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User: Aitchmark

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  1. Flywheel Energy Storage the Core Technology? on What is 'IT'? · · Score: 1

    The scooter design idea has some possibilities, but what would make it special or revolutionary? Perhaps the man has solved the mechanical difficulties associated with flywheel energy storage -- high density flywheels, better vacuum seals, easy to manufacture and reliable magnelev bearings, and so on. It meets the hints: * The Inside article says the "core technology and its implementations" will impact big corporations and be the alternative to dirty, sometimes dangerous, and frustrating technology -- like, say, the internal combustion engine? * It would come in different sizes * People would own more than one * multiple uses, from transportation in many forms (car or scooter) to UPS backup * rebuild cities around it -- you'd need "recharge" stations all over the place * it is primarily a mechanical system, the inventor's forte * Provides the gyroscopic stability for the scooter design the patent searchers have seen * might provoke regulatory problems (an efficient flywheel requires high density: can you say depleted uranium? Even lead is toxic & regulated these nanny-state days.) * The introductory product, such as a scooter, is amusing and captures the imagination, but the energy storage and delivery system itself is the long term money maker as it is adapted for other purposes. Just another $0.02