Forget hybrids and hydrogen-powered vehicles. EEStor, a stealth company in Cedar Park, Texas, is working on an “energy storage” device that could finally give the internal combustion engine a run for its money — and begin saving us from our oil addiction. “To call it a battery discredits it,” says Ian Clifford, the CEO of Toronto-based electric car company Feel Good Cars, which plans to incorporate EEStor’s technology in vehicles by 2008.

EEStor’s device is not technically a battery because no chemicals are involved. In fact, it contains no hazardous materials whatsoever. Yet it acts like a battery in that it stores electricity. If it works as it’s supposed to, it will charge up in five minutes and provide enough energy to drive 500 miles on about $9 worth of electricity. At today’s gas prices, covering that distance can cost $75 or more; the EEStor device would power a car for the equivalent of about 45 cents a gallon. And we mean power a car. “A four-passenger sedan will drive like a Ferrari,” Clifford predicts.

The implications are enormous and, for many, unbelievable. Such a breakthrough has the potential to radically transform a transportation sector already flirting with an electric renaissance, improve the performance of intermittent energy sources such as wind and sun, and increase the efficiency and stability of power grids–all while fulfilling an oil-addicted America’s quest for energy security.

Much like capacitors, ultracapacitors store energy in an electrical field between two closely spaced conductors, or plates. When voltage is applied, an electric charge builds up on each plate.

Ultracapacitors have many advantages over traditional electrochemical batteries. Unlike batteries, ultracapacitors can completely absorb and release a charge at high rates and in a virtually endless cycle with little degradation.
Where they’re weak, however, is with energy storage. Compared with lithium-ion batteries, high-end ultracapacitors on the market today store 25 times less energy per pound.

This is why ultracapacitors, with their ability to release quick jolts of electricity and to absorb this energy just as fast, are ideal today as a complement to batteries or fuel cells in electric-drive vehicles. The power burst that ultracapacitors provide can assist with stop-start acceleration, and the energy is more efficiently recaptured through regenerative braking–an area in which ultracapacitor maker Maxwell Technologies has seen significant results.

On the other hand, EEStor’s system–called an Electrical Energy Storage Unit, or EESU–is based on an ultracapacitor architecture that appears to escape the traditional limitations of such devices. The company has developed a ceramic ultracapacitor that uses barium titanate coated with aluminum oxide and glass to achieve a level of capacitance claimed to be much higher than what is currently available in the market. The claimed energy density is 1.0 MJ/kg (existing commercial ultracapacitors typically have an energy density of the order of 0.01 MJ/kg and a lithium ion battery has an energy density of 0.54–0.72 MJ/kg).

The claims of the ‘Electrical Energy Storage Units’ (EESU) are:
• Nontoxic and non-hazardous
• Non-explosive
• An initial production price of $3,200, falling to $2,100 with mass production. Half the price per stored watt-hour as lead-acid batteries; cheap enough to use to store grid power at off-peak times for on-peak use.
• No degradation from charge/discharge cycles
• 4-6 minute charge time for a 336 pound, 2005 cubic inch, 52 kilowatt hour, 3500 volt unit, assuming sufficient cooling of the cables.
• A self-discharge rate of 0.1% per month

Pound for pound, it will pack 10 times the punch of lead-acid batteries at half the cost and without the need for toxic materials or chemicals, according to the company.