According to folklore, Ralph Waldo Emerson said something to the effect that if you "build a better mousetrap, the world would beat a path to your door."
As with much folklore, it is exactly that, folklore. Actually what he said was something like, "if a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor…"
So Ralph Waldo Emerson became one of the most misquoted writers in history. On the other hand, with over 4,400 patents issued by the U.S. Patent Office for new mousetraps they have become the "most frequently invented device in U.S. history." Alas, as most inventors now realize, especially those who invented better mousetraps, the quote is totally wrong. No one will beat a path to your door. You have to wake early, work late and advertise.
Two distinctly different current events that have taken place in the past few weeks demonstrate an immediate need for better batteries. On September 2, 2016, Samsung announced the recall of the Galaxy Note 7 cellphone just weeks after it was released due to a few cases of the batteries exploding when they were being charged. It was serious enough that the FAA announced passengers would not be allowed to use or charge the devices while on aircraft nor would they be allowed to carry in checked luggage.
On the 16th of September a black man in Tulsa walking to his stalled vehicle was shot once by police and died at the scene. The shooting was recorded on both a dashboard video camera system in one of the responding police vehicles and from a police helicopter flying overhead. In neither case was there any sound of the actual confrontation. It appears the Tulsa police did not have personal body cameras or at least no video has been admitted to or released.
Police say the man was reaching into the window of his vehicle and may have been attempting to get a gun and their lives were at stake. The man's family and their lawyer responded by saying the man had his hands up in the air and video from the airborne unit shows the window was clearly closed.
A rash of police shootings in the United States has the black community in an uproar. It almost appears that the country could be on the verge of a civil war as more and more cases of what appears to be police totally out of control shooting unarmed people for no reason.
In Tulsa the city administration has been forthcoming and released all the video they admitted having. But a clear case can be made that when everyone in the US over the age of 8 has a cellphone capable of both recording video and audio, why aren't all police equipped with personal body cameras? Regardless of who is right and who was wrong, more and better information would clear the innocent and convict the guilty.
A month or so back one of my readers sent me some information about a young company based near Seattle that has built a better battery. The company is named Neah Power Systems Inc. (NPWZ:OTCBB) and they have invented a better and safer battery. It's a lithium battery but one that has a higher power density than other lithium batteries now in use. Comparing the Tesla 18650 battery, the Neah Power battery has 1500 Watt-hours per liter (Wh/L) and 500 Watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg) and the standard Tesla 18650 battery has 280 Wh/l and 120 Wh/kg. Thus the Neah Power battery delivers 400%–500% more power than the Tesla battery and is safer.
The standard battery powering the current body cameras for police needs recharging every four hours. Neah Power has an order from a company supplying police cameras and the Neah Power battery will last a full shift or up to thirteen hours between charges.
I can't go into the technical details of what makes the batteries better because I don't understand all of the issues but basically the internals of the battery are fabricated on standard computer chip making machines. The Neah Power battery is made up of 320,000 micro batteries per square inch. If for any reason one of the 320,000 micro batteries goes bad, due to the physical separation between the individual batteries, there is no cross contamination. With a conventional two-dimensional battery, every point is connected to every other point. When one fails, the whole thing blows up. Literally.
Neah Power suffers the same sorts of problems every other young technical company suffers from. They have a lack of money and a lack of visibility. I liked the story enough that I went out on the open market and bought shares. The company needs to raise money and should any readers be interested, I suggest you contact the President Chris D'Couto directly for more information.
I hate the share structure; they have 1.9 billion shares outstanding and as of right now, the shares are quoted at $0.0009 apiece. I had a real problem figuring out just how many shares I got and I was afraid when I placed an order in getting the decimal point in the wrong place and owning the company shortly thereafter. But as of right now the company has a market cap of about $1.7 million. Various projections guess the total demand for battery storage in the world between $60 billion and $120 billion per year.
The process that Neah Power has invented to create the battery innards on a chip-making machine is highly scalable, unlike current technology. The company is in discussion with various large computer companies and automobile manufacturers but naturally whom they are talking to is not public information.
Neah Power did recently receive a grant from the U.S Department of Energy for their lithium battery development. It wouldn't take much in the way of news to drive this stock far higher. And like many other new companies, they either succeed wildly or fail totally.
I own shares in Neah Power bought on the open market. I have no other financial relationship with the company and they are not advertisers. I am biased. Do your own due diligence.
Bob and Barb Moriarty brought 321gold.com to the Internet almost 14 years ago. They later added 321energy.com to cover oil, natural gas, gasoline, coal, solar, wind and nuclear energy. Both sites feature articles, editorial opinions, pricing figures and updates on current events affecting both sectors. Previously, Moriarty was a Marine F-4B and O-1 pilot with more than 820 missions in Vietnam. He holds 14 international aviation records.
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