🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <72055@cup.portal.com> lordSnooty@cup.portal.com (Andrew - Palfreyman) writes:
>Frank E Perdicaro writes:
>: As an interesting side light, the largest forging ever made is 
>: the largest flywheel ever that stores energy at MIT for the 
>: ALCATORC-MOD fusion reactor.  It takes like 500 hp all night to spin it up, 
>: and 3 seconds to stop when the switch is flipped.  
>: 
>: Yeah, megajoules, many of them.  If there was a quake when the thing
>: was spinning, it would remove a large section of Cambridge.  
>: 
>: Its surface speed is just below the speed of sound, and it weighs like
>: a very large steam locomotive ; and its right next to the FISSION
>: reactor..... they know there is no way to stop it if there is a quake,
>: so its just in a simple flimsy building.
>
>I have a problem with this; if v^2 ~= 1e5 (m/s)^2 and you've pumped in
>about 3MJ, the mass must be about 60Kg for a disc shape. Perhaps the speed
>is not nearly so high - this is hardly a locomotive weight!
>(Hint: use Disc Energy = 0.5m(r*w)^2 and 1hp = 764W).
>

Nobody said 3MJ.

500 HP = 300 KW

300 KW * 28800 seconds [all [the 8 hour] night] = 8640 megajoules.  

Mr. Perdicaro should perhaps have written "Yeah, GIGAjoules, several of them.".

-dk