Recovery.Gov Project Tracker

[ladajo]

Tom,
You should put a sign at the bottom of the road that says "Single Speed Bicycles Only". That would be enough to discourage 95% of the population...

[Tom Ligon]

Eventually, they'll come after you for being self reliant, like they did this woman.

http://www.infowars.com/city-cites-inte ... rid-woman/

Boy, would the local government in Grant Co. WV be in trouble if they tried that!

One can see the results of that international building code being applied internationally ... I expect 80% of the world's population, and 95% in some countries, would be evicted.

On the other hand, in Manassas I couldn't get away with it. Solar panels? Heck, we couldn't even get away with solar shingles. Any change in appearance would not get past the HOA Architectural Review Board. I can't change the color of my front door, which is painted primer red. We lost three homes, damaged 7, when a fire started under a deck of the middle home. The heat from the fire ignited the siding of the two adjacent homes, and all three were total losses. I pointed out that siding is available in concrete (Hardie Bord?). The HOA said the new construction could only substitute this for vinyl if it looked identical, and the concrete siding lacked the same bead edge detail. The replacement homes went up with the same flammable siding.

[Tom Ligon]

Tom,
You should put a sign at the bottom of the road that says "Single Speed Bicycles Only". That would be enough to discourage 95% of the population...

I have a confession to make. The bike at the cabin is a 3x7 geared mountain bike. In my defense, I set it in 2:1 gearing and don't shift.

[JoeP]

Flywheels...I love the old school, 19th century aspect of these.

My bet is on supercapacitor arrays though. Solid state, no moving parts like bearings, no chemical breakdown, lasts for millions of change/drain cycles with little loss of capacity. We'll likely see a lot more in this area within the decade as the technology continues to improve and get competitive with lithium ion battery technology.

[ladajo]

Tom,
You should put a sign at the bottom of the road that says "Single Speed Bicycles Only". That would be enough to discourage 95% of the population...

I have a confession to make. The bike at the cabin is a 3x7 geared mountain bike. In my defense, I set it in 2:1 gearing and don't shift.

Okay, I believe you. But if you really wanted to make a statement, you could break off all the unused teeth. Then nobody would doubt you.

[DeltaV]

Flywheels...I love the old school, 19th century aspect of these.

http://www.beaconpower.com/files/FESS_T ... _Sheet.pdf

The fragmentation problem was solved years ago with fiber-composite rotors. Fully-contained "cotton candy" in a worst case. Magnetic bearings and vacuum chambers solved more issues.

[Carl White]

Eventually, they'll come after you for being self reliant, like they did this woman.

http://www.infowars.com/city-cites-inte ... rid-woman/

This is just unacceptable. The woman needs to launch legal action. If she can't afford it, she needs to set up a legal fund people can contribute to. Have to nip this petty tyranny in the bud.

[ladajo]

Flywheels...I love the old school, 19th century aspect of these.

http://www.beaconpower.com/files/FESS_T ... _Sheet.pdf

The fragmentation problem was solved years ago with fiber-composite rotors. Fully-contained "cotton candy" in a worst case. Magnetic bearings and vacuum chambers solved more issues.

As I recall from my buddy, another issue was magnet delamination off the rotor.

In any event, the concrete underground bumker installation point was interesting from the data sheet.

[Skipjack]

I am pretty sure some car companies are considering flywheel for hybrid vehicles (not plugin hybrids, obviously). So I would assume that most problems have been solved.

[ladajo]

I think they are a great way to go. My only concern is when they go bad they really are little tac-nukes. If containment of failure is licked, then let's have at it!

You really have a hard time emergency dumping the energy densities you can achieve with these things mechanically give the form factor for a car installation. Maybe they would do better in trucking to start with. You could even solar panel the top of the rig, and use that as a storage augmentation. On long haul, every x-miles, you could have the system unload the ICE and bleed down power as a bonus fuel saver.

I have thought the same of trains.

Thinking out loud here...

[Skipjack]

I think they are a great way to go. My only concern is when they go bad they really are little tac-nukes. If containment of failure is licked, then let's have at it!

You really have a hard time emergency dumping the energy densities you can achieve with these things mechanically give the form factor for a car installation. Maybe they would do better in trucking to start with. You could even solar panel the top of the rig, and use that as a storage augmentation. On long haul, every x-miles, you could have the system unload the ICE and bleed down power as a bonus fuel saver.

I have thought the same of trains.
Thinking out loud here...

Well, they would be pretty small, for assisting the gasoline engine only, to do running start - stop in stop and go traffic and to recover some of the energy from braking. So you would not be driving very far at all with them. It is more about reducing the amount of fuel used in a gasoline car by temporarily storing otherwise wasted energy.

For stationary installations, I can totally see them being (horizontal) underground, where they cant do much damage.

[JoeP]

The flywheel axis needs to be aligned with the earth's rotational poles for the big underground systems. That way the rotational plane of the flywheel doesn't change continuously as the earth rotates.

For cars, I suppose the flywheel has to be in some kind of gimbal system, otherwise you'll end up with some serious steering problems.

[Skipjack]

For cars, I suppose the flywheel has to be in some kind of gimbal system, otherwise you'll end up with some serious steering problems.

I think they are vertical on cars. You could also have two rotating in opposite directions to cancel each other out.

[ladajo]

Well, they would be pretty small, for assisting the gasoline engine only, to do running start - stop in stop and go traffic and to recover some of the energy from braking. So you would not be driving very far at all with them. It is more about reducing the amount of fuel used in a gasoline car by temporarily storing otherwise wasted energy.

I was thinking beyond the obvious dynamic braking application.

[Northstar]

Flywheel based hybrid power systems are currently in use in endurance racing, ie Le Mans etc.

Link to one supplier, a spin off of the Williams F1 team:

http://www.williamshybridpower.com/appl ... technology