The Mechanical Battery is Making a Comeback 

The gyro bus looks interesting, please share more.

Further more, Flywheels on engines are for smoother operation and to allow low idle. The more cylinders the less you need a flywheels weight as theres less of a gap in power between cycles.

I am an old guy that remembers tech from earlier years. One example were houses with a tower/tank above their roofs. The water pumped up into the tank is stored energy in a simple form. This example can still seen in a few rural areas. Energy to move water was provided by gravity in the old fashioned residential water tower. Yes, we still do this with water tanks owned by utility companies. The point is energy stored through gravity provided water under pressure, by an individual family to itself, without paying a utility company and was the ordinary.

The flywheel in a car has nothing to do with shifting the transmission. The clutch plate (in a manual transmission) does hook up th the flywheel but all internal combustion engines have a flywheel, even your standard push mower. The flywheel on an internal combustion engine maintains the rotation of the crankshaft using rotational energy from the previous combustion stroke to push out exaust and compress more fuel and air for the next combustion cycle. It operates as short term energy storage and the transmission is in no way dependent on it. Wile the transmission does connect to the flywheel, the designers only make cars this way to reduce materials needed and promote efficiency of the vehicle. Without the care of unneeded weight and increased expenses, you could put the flywheel on the front of an engine and feed power to the transmission directly from the crankshaft. Also, when talking about the Sterling engine nasa put in a Chevy, you showed footage of what looked like a blue dodge truck.

That Sterling generator looks interesting. Would like to know more. Tks.

Throwing a little kinetic energy at you for another great presentation as always.

One of my favorite videos you've done. Energy storage is definitely the biggest area of gain for renewables. Glad to see a breakdown of some of the solutions to be considered.

Ricky: let me know of you'd like us to make a video on... Me: YES

I just bought a kinetic wood splitter. It has an ice engine that spins up two large flywheels and with a rack and pinion system, I split wood faster then the hydraulic alternative and with less than half the gas usage! The flywheel gets spun up (on low idle) between splits and delivers that stored energy with great speed and force! It is amazing what a heavy spinning weight can do for you! It can't do everything but it can do a lot more than it currently does and talk about cheap and simple! Oh my!

I am so glad you are going full time! Loved this as usual!

Absolutely LOVE your videos . Thank you. Keep them coming ...

That "please subscribe" message was so good I actually subscribed

"Hydroelectric power first appeared in Switzerland in 1907" Sorry to correct you there but a guy called Armstrong had one in his house in the UK in 1870. The house is called Cragside.

There is another gravity assisted storage option: heavy trains (like 10000 tons or more) on a very steep track up and down a hill, crawling slowly uphill while consuming electricity and going slowly downhill while generating electricity. This can easily be scaled where hills are available. Here in Switzerland they could be built next to the skilifts, where we have infrastructure already available. They could help store renewable energy like wind and solar and they basically last forever if maintained properly.

Great stuff Ricky, keep them coming. I like your short and fact filled format.

Energy does nothing but work work work work work. This is a fact.

Yes, more about sterling egines, and flywheel storage

This is super interesting stuff. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I never knew! Now I must build a solar flywheel battery bank!

Ricky, compressed air through the use of a “TROMPE”, also one of the oldest forms of “cool and dry” stored energy. May be produced anywhere with falling water. The compressed air may be piped hundreds of miles to underground storage units without degradation. 120 psi may not sound like a lot of potential to produce energy but the large volume potential makes this form zero mechanical storage uniquely viable.

very good, I loved the content you guys are awesome keep it up! a huge hug from Portugal.

Great Information. Would like to know more about Sterling generator!

The old " friction powered" toys used flywheels. Push a toy car to spin the flywheel, and let it go. Years ago, I saw a freon engine that used waste heat from a industrial/institutional boiler to drive it. This was the mid '80s. Aren't some buses powered by big capacitors? They're charged at each stop by overhead induction chargers. They charge quickly, and have a longer life than batteries, but are only good for short trips, which is fine for city buses. Your videos would be great for junior high science classes...

I wish you would have covered gravity batteries such as Gravitricity. Pump energy requires too many geographical factors.

Our state used a large underground salt cavern that was used to store compressed air that generated with wind turbines. That compressed air was then used to run gas turbines in an electric power plant. Since 2/3 of the natural gas used by an electric turbine is used to compress the air, this arrangement was used to reduce fuel usage by 66%. After implementing a pilot project and successfully demonstrating its capabilities, the project was deemed "not Green enough" and abandoned.

