On July 26th I wrote a piece about oil and energy which also focused on the speculative battery technology company EEstor and it’s minority owner Zenn Motor Company (ZNNMF).  Since then I’ve given more thought and some added research to the matter.  On July 29th, I posted a correction to my original pieces as follows:   re: the Zenn investment, it seems the information in my piece was incorrect. According to a 7/2/09 press release you can find athttp://www.emediaworld.com/press_release/release_detail.php?id=623265the Zenn investment was $5M [not $700,00]. The …

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Game Changing Battery Technology: Is It Here Now? Nearly every oil observer - Simmons, Maxwell, Jeff Rubin, many others, and least of all myself - see oil prices rising in 2 - 5 years, probably to new heights, if the global economy continues to recover.   That’s based on pretty accurate visibility of new oil supply over the next 5 - 7 years, fairly certain rates of decline in old fields, plus assumptions of demand growth rates for OECD, developing, and oil exporting economies.   I provided my own version of this …

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Another episode in the drama of EEstor - the privately owned potential game changing technology developer that has yet to produce a prototype for public inspection - is the public endorsement or EEstor’s recent milestone announcement by Zenn and Zenn’s decision to increase its investment in EEstor.   Zenn (ZNNMF) is the only way for the public to participate in EEstor.   Here and here are my recent reports on the Zenn/EEstor back-story.

The current development has Zenn “independently verifying” EEstor’s recent announcement of significant permittivity (energy storage capacity) by its …

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Stocks continue to recover from their panic bottoms of last November, many of them having doubled or more from then (case in point: General Electric).   All this seems very healthy to me given the lack of real world data indicating any sort of resumption in economic growth.  We get only data indicating a slowing in the rate of decline.  On top of that, we know there are more shocks to come:  huge default rates in loans on commercial real estate which lags the economy, the likely bankruptcy of both Chrysler …

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I’m scratching my head over $50 oil in the face of unprecedented levels of inventory both on land and at sea and with ample spare capacity of “underground inventory.”   Talk about speculative influence - speculation seems to be the only explanation for why oil is not, say, $35.  Speculators in oil futures are betting on an economic bottom begetting a recovery begetting greater oil demand.  Along with limited expansion capacity due to reduced investments in oil production and high rates of decline for older wells. Of course all that …

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A horse race is in progress that will determine the next generation automotive power plant.  In order to break our oil addiction cars must transition to electric power, which means the power plant must be either all electric or plug-in hybrid electric.  Either one requires a battery with vastly better cost/benefit ratios than is currently available.  The two near term favorites to fill the bill are nickel metal hydride and lithium-ion; a long shot on the outside is ultracapacitors.    Competing battery technologies also include an improved lead-acid battery and …

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As I’ve noted previously, there is a potentially disruptive battery technology known as an ultracapcitor that is being developed by a rather secretive but apparently well financed company called EEStor in Texas.   It would store and then generate enormous quantities power compared with existing batteries, be capable of re-charging very rapidly, and hold a virtually infinite number of recharges.  If it sounds like science fiction, well … maybe it is.  There are a lot of sceptics.   On the other hand, if you’d described a digital camera to someone …

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From FuturePundit.com:

August 05, 2008

EEStor Claims Battery Energy Density Breakthrough

Venture capital start-up EEStor claims their battery outperforms lithium-based batteries.
EEStor claims that its system, called an electrical energy storage unit (EESU), will have more than three times the energy density of the top lithium-ion batteries today. The company also says that the solid-state device will be safer and longer lasting, and will have the ability to recharge in less than five minutes. Toronto-based ZENN Motor, an EEStor investor and customer, says that it’s developing an EESU-powered car …

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The economy, the stock market, and our understanding of the future direction for energy and transportation may all be on the brink of major changes .  This letter will open a discussion of these ideas. 

A Very Tough Month

Before turning to the future, I must confess that the immediate past month was  most painful for the EIS portfolio.   Oil prices hit a violent downdraft in July, which especially impacted my “options on futures” strategy.  It declined in value by about 33%.  Since the purpose of these options is to provide portfolio …

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A report in The Economist analyzes the possibility that ultracapacitors are a game changer.   Remember:  “the prize” that everyone seeks is a technology that will allow electricity to power personal transportation economically.  In other words, can we build a PHEV or EV that can be more attractive to the consumer than a Smart car?   When that happens we will begin to transition away from petroleum and toward electricity, which is our inevitable ultimate destiny. The Economist analyzes whether ultracapacitors may be the key to that prize.  The article …

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Opportunities in Energy Storage Stocks by: John Petersen posted on: September 01, 2008 | about stocks: ABAT / ALTI / AXPW.OB / BCON / CBAK / CHP / ENS / HEV / JCI / MXWL / ULBI / VLNC / XIDE / ZBB Groucho Marx once quipped: “If we had some eggs we could have eggs and ham, if we had some ham.” In 2008, Groucho would probably work in the PR department of an alternative …

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