Portable Supercapacitors

Warning! Grumpy Old Man rant coming up!

Why is it (rhetorical question) that an item from Nikkei Electronics Asia, with the by-line: Neil Munro, Sydney, has this illustration?

How big is a quarter dollar? 5mm? ½"? ¹/₁₀₀ of a cubit? Why the Blazes didn't they use a scale?

is similar.

Wonderful rant!

A capacitor is the ideal device for regenerative capable - power averaging transportation applications. The power densities are plenty high, the number of charge and discharge cycles without failure is more than adequate; but the last time I looked energy densities were still quite low.

A device capable of storing an energy equivalent of 4 accelerations of a vehicle to its maximum sustained speed would be adequate for a very high performance hybrid system using any form of prime mover. One acceleration could be made to work quite well for vehicles not required to use stored energy for grading.

The storage capacitor(s) must be able to store these energies at reasonable voltage. Since the energy stored in a capacitor increases as the square of the voltage, it drives the technology towards higher voltage which make the control circuits and inherent system safety more problematic.

Gavilan