3 ms·
I wonder if it's practical to store energy in rotating asteroids? For the terrestrial power grid. No friction, no (mechanical) safety hazards, just an expensive
by throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
I wonder if it's practical to store energy in rotating asteroids? For the terrestrial power grid. No friction, no (mechanical) safety hazards, just an expensive transmission problem.
edit: Back-of-the-envelope says it's a very bad idea, which is just barely plausible if your asteroid is extremely large, and has an extremely high tensile strength (maybe iron-nickel?). Oh well.
edit2: Also apparently there's a failure mode where if you do overestimate the strength of the asteroid's interior, it tears apart and (from e.g geosynchronous orbit) has a >5% chance of destroying most of the planet. D: Yeah, where I said "no mechanical safety hazards", I retract that.