Flywheel instead of battery storage?
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Interestingly, the biggest practical problem is not the required low temperature (which is admittedly annoying). It is that it is hard to maintain superconductivity in the presence of a strong magnetic field, and a wire carrying high current can be counted on to produce a magnetic field.SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.Comment
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Interestingly, the biggest practical problem is not the required low temperature (which is admittedly annoying). It is that it is hard to maintain superconductivity in the presence of a strong magnetic field, and a wire carrying high current can be counted on to produce a magnetic field.
As with the Flywheel technology. There are a lot of barriers in place to make it physically as well as economically to work.
I am still hoping for the "black hole" technology for an energy source.Comment
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An exciting prospect it this technology ever makes it mainstream is going to bed at night, sleeping with that comforting knowledge that there's a two-ton flywheel spinning at thousands of miles per hour underneath your bed hehehehehe...Comment
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And it vibrates you to sleep, too.Comment
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Ceo
Being an engineer in my day job I have learnt over and over again that the simplest solutions are always the best.
By their very nature batteries are complex, hence their need to be mollycoddled so much. Nothing can be simpler than accellerating mass to store energy. The problem as always is that we humans haven't figured out how to do it "simply and effectively" yet.
"Two brains are better than one", and therefore 10's to 100's or even upwards of 1000 should be far better. The more people we get thinking about it the more likely it is that some genuis somewhere will give it enough thought to have that eurika moment to make it work.
I don't claim to have found any secret or disruptive technology, but I do hope to stimulate a discussion that may in turn stimulate some of the brighter minds on this planet - some of the minds possesed by the likes who invented the lightbulb, the internet, photovoltaics etc. Then maybe one day hairy-arsed engineers like me would no longer have to suffer the endless frustrations associated with batteries...Comment
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?? Almost every MRI magnet in the country is made of superconducting wire. There are thousands of them, and operate at field strengths up to 7 tesla. Did you mean 'changing magnetic field?'Comment
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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Comment
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Of course I knew I'd see guys on this thread that claim to have done it already. These are the same people that claim to have come up with lithium batteries that have comparable energy densities to gasoline. Yes I know very well it's theoretically possible and maybe even working in a laboratory somewhere. The problem is why aren't they at all the solar installation companies in the the industrial sectors of every city yet? Answer is they aren't tried and tested or economically viable yet. The point of this thread is to get people talking about why they aren't there yet. What are the snags? What's holding progress back? One thing I do know for a fact is it's not low lead acid battery prices - while PV costs and other battery costs have been coming down lead acid is on the way up. If trends continue soon lead acid will no longer be the most cost effective way. A BIG GAP in the market is busy opening up!Comment
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Dave a 10 kWh device weighs 1400lbs.. No maglev bearingsComment
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Hi Dave... The guys at Energy Storage Solutions have been working on the above mentioned issues for years.. Guys at MIT, Texas A&M and the Univ of Toronto were working with us to develop this disruptive flywheel. I think when you drill down, you will see what we have devised. Development of a flywheel takes multi-level brain power..Electric Engineering Mechanical Engineering and many other understandings for it to be successful..Actually, it amazes me! There is nothing better than to prove everybody wrong. If done correctly, flywheels work....Cheers!MSEE, PEComment
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Some low temperature (less than 5 degrees K) superconductors can tolerate a constant or slowly changing field up to 25T or higher. But for rapidly changing fields, the eddy currents in the structure surrounding the superconductor add so much heat that it becomes too difficult to keep the conductor itself cool enough.
And as you go to higher transition temperatures, more practical for long transmission distances using DC, the critical field goes down drastically.
The ideal material with both high critical field and high transition temperature is still a distant goal.
Back when I was at Stanford the grad students contributed a skit to the annual show in which they applied for a grant to build a room cooled to liquid helium temperatures as an alternate way to produce a room temperature superconductor.SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.Comment
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