JD>  >JD> Modern energy storage flywheels seem to be going towards   
 JD>  >JD> light, high-speed outfits.  
 JD>  
 JD>  > With *mobile* uses, a low speed hi mass flywheel would adversely  
 JD>  > affect accelleration.  
 JD>  
 JD> That, and you can store much more energy in a high-speed  
 JD> wheel, even if it's lightweight, than in a low-speed, heavy  
 JD> flywheel. I've seen the formulas, and it's fairly dramatic. 
But, I do not see how to get a vacuum to put the flywheel in, nor 
a convenient way to construct such a well balanced unit with the 
kind of money and time that most of us homesteaders have. 
 JD>  
 JD> Sort of like the small hydropower outfits you see today. Just a few 
 JD> GPM at  
 JD> high head pressures will generate usable power, whereas low  
 JD> heads require many cubic feet per second of flow to do... 
 In my neck of the Ozarks, such high heads are non-existent unless 
you run a quarter mile of pipe, which freezes in the teeth of a 
Yukon Clipper; the only thing between me and the Alaskan North 
slope is some barb wire fence. 
 I did have 3 meters of fall in a 25 meter run at a dozen liters 
per second... about 3 KW.  And, you are right it is a hassle; I 
lost a 5 meter breast wheel in one of those 'hundred year' floods 
we keep having every few years these days. 
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 * OFFLINE 1.58 * Enough balls to track a daemon & persistence to catch him. 
--- Maximus 3.01
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