Dale’s Web Log

North Carolina State University physicists have recently deduced a way to improve high-energy-density capacitors so that they can store up to seven times as much energy per unit volume than the common capacitor. High performance capacitors would enable hybrid and electric cars with much greater acceleration, better and faster steering of rockets and spacecraft, better regeneration of electricity when using brakes in electric cars, and improved lasers, among many other electrical applications.

A capacitor is an energy storage device. Electrical energy is stored by a difference in charge between two metal surfaces. Unlike a battery, capacitors are designed to release their energy very quickly. They are used in electric power systems, hybrid cars, and all kinds of electronics.

The amount of energy that a capacitor can store depends on the insulating material in between the metal surfaces, called a dielectric. A polymer called PVDF has interested physicists as a possible high-performance dielectric. It exists in two forms, polarized or unpolarized. In either case, its structure is mostly frozen-in and changes only slightly when a capacitor is charged up. Mixing a second polymer called CTFE with PVDF results in a material with regions that can change their structure, enabling it to store and release unprecedented amounts of energy.

The team, led by Vivek Ranjan, concluded that a more ordered arrangement of the material inside the capacitor could further increase the energy storage of new high-performance capacitors, which already store energy four times more densely than capacitors used in industry. Their predictions of higher energy density capacitors are encouraging, but have yet to be experimentally tested.

Absolutely amazing!!! This is just the third quarter results…not the annual results. With the US population reaching 300 million earlier this month, Exxon’s profit is approximately $35 per US resident - and we know not every resident drives a car or fills up gas tanks the number is probably much higher on a per consumer basis. At todays rates, thats a whole tank of gas for most people. How long is this going to go on. I can’t wait for some disruptive technology to absolutely destroy the oil markets profits and bring prices back down to respectable levels.

DALLAS - Oil industry behemoth Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday its third-quarter earnings rose to $10.49 billion, the second-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company. Its shares rose to a 52-week high.

The report comes as high crude prices this year have fueled record profits in the oil industry, triggering an outcry from consumers who were being asked to pay about $3 a gallon for gasoline in early August.

The largest quarterly profit ever was Exxon Mobil’s $10.71 billion profit in the fourth quarter of 2005.

They may beat that next quarter, said Howard Silverblatt Standard & Poor’s Senior Index Analyst. “Then in all likelihood they will be at that $40 billion mark for the year.”

That would put the company on track for the highest annual profit ever by a U.S. company. Exxon Mobil holds that record with a 2005 profit of $36.1 billion.

Although crude oil prices began to decline toward the end of the third quarter, the average market price for crude held at around $70 a barrel in the period after peaking above $78 per barrel in July. Oil futures prices have recently traded near $61 a barrel, and gasoline prices have dropped to an average of about $2.43 a gallon.

Exxon Mobil, the world’s biggest public oil company said its net income amounted to $1.77 per share for the July-September period, up from $9.92 billion, or $1.58 per share, a year ago.

The results surpassed the expectations of Wall Street analysts. On average, analysts expected the company to earn $1.59 per share in the quarter.

Exxon Mobil shares rose $1.32, or 1.8 percent, to a new 52-week high of $72.33 in morning trading on the
New York Stock Exchange.

Revenue fell to $99.59 billion from $100.72 billion from a year ago, which saw then-record oil prices because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Another major international oil company, Royal Dutch Shell PLC said its third-quarter profit fell 34 percent to $5.94 billion even as revenues rose 10 percent to $84.3 billion. But the Anglo-Dutch company’s operating profit rose as higher oil prices outweighed worsening refining margins.

Earlier this week, ConocoPhillips reported its profit rose 2 percent to $3.88 billion in the third quarter while another major oil company, BP PLC, said its earnings fell 3.6 percent to $6.23 billion.

A fifth major oil company, Chevron Corp., is expected to report its results Friday.

High oil prices helped Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil realize earnings from its oil and gas drilling activities of $6.49 billion, up 13 percent from the prior year. The company also saw stronger earnings from its refining operations and gas stations, and profits at its chemicals segment more than doubled.