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I love the idea of stationary flywheels too. Vertical is best IMHO because it's easier to share the load between two (plane) bearings instead of one and they are super-simple compared to the vacuum bottle type. Just make sure your rim speed never exceeds 60 MPH. See this interesting old-time site: http://www.rustyiron.com/engines/flywheel/ . Ferdinand Porsche used a flywheel system (spun by hand) when he was a teenager to power lights in his home. He was also a pioneer in producing a “mixed” system for powering vehicles. Today we call them hybrids. How long would you expect this energy to be stored? How would you make use of it?
Regards, Emil
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Evening, all -
Jerry wrote - I really like the idea of flywheels as opposed to batteries for wind/solar storage, I'm suprised no one has mentioned them yet.
Flywheels are another painfully efficient old technology, still in use today in your typical piston engine for load leveling. It's just that the load leveling happens over fractions of a second rather than over hours or days.
Chrysler tried a flywheel car - it almost worked. I expect it was another intentional failure.
Anyway - flywheels to store angular momentum are the way to go, just like using solar for heat is a more efficient path than PV. Flywheels had a problem in cars because cars may tilt (uphill, downhill &c) which causes grief if the bearing system can't comply with the change. A stationary flywheel (likely horizontal) would be a fine way to store horsepower-hours, if you can overcome the friction issues.
Magnetic bearings and a vacuum bottle would be required. Troll about on www.amasci.com for cheap and inventive ways to do things like this. Bill Beatty runs this site and it just plain rocks.
BTW - as of now, unleaded regular is typically $3/gal and diesel as high as $3.50/gal here is eastern Connecticut, USA.
Pax, Tony
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