Most Efficient, Low Cost Energy Storage

[PMC]

Someone once commented that if Iceland could export it's steam, it would be the richest nation in Europe.  Volcanic activity is the driving force behind power generation on the island, also assisting with heating water supplies too.  Everyone's a winner, in Iceland at least.

Here in the UK, we are facing high oil/gas prices and stringent Carbon emission targets, which effectively make coal fired power stations a no no.

We have two choices:

1) Push for more energy efficient appliances and home heating, passing the costs on to the consumer with the possibility of government grants.  

2) Find alternative means of power generation, with the inevitable public inquiries, planning inquiries and lobbying of residents.  After all, would you want a nuclear station overlooking your back yard?

The latter method is going to be largely funded by corporations and government, however the costs of energy production will rise in the short to medium term to pay for it all.  The former method has no guarantees of success, plus forecasts show the costs of fossil fuels will rise also.  

Either way, the days of cheap energy are numbered.

[PMC]

Yeah, bloody Tomorrow's World...

Back in 1981, I was convinced that by the year 2000 we'd be able to live on the moon, supersonic air travel would be commonplace as would those funky superconducting monorail trains that would spell the end of "points failure at Shenfield" for good.

It's 2005 and "points failure at Shenfield" is the main reason why my g/f is two hours late home from work, because the sodding monorail only exists on the embarrasingly twee covers of "2000 AD".  Our only supersonic airliner was retired two years ago and NASA is having to dust off forty year old Apollo designs to get back to the moon in time for 2025.  

To cap it all, 1981 fashions are back in vogue. :lol:

[PMC]

Flywheels have already been used in busses and cars.  In 1996 Chrysler entered a car at Le Mans fitted with a carbon flywheel and powered by electricity.  Because the flywheel was made of carbon fibre, it was built to disintegrate at the first sign of an accident, the only evidence of it's existence would have been a heap of cabon dust.

Metal flywheels have to be machined to extraordinary tolerances in order to keep them balanced at high RPM.  If they fail, they tend to go without warning and send metal chunks flying at stupid velocities.  Not great if you're sitting next to one in a racecar.  

[PMC]

Hyperspeed wrote:
I don't understand how you could make a flywheel out of carbon fibre. Surely it would need to be a)heavy to keep momentum & b)magnetic?

A flywheel on minimal mass spins up to speed much faster.  As a mountain biker I can say that you notice reduced rolling mass very quickly when swapping between lighter / heavier tyres.  A flywheel needn't be magnetic, the energy is stored because the flywheel is moving at very high rpm.  A greater emphasis needs to be placed on balancing the flywheel and having very high quality bearings to maintain momentum without vibration.

Cars of the future should be like Honda's solar powered effort but with a more SUV/4x4 structure to appeal to the US market.

The efficiency of solar panels is very poor indeed.  Honda's solar cars were built for a race across Australia (where solar energy is very strong) but have a very small power output - we're talking tenths of horsepower here for a car with approx 75 square feet of solar panels.

I've heard of some concept where a vehicle's kinetic energy when braking can be sent into a flywheel, it might even have been built.

Yep, it's already here.  On some hybrid cars the brakign energy is diverted back to the batteries.

[PMC]

One of the most efficient means of converting energy to propulsion is probably sitting in your shed right now...  A bicycle is able to return 90% efficiency.

In the short term, methanol fortified fuel seems to be a partial answer.  Methanl burns cleanler than gasoline and can be produced reasonably easily.  

Just watch our governments tax it to the skies!