

Livermore scientist still reinventing the wheel at 94 - tmoretti
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23379066/east-bay-profile-livermore-scientist-still-reinventing-wheel

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perryh2
I worked at Lawrence Livermore as an intern last summer. There were many
people, including Post, that have worked at the lab for their entire lives. It
was normal to sit next to scientists that were well beyond retirement age
during lunch. While a career at the lab may not come with the many luxuries
offered at other opportunities in Silicon Valley, it didn't seem bad either.
People (including myself) were very happy to work there. Post, as well as many
others, were a huge source of inspiration and taught me to do what I am
passionate about in my career.

~~~
hkmurakami
My friend from college has been shuttling between MIT and Lawrence Livermore
for a few years now (he does particle detection for the nuclear fusion
experiments). Having talked to him at length, I'm convinced that while a
career at the lab may not be as flashy as some of the best careers across the
bay, it would be an absolutely wonderful way to live life and contribute to
the world through science.

I'm not nearly smart enough to work there, but boy do I look up to those who
do!

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beambot
_"Energy bills would be essentially zero," he says._ I'm not sure how this
statement is accurate (or relevant). Flywheels do not produce energy, they
store kinetic energy. Other comments...

(1) I seem to recall an automobile developed in the 60s or 70s by another
National Lab that siphoned off stored power from a flywheel (driven by a
smaller motor). IIRC, they had hellish issues with handling since the flywheel
created gyro effects as the car turned. [Sorry, I couldn't find a link to the
project. ]

(2) The failure modes for flywheels aren't pretty. This seems to be the big
detractor from other technologies like the MIT microturbine [1]. You wouldn't
want one of 'em to experience catastrophic failure when attached to the
cellphone in your pants. To get sufficient shielding, you have to
substantially up the weight of the power storage unit, thereby killing your
power-to-weight ratios.

[1] <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/microengines.html>

~~~
contingencies
The Wikipedia article at
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage> claims that, in
comparison to batteries, _flywheels are not as adversely affected by
temperature changes, can operate at a much wider temperature range, and are
not subject to many of the common failures of chemical rechargeable batteries.
They are also less potentially damaging to the environment, being largely made
of inert or benign materials. A flywheel can potentially have an indefinite
working lifespan. Flywheels built as part of James Watt steam engines have
been continuously working for more than two hundred years. Another advantage
of flywheels is that by a simple measurement of the rotation speed it is
possible to know the exact amount of energy stored. Flywheels with Magnetic
bearings and high vacuum can maintain 97% mechanical efficiency, and 85% round
trip efficiency._

Why aren't these in wide deployment yet as local storage for renewable energy
sources? The biggest problems seems to be overall mass, cost, and space
efficiency. None are great concerns for long term energy storage solutions for
off-grid buildings. In short, these things sound fantastic. Anyone know where
to buy one large enough to store power for a small draw, solar sourced home?

This site explains a lot more about the concept, and engineering
considerations behind two functional prototypes:
<http://home.earthlink.net/~fradella/homepage.htm>

Flywheels in vehicles were the subject on an article in the Economist in late
2011: _Road tests have shown that, thanks to modern materials and clever
design, a flywheel as small as a hockey puck can reduce fuel consumption by
more than one-fifth. In electric hybrids only 35% of the kinetic energy lost
during braking is retrievable. With flywheels more than 70% is._
<http://www.economist.com/node/21540386>

And someone just got funded on Kickstarter:
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340066560/velkess-
energ...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340066560/velkess-energy-
storage) .. they claim _Energy storage flywheels have been in use for over 100
years and are some of the highest performing energy storage technologies ever
developed. Traditionally, they have suffered one fatal flaw... they are
extremely expensive! Velkess has invented a way of making energy storage
flywheels at such low cost it will be dramatically less expensive than even
the most economical energy storage technologies available today._ Phys.org
discussion of this effort: [http://phys.org/news/2013-04-velkess-flywheel-
flexible-energ...](http://phys.org/news/2013-04-velkess-flywheel-flexible-
energy-storage.html)

~~~
ars
The biggest problem is they don't store enough energy. Or in other words, they
don't store enough per how much they cost.

The energy capacity goes up linearly by mass, but goes up by the speed
squared. So all the effort has gone toward increasing the speed.

But the trouble is that the force on the flywheel also goes up by the speed
squared. The only materials strong enough are wound carbon fibers - and they
are very very costly.

If you increase the mass instead you need very very large and strong bearings,
and they tend to fail. For high speed, low weight, you barely need any bearing
at all - magnetic bearings are preferred if you can manage it.

~~~
contingencies
Thanks for your summary.

The kickstarter project was targeting 15kWh which should be more than enough
for a low draw residential setting. For a one-off prototype, they asked for
US$50,000 funding.

Let's guestimate that with mass-manufacturing the same product could be built
for US$30k, and that's going to provide a probable rated lifespan of around 20
years with zero maintenance.

