Slashdot Mirror
Tapping Subway Trains For Energy
An anonymous reader writes "Industrial flywheel manufacturer Vycon Energy believes that they can tap the immense amount of kinetic energy carried by moving subway trains to subsidize city power systems. Not only would this reduce emissions, but it would also help to avoid peak power emergencies. This energy could the be used to start the trains up again — a 10-car subway train in New York's system requires a jolt of three to four megawatts of power for 30 seconds to get up to cruising speed — that's enough energy to power 1,300 average U.S. homes."
...and they want their invention back. It's the same principle behind the battery charging a Prius does when it brakes.
I'm not trying to piss all over this with standard slashdot armchair-technologist elitism; it's wonderful that someone is implementing the "long-standing need" (as it would be called in a patent application) for this obvious but unexploited idea. I'm just pointing out that flywheel gizmos in transportation are a *very* old idea, and there's no need for anyone to get psyched up as if this is a revolutionary invention.