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Wouldn't a flywheel big enough to power a car be such a giant gyroscope that it would affect your ability to turn? A flywheel under the hood that has all the en

Wouldn't a flywheel big enough to power a car be such a giant gyroscope that it would affect your ability to turn? A flywheel under the hood that has all the energy needed to move my car hundreds of miles stored as kinetic energy sounds like it would vaporize me in a crash.

swayvil 3y ago
Yes and yes. Those are the technical challenges facing us.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  It seems an impractical solution for a car, and better used as a massive and immobile mechanism where you can trade out a lot of that velocity for mass, and where your housing isn't actively fighting the storage the whole time. I would love for someone to do the math on how much kinetic energy you'd need to store in a wheel that can fit in the engine compartment to allow a 2 ton vehicle to go 200 miles in stop and go traffic. Not all energy storage solutions can work in every problem. We won't be using hydroelectric for cars either.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    To store enough energy in a flywheel would change the way the earth orbits the sun.
  - cman1444 3y ago
    I've wondered in the past if a giant flywheel the size of, say, a building and filled with a heavy material like concrete could store enough energy to make a difference in intra-day grid loads.
    - 1970-01-01 3y ago
      This is already a thing, but its installed into manageable sizes: https://amberkinetics.com/installations/ https://amberkinetics.com/installations/
      - aitchnyu 3y ago
        I was amazed at flywheel UPS 20 years back. Why arent they more popular by now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage#Comparison_to_electric_batteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage#Compar...
timbit42 3y ago
Wouldn't having two flywheels spinning on opposite directions cancel out the gyroscopic effect? There were some flywheel buses in Switzerland that used flywheels. They charged a bit at every bus stop so they had enough energy to make it to the next stop. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus As for affecting the ability to turn, that would only be the case if the flywheel was vertical. If it was horizontal, it wouldn't affect turning at all.
- swayvil 3y ago
  Here's an idea. Vibrator storage. Like a guitar string. You set it vibrating and that's your storage. (Then you find ways to keep the vibrational energy from bleeding off. Vacuum, magnetic bearings...) I'm pretty sure it's a thing. Sortof a linear flywheel.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  > If it was horizontal, it wouldn't affect turning at all. And then it becomes a god damn Beyblade in a crash.

swayvil 3y ago

Yes and yes. Those are the technical challenges facing us.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
It seems an impractical solution for a car, and better used as a massive and immobile mechanism where you can trade out a lot of that velocity for mass, and where your housing isn't actively fighting the storage the whole time. I would love for someone to do the math on how much kinetic energy you'd need to store in a wheel that can fit in the engine compartment to allow a 2 ton vehicle to go 200 miles in stop and go traffic. Not all energy storage solutions can work in every problem. We won't be using hydroelectric for cars either.
- bluGill 3y ago
  To store enough energy in a flywheel would change the way the earth orbits the sun.
- cman1444 3y ago
  I've wondered in the past if a giant flywheel the size of, say, a building and filled with a heavy material like concrete could store enough energy to make a difference in intra-day grid loads.
  - 1970-01-01 3y ago
    This is already a thing, but its installed into manageable sizes: https://amberkinetics.com/installations/ https://amberkinetics.com/installations/
    - aitchnyu 3y ago
      I was amazed at flywheel UPS 20 years back. Why arent they more popular by now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage#Comparison_to_electric_batteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage#Compar...

timbit42 3y ago

Wouldn't having two flywheels spinning on opposite directions cancel out the gyroscopic effect? There were some flywheel buses in Switzerland that used flywheels. They charged a bit at every bus stop so they had enough energy to make it to the next stop. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus As for affecting the ability to turn, that would only be the case if the flywheel was vertical. If it was horizontal, it wouldn't affect turning at all.

swayvil 3y ago
Here's an idea. Vibrator storage. Like a guitar string. You set it vibrating and that's your storage. (Then you find ways to keep the vibrational energy from bleeding off. Vacuum, magnetic bearings...) I'm pretty sure it's a thing. Sortof a linear flywheel.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
> If it was horizontal, it wouldn't affect turning at all. And then it becomes a god damn Beyblade in a crash.