Why not use capacitors to store power instead of batteries ?

[DirtyRob]

Just dont get too slap happy. Hate for you to knock a guy like this Robert Murray-Smith and his 1MF capacitor down. I can see even when these are feasible in the home that you guys are going to be a tough sell. Thats ok. I still have to walk my grandma through how to retrive her email from time to time because of how her generation took to computers. Its part of life.

[solarix]

We're still having to teach guys like you how to write and spell, because of how your generation was raised on computers.

[SunEagle]

That guy in the video may be the most intelligent person in the world but he reminds me of an infomercial that goes on and on about how good a product is but never gets to the point of how much it costs. I did watch a few of his videos concerning the EESD. They are very interesting. Maybe the technology will work and maybe not. I wonder why no one is lining up to get the data to build a commercial product?

Have you ever researched the Tesla Resonance Generator? It is real simple to build a test model and actually does produces electricity. I wonder why no one has built a full sized production model yet? Go figure.

[Sunking]

They have those same power sub stations configured to smooth out brownouts over 10s of thousands of houses, and they do it without batteries. .

What?

Mods time to nuke this guy down. He does not understand the difference between power factor and beer farts.

[DanKegel]

Hate for you to knock a guy like this Robert Murray-Smith and his 1MF capacitor down. I can see even when these are feasible in the home that you guys are going to be a tough sell.

It shouldn't be a tough sell if you can provide real evidence of capacitors being useful for a given application.

Sure, ultracaps are great for tiny things. And they might be useful for cars;

http://www.nrel.gov/transportation/energystorage/pdfs/47355.pdf

Mazda's i-eLoop system (mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kineti...ecovery_system )
is said to use a 120 farad, 25 volt ultracapacitor, but it only improves fuel economy by a tiny bit, maybe 1mpg.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=35982&id=35981

But I have not yet heard of them being at all affordable or useful for houses. Can you point me to
a datasheet for a particular ultracapacitor-based product that stores, say, 1kWh, for use in a house?

I'd love it if you could, but I'm afraid they just aren't there yet.

[jflorey2]

They have those same power sub stations configured to smooth out brownouts over 10s of thousands of houses, and they do it without batteries.

No, that's incorrect. You are talking about power factor and frequency stabiization, not "smoothing out brownouts" (i..e. voltage support/load shifting.)

You could also incorporate high efficiency vacuum fly wheels to hold energy.

Sure. Or you could incorporate hydrogen-boron fusion reactors to power your home. But today, your practical choice for power storage is a battery or . . . a battery. (Or a generator, of course.)

I'm sure the biggest laugh ill get is going to work and telling the guys we should rip up all our contracts . . . .

If you have "contracts" to install capacitor-based storage systems to power homes during brownouts or blackouts, then ripping up your contracts would be the smartest thing you could do.

During the dot.com boom, a family member told me about this awesome company he was part of. They had some IP, which was a look-and-feel patent for a search engine. In other words, they had a patent on how they thought a search engine's front page should look. Not how it worked, not how the user would use it, just how it looked. Their plan was to get bought out by some tech giant and make a million dollars.

He would have been far better off if he had ripped up all their plans and started right then and there working on something real.

electric theory isn't sound enough to be making things using these principles.

Oh, the theory is perfectly sound, it's just not practical. Let's do the math!

Let's say you want to store 20kwhr, which is a reasonable backup for a fairly energy-efficient house. We will look at two choices - the boring old T105 battery and a set of Maxwell ultracaps (the most common ultracaps on the market today.)

T105 - the "standard" golf cart battery that many people use for storage. Cheap and available. To store 20kwhr you need about 16 batteries; this is without margin so it's appropriate only for an occasional outage, not continuous use. This would result in a battery bank that was about 1000 lbs, cost about $1600 and take about a quarter of a cubic meter. You'd have to double that for a system that was used cyclically.

Maxwell BMOD0058 - the most common (and cheapest per joule) Maxwell product in their ultracapacitor line. To store 20kwhr you'd need 10,000 of these modules. Cost would be $1.43 million, weight would be 14,000 pounds and volume would be 8.4 cubic meters (i.e. a shed-sized structure.)

[jflorey2]

If you just use the power from 11-16 volts (which most inverters can deal with) you've gotten over 50% of the energy out of the capacitor. So you can apply a similar scaling that you do with lead acids; oversize by 2x.

[smily03]

When I was a kid, I used high-farad caps to melt aluminum foil. I'd be kind of scared to have that kind of thing at that capacity sitting in my house...

[bcroe]

If you only get half the energy out, the 20KWH cost would be $2.86 million, weight would be 28,000 pounds, and
so on. Bruce

[Mike90250]

.....Mods time to nuke this guy down. He does not understand the difference between power factor and beer farts.

But it's infotainment !

[bcroe]

It is pretty entertaining. Today I heard that "electric theory isn't sound enough". And the world has been
depending on it for centuries. Bruce

[dc/ac]

I appreciate the fact this forum is 'reality based'.

Have you seen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKYkSwCGe0s

I also appreciate guys like lasersaber who are pushing the envelope and sharing knowledge freely and openly.

There is a fine line between reality and derision - especially by those who make themself feel better by belittling others. It does not happen often but it happens and does not reflect well on the larger group.

[smily03]

I think part of it depends on what the motive of the person appears to be. If they come off as trying to deceive others, or lead them to do something dangerous, I think it's important to be called out. If it's just ignorance or noobness, being gentler is good...unless that ignorance/noobness is trending to something dangerous, then it needs to be called out strongly.

[Sunking]

OK I agree it has entertainment value. Sad or scary part is fools like that exist.

[Sunking]

I appreciate the fact this forum is 'reality based'.

Have you seen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKYkSwCGe0s

I also appreciate guys like lasersaber who are pushing the envelope and sharing knowledge freely and openly.

There is a fine line between reality and derision - especially by those who make themself feel better by belittling others. It does not happen often but it happens and does not reflect well on the larger group.

He is a Fraud. Supercaps have some applications like keeping the Real Time Clock in you PC ticking, Regen Braking, and Rail Guns. They have no useful energy storage applications as it is impossible.