Flywheel UPS

DrZap writes: "Saw this in a trade magazine, a UPS using a flywheel to store kinetic energy instead of batteries. Environment friendly and everything!"

Comments

Re:That makes no sense.

[maggard]

How many companies do you know of that can go digging around to make a huge hole to fit 1000 lbs of metal?

First off 1000 lbs of metal isn't that much, it's equivalent to about 5 sysadmins or 4 coders (values may vary depending on your OS & languages.)

The space required to store a flywheel of this size would be about the same as two parking spots. Seriously. An inner concrete wall, an outer concrete wall and a lot of sand in-between. Figure 15' on a side max, two stories high.

One can find that sort of space in any building. Heck, that fits in the machine-rooms of many office towers alongside the water-pumps and transformer; the only issue would be the static load and inertia problems on upper floors.

Furthermore this is about the same volume many mid-size backup generators take when one figures in clearence, muffler, etc. Lots of new tech-buildings are built with platforms in back for these & there's usually a few decks left empty for expansion.

If one didn't want the flywheel inside the building proper (though it would be quite safe) there's always the dead-corner in a local parking structure. Heck, this could create a whole new market for the bottom of elevator-shafts - tuck the flywheels down there.

Answers...

[mindstrm]

First, regarding the Gyroscope question.
A single flywheel would act as a gyroscope, yes.
Two equally massive flywheels spinning in opposite directions but at the same rate would effectively cancel the effect though. (This has been tried with bicycles to prove that balancing a bike is not actually due to gyroscopic effects).

I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that flywheels, no matter what, will be more efficient the larger they are, given that friction is the only thing that will cause the flywheel to lose energy... and friction is a function of the surface area of the wheel.... wheras the amount of energy stored is based on the mass... and as surface area is a square function, wheras mass is cubic, you end up with diminishing returns as things get smaller.

Same sort of thing as why a flea can jump 50x it's own height (or whatever the number is) but a human can't... as muscle strength is proportional to cross sectional area of the muscle, but mass is proportional to volume....

Also, one issue is the possibility of explosion in any mobile device. The fact that a chemical cell can only discharge so fast can also be viewed as a safety feature when we're talking about consumer devices. A nano-flywheel-cell or something in a phone might have a propensity to explode violently should something disturb it.

Also, regarding some sci-fi.. I *wish* I could remember the author or title.. but I recall reading some sci-fi from the 50's or 60's that dealt partially with using some small-ish black-holes (they called them kerr-newman black holes ,or kernels for short, if it rings a bell). The idea was these things were both spinning at a great velocity, and electrically charged (so they could be magnetically manipulted) so they shielded them, moved them around, and used them as humungous flywheels for storing and retrieving energy.

Where have I seen this before?

[Brento]

Hmmm, a quick search on Google turns up plenty of hits for this stuff - it's not THAT new.

http://www.afstrinity.com/
http://www.activepower.com
http://www.acumentrics.com
http://space-power.grc.nasa.gov/ppo/projects/flywh eel/papers/powertrades-oct98/ - a NASA study from 1998

All with URLs displayed, for you who fear goatse.cx. Somehow, this doesn't look like that new of a technology. (And besides, I thought a REGULAR UPS was heavy!)

Re:Does it also work for FedEX vehicles?

[shaper]

Does it also work for FedEX vehicles? ... So that's how those big brown trucks full of packages get around!

Oh, the horror :-) Sorry if this is off-topic, but the image that just sprang to mind is so compelling ...

Right now I'm seeing scores of marketeers at FedEx and UPS clutching there hearts over that comment. I don't know which group would be more apoplectic, the FedEx guys for misidentifying their mortal enemy (UPS)'s trucks as FedEx delivery vehicles or UPS for hanging FedEx's our-name-is-a-verb on that oh so distinctive brown truck. You just wiped out two different companies' marketing droids with one swift blow!

Give yourself enough time to switch to pedal power

[BierGuzzl]

Woah.. with that nifty thing, rig up a pedal powered system to pick up where the ups stops-- for those Rolling blackouts you just get your employees to move from their desks to their designated stationary bicycle.

Who'da thunk it? -- an employee fitness program and disaster contingency program all in one!

You think this is *heavy*?

[sacremon]

Do folks realize what the UPS's that server farms are like? Try 5000lb. Where I work, we've got ten such UPS's. For media or bandwidth providers, all you really are looking for your UPS's to do is be on line till the diesel generators can in. Our 25 tons of batteries will last us about 15 minutes. That's enough time to get the 4MW of diesel generators going.

The real attraction to these is that they live for a long time. Even if you have power problems, they won't be stressed very much, and in the long run, you save money by not having to keep on buying new batteries when the old ones inevitably die, regardless of use.

The only question I have is...

[President of The US]

...how often do I have to change the hamster?
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