these. Apparently it could run for some time after a power interruption. I remember it having several capacitors about 2-3 inches across. I don’t know if it ever went into production, but it seemed like a pretty interesting idea.
#7 Booboo said
John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain of Bell Labs (private entity) invented transistors.
The Center for Disease Control isn’t an invention.
The “space program isn’t an invention.
The Genome Project isn’t an invention.
Konrad Zuse of the Henschel Aircraft Company invented the 1st first freely programmable computer (private company)
So that leaves the Internet.
You need to go back to school Booboo.
# 14 amodedoma said, “Maybe you’re to young to remember the NASA of the 60’s or 70’s.”
No. And both my father & father-in-law worked in the program. I am very aware what the program did and DIDN’T produce. Maybe you aren’t really aware of what happened INSIDE the program…
# 15 Ron Larson said, “(3) The problem with using capacitors as energy storage devices is the controlling the rate of discharge.”
This is the hurdle that needs to be overcome before capacitors can any meaningful use in electric and the like.
Sorry Paddy, using the capacitor as a battery — that problem has already been solved. Here’s some interesting news on nanotubes enhancing capacitor capability. And, it’s 2 years old. So, where’s the product?
#19 –Paddy-Zero== What you SAID at #5 was: “The gov’t has never been the major driving force of invention.” What you post at #19 is irrelevant to your initial posting.
It hardly matters whatever the point is you might be trying to make.
Our government is CURRENTLY failing to provide quality services in its mandatory educational programs==the heart of science innovation, everything else is of secondary importance.
# 23 bobbo said, “What you SAID at #5 was: “The gov’t has never been the major driving force of invention.””
Correct. And you were only able to name ONE invention that the gov’t created.
Thanks for making my point.
Paddy-Zero==able to be difficult on all posts—AT THE VERY SAME TIME. So, in your mind, to be “the major driving force of invention” you have to actually be the entity making inventions?
Why not say it more directly, as in, not something else?
Heh, heh.
#24, Cow-Patty,
Geeze, I am quite sure you even believe what you write.
If the government hires someone to work on a project, I suppose you would say the government didn’t have anything to do with “inventing” it.
Well, the government had nothing to do with developing large, high speed turbines. I understand that Wes Ting developed nuclear energy at his own house. Along with General A.C. Electric. All those projects to develop jet and rocket propulsion were just fronts so people wouldn’t be looking elsewhere. Digital imaging all came about because someone wanted to count their pictures. The first electronic computers weren’t developed by the Navy, that is a lie told over and over. And lasers?
Wait !!! The electric Chair !!! Didn’t the government invent the electric chair? And the gas chamber. Ya, the government also invented the gas chamber.
But hey, you are the expert.
My dad knew a guy that invented the A-bomb in a garage outside Detroit. Some say it happened somewhere in New Mexico, but we know better.
And GPS? Not military, rather it came from TI as an offshoot of the Speak & Spell project.
but plants crave electrolytes
# 26 Mr. Fusion said, “blah, blah,”
Interesting how much garbage you spew when you don’t have any actual data. Kinda fun to watch, in petri dish sort of way. Let me know when you are done with grade school and have some facts to enlighten us with. 😉
#29 – Paddy-RAMBO
Paddy-RAMBO, OWNED by Fusion yet again.
You’re persistent, I’ll grant you that. Some might say you don’t have the sense God gave a rock, and don’t know when to just STFU. Being of the glass-half-full persuasion myself, I prefer to adopt the more positive stance.