Gravity storage is super interesting. I saw an article about a company use old vertical mine shafts to store energy in the form of large weight being hauled up and lowered down the shafts. Would be interested in a video looking at that as well. Thanks!

Thermal Mass storage is an interesting thing too

I 'member a article about someone working on a ceramic flywheel with maglev bearing and in a vacuum to power car, that sounded amazing, about 30 years ago..

A lighter option is using a coil spring (circular spring that can hold many windings of energy), and it can be discharged through a generator when no energy (of a specific form) is present. Point 2: molten salts (used in mirror solar arrays) can run a sterling engine. Point 3: If you combine tidal power (offset with bays and harbors), small scale river and stream power (non-dam), solar arrays (fresnel lenses, or mirror arrays, to heat molten salt), and wind power (smaller scale is more efficient over time), you should have a combination that gives close to 24hrs/day power.

Have a look at The Windup Girl. They use springs!

I know someone who worked on the NASA kinetic battery system. The entire system was canceled last time I talked to them. While technically feasible, although challenging, modern chemical battery storage has just gotten so much cheaper than kinetic systems. This has pushed out any realistic use in the space program as far as I know. I have seen so many "new technologies" or rekindled interest in old ones during my lifetime. The only company I have really seen to make a real difference is Tesla. I believe that their biggest impact is not to the Car Industry, but to the Fossil Fuel Industry. I know that some technologies are not encouraged or discouraged based on their merit, but on entrenched Fossil Fuel and Nuclear interest. So the question always comes back to finding support and proving that a technology is able to be cheaper and better than those it displaces , and is able to be produced in large scale. Wind Power, Solar Power, and now Battery Storage, have all shown their merits, cost, and scalability to be able to change the course of industries and how we live. The others that you mention have yet to be proven. While some may need a champion like Elon Musk to bring them into widespread usage, others just will never be practical based on inherent limitations of the technology.

Compressed air looks good for Ohio. We have dry salt caves. I don't worry so much about efficiency as I do about cost. Cost is the ultimate decider.

There was an article in _POPULAR MECHANICS_ magazine {or a similar publication} about flywheel batteries at least as far back as the 1980s. It might have even been in the 1970s, I am not certain of the date.

Great discussion document Thank you Stuart in Ireland

Ricky the 2Bit, keeps bring back inventions of the past. Many historical inventions that work use this Spinwheel concept action, even the most advance geo-scoptical gyro directional theoridical sightings of disc shape "UFO" have harnest the Spinwheel jive.🛸🛰🎢🎡🎠

Awesome video. Greetings from Brazil.

I look forward to the Stirling engine video along with other uses of heat pumps like closed loop geothermal, hvac, oceanic thermal energy conversion, along with solar assist heat pumps that cool solar panels and warm water/ generate energy, along with the use of different working fluids to achieve a certain use. Great topic.

Similar to pumped hydroelectric storage there are companies designing gravity batteries that use giant weights installed into vertical shafts underground. When the power comes in from solar or wind the weight is pulled up, and when no power is coming in gravity pull the weight down and puts that energy back into the grid. The benefits of this over a pumped hydro system is that they can be installed anywhere a vertical shaft can be dug, and can have the horizontal footprint of garden shed.

Episode on rotary Sterling flywheel huybrid with graphene cryo-coils for MW store/extract in inertial-stabilizing double-gimbal mount, please!

Yes, more information on the Stirling Engine please.

Swiss people would not be impressed by your pronunciation of Oerlikon :) The video, as always, is superb. I am very interested in flywheels - I did not know they are so good at the storage and longevity.

You run a great channel. Thank you.

Thank you!

Awesome episode. If I could make a suggestion, wave and tidal energy would make a great episode. I truly believe wave capture could be as effective as wind and solar.

Another consideration of spinning a large heavy weight spinning at speed is the gyroscopic effect. You can't ignore it. It would effect the handling of any vehicle. Add to that the additional weight of the flywheel it's lubrication and maintenance and initial power requirement, I think it's being sold with somewhat rose coloured glasses...

interesting!! We love your content!!

I remember hearing of a lot of the items you mention in the video, but they’ve fallen to the wayside for any number of reasons. It seems whatever’s being talked about on social media is considered to be the “latest and greatest”, however there are plenty of old technologies that just sit until discovered again… Yes, I’d vote for revisiting some of these older new again technologies.

How about a video on stacked kinetic energy storage? It stacks blocks during the surplus times to use the weight of the blocks to run generators by "unstacking" the blocks... using cranes. I don't know much else about it, but it seems like an intriguing idea and would seem to be more efficient than pumped hydro.