Contrast batteries, which might cost 30% of that (random figure taken from a
solar site) but only last 3-6 years. Sure, they are portable, but they are
horrible for the environment and a pain to replace.

I still see a huge market for these.

See also a 1979 presentation from an MIT guy:
<http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1979STIN...8010639M> _Technical and economic
performance analyses indicate that, contrary to general thought, a flywheel
system will be competitive if not superior to more conventional systems
utilizing either present day or advanced batteries. This derives from the
ability of the flywheel to perform the functions of dc-to-ac inversion and
optimal impedance matching between the PV arrays and the load in addition to
providing energy storage._

~~~
ars
> This derives from the ability of the flywheel to perform the functions of
> dc-to-ac inversion and optimal impedance matching between the PV arrays and
> the load in addition to providing energy storage.

We don't need this anymore. This stuff is easy with modern power electronics,
so if this is what makes it competitive, then it's not.

I also suspect the reliability is not there yet for 20 year operation.

And it's not like people haven't tried - I've read about a large number of
companies that have tried, and yet they all seem to vanish.

~~~
jacquesm
Not all of them disappeared:

<http://afstrinity.com/>

It looks like they pivoted to other storage systems and are now finding their
way back to flywheels.

~~~
ars
They are one of the early ones:
[http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/22/business/flywheels-to-
powe...](http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/22/business/flywheels-to-power-
vehicles.html)

But it's been 20 years and no flywheels ever made it to market.

~~~
jacquesm
Actually, they did sell a whole pile of them for ride-through power in
hospitals and other facilities where power availability is critical.

~~~
ars
For land installation right? Not cars?

That's still cool though - are they still in use? Why don't they sell them
now?

~~~
jacquesm
Definitely not for mobile applications. I don't know why they don't sell them
now, probably they got overtaken by developments in UPS technology. Since they
started working on that we've seen 2 battery technology revolutions and a
whole new family of semiconductors. On the plus side there are now usable
passive magnetic bearings based on the Halbach principle and high tensile
carbon compounds to help maintain structural integrity at high velocity.

Flywheels have always intrigued me, the planetary rotation is testimony to how
much energy can be stored in one :) A couple of billion years and it's still
spinning.

A few years ago AFS had a car prototype with a cluster of bottle sized high
speed flywheels in the trunk and under the hood, it was quite a neat package
but very expensive and limited range.

The most practical use of flywheels for transportation was probably the gyro
bus, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus> another concept that just won't
die until someone brings enough garlic, silver and wooden stakes.

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waster
_"Independent of his age, he has ideas coming out of his mind minute-by-
minute," Yamamoto says. "He's so full of energy from all these ideas he has
over the weekend, that every Monday morning he can't wait to call me and talk
to me about them."_

Sounds like a guy I'd like to know. Also loved the quote about him being like
a college student with 60 years of experience.

------
hkmurakami
_Bob Yamamoto, a mechanical engineer and principal investigator on the
project, compares working with Post to being around a college student with 60
years of experience. Post, he says, exudes a level of enthusiasm that's hard
to keep up with._

Wow. What an inspiration.

Reminds me of Dr. Hinohara, a physician and educator who has been contributing
to the medical field since 1941 and remains active in the field today at the
age of 101.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/shigeaki-
hinohara-t...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/shigeaki-hinohara-
the-97y_n_190859.html)

------
jckt
"laptop running a sophisticated math program"

I wonder what that is?

Or is it just Mathematica or something?

~~~
perryh2
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore use a lot of software that I believe is not
available to the public (e.g. scientific simulations). Mesquite is one custom
LLNL software [1]. MATLAB is very common, but I didn't see much (if any) usage
of Mathematica (intern last summer).

[1]
[https://iscr.llnl.gov/annual_report/fy2005/subcontracts/kraf...](https://iscr.llnl.gov/annual_report/fy2005/subcontracts/kraftcheck.html)

~~~
toomuchtodo
If its written by the government, its required to be in the public domain.

~~~
vidarh
If it's written by the federal government, it is not protected by copyright.
But that does not mean it will necessarily be _released_. If you can't get
your hand on it, the lack of copyright protection won't do you any good.

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lucb1e
Offtopic: One day we're going to look back at websites like these and laugh.
There is distracting, moving content to the right and to the bottom. And
technically also to the left since it moves when you scroll. Share buttons to
the left, right, top and bottom. Advertisements for other articles that you
totally should read on the top, right, bottom, and semi-embedded in the
article. The only thing missing is bolded "RELATED" headlines of other
articles embedded in the post, like most other news websites nowadays have.

This is getting out of hand if you ask me. The hitcounters of the nineties
that another HN submission talked about a few days ago were nothing compared
to this.

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kbd
This man has more mental energy at nearly 100 than I do in my 30s. What a gift
he has.

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eric_j_j
I lived down the street from this guy. Sharp as a tack.

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perfunctory
This must be the worst news website in terms of usability

