🚀 go-pugleaf

In <BzF5L0.LzK@cs.uiuc.edu> morrison@cs.uiuc.edu (Vance Morrison) writes:

|You are making two assumptions that may not be justified.  First you assume
|that all energy gets dumped as heat.   It is quite possible that this 
|energy can be dumped into some sort of chemical energy, (heat of fusion,
|vaporization or endothermic reaction).  Granted, I have not given a 
|possible scenerio, I merely point out that conservation of energy is NOT
|a proof of infeasibility.  

My whole point has been that the containment vessel will have to be big
enough to absorb all of that heat without melting or vaporizing.  I guess
getting very hot is not relevant as long as the vessel is suitably
insulated and kept away from the passanger compartment.

|Second, heat by itself is not THAT bad.  I really don't care if the flywheel
|compartment is hot enough to melt steel as long as I survive the crash 
|unburned.  If the crash was bad enough that I don't survive, does it matter
|that much if I get burned too?

This just means that we have to make the flywheel strong enough not to 
fail in any collision that is not likely to kill the passangers outright.

The problem with heat is that it can cause
|explosions if released too quickly.    Preventing explosions IS a goal
|that good engineering has a chance of accomplishing.  Again, I don't offer
|solutions, just pointing out that it is not as hopeless as you make it 
|out to be.

I never said that it would be hopeless, just that the amount of engineering
required to make this thing safe would make it too heavy and or expensive
to be usefull as a power source for a car.

|On the other hand, I could see how solving these problems might be expensive
|and that a better overall solution could be found to the EV problem by
|not using flywheels as the primary storage device.  

Agreed.
-- 
Mob rule doesn't become any prettier, just because the mob start to call itself
a government.
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
Mark.Wilson@AtlantaGA.NCR.com