What will still make the biggest change will be nominal improvements in various battery tech. The wind blows, battery storage. The sun shines? Battery storage. No need for tiny hydroelectric which relies on no droughts, and no flywheels necessary. It will be the easiest to perfect and the cheapest for people to buy. Good science history though!

Years ago I saw a video regarding a wind up car. A huge spring is wound up to store the energy and slowly released to travel. Haven't heard of this since so it's probably inefficient. I always thought this is a neat idea for limited traveling. No pollution or motor.

Another great video!

Would love to see more of the swiss (and any other!) gyro bus!

I live in Tucson, Arizona, and I've often thought that along with solar, hot areas like this ought to have Sterling engines to offset our AC bills

GyroBus episode: Yes.

I remember a story about a company here in the netherlands that has machines that require a high power connection at startup but when started their powerneed would drop significantly. Their maximum power grid connection is lower then the power required so they set up a flywheelsystem that can build up momentum and at the time of need generate the excess capacity to start the machine and then generate power untill the momentum is gone and would start up when more power is needed again.

I look forward to the deep dives of the gyro bus and the sterling generator too.

Flywheels are more efficient in stationary applications because of weight. Energy is needed to move the heavy flywheel from a stopped position.

The fly wheel of an engine buffers the impulses from combustion that drive the pistons/con rods via the crankshaft. By this, a continuous exchange of momentum is established between the mass of the flywheel and the masses of the reciprocating pistons/con rods. The result is a smooth rotational input to the transmission. This continuous exchange of momentum explains why no energy is lost from reciprocating the pistons/con rods. The only loss is from the various forms of friction. It has nothing to do with shifting.

This may be off topic, but I think someone might find it interesting. Piston style over unity electric generator. By AMA Motor segment: 1 motor with bar connected to it standing vertically circular disc connected to bar that has magnets embedded in it surrounded in high permeability material to focus magnets outward pushing force in an upwards direction from top of disc. Power Bar segment (Just name I gave it) Hollowed out cylindrical Bar of material horizontally positioned. donut shaped material with openings around its flat edge for magnets surrounded in high permeability material to be embedded. place these all along the cylindrical bar connected to it solidly. except at far ends of bar. At both ends of bar rings of material that can be magnetically repelled in specific locations (magnetically repelled in specific location is in reference to outside of ring area that faces away from center of bar)(Other side of same ring facing in towards center of bar is capable of magnetic repulsion all around) are connected solidly to bar. points of repulsion on these rings is off set from each other on each end of bar. 3 Hollow donut ring structure with connecting bar: Ring structure has all magnetic repulsion on inside of donut shape & and can rap around the main bar so that the bar wont be causing friction on things as it moves back and forth. 1st positioned around far left of bar, 2nd position center of bar & 3rd positioned on far right of bar. Tube structure is constructed in two parts that fit together on top of each other length wise over main structure & has openings for bar to the Ring structure that is connected around the main bar keeping it from causing friction on structure with it's magnetic padding. This tube structure is designed with material that does not block magnetic fields. Perhaps some type of transparent material glass or other. At both ends of the tube structure there is a built in groove that will house a disc, the groove has 4 points, top bottom left and right that has small magnets embedded in it on the inside so that the pushing force from magnets is pushing in towards the edge of disc that goes in this spot. The disc has ring around it that is repelled by magnetic fields so the 4 small magnets will keep it lined up but it will be able to spin without causing friction on structure. The disc has openings on it's flat side that face inside of tube and magnets surrounded in high permeability material are embedded in this disc. The disc has small bar that is connected to it that goes all the way to the other end of Power bar structure through the center of the hollowed out bar and connects to disc on other end. Disc on other end is set up the same but magnets embedded in it are off set in comparison. As first disc spins the magnetic fields will push against specific spot on disc connected directly to bar, pushing bar in other direction, once bar is fully pushed over, further spinning of disc will then align the other sides magnet to push it back. Tube structure also has half moon shaped protrusion on inside and on both halves so when tube is connected they line up to make a full ring shape on inside of tube, these half moon shaped protrusions have at least 1 small round opening on it's side in middle of curve that faces away from center of bar. The opening has a small magnet embedded in it so magnetic force is repelling out sideways away from center of bar. The protruding ring is positioned to line up slightly further in towards center of bar then the ring of magnetically repelled material connected directly to bar. This way when bar moves to right this magnet will act as a stopper keeping bar from going to far & same setup on other side will keep bar from going to far to left. Copper coil setup: copper coils are wound up as if wound around the width of wood board for a distance equal to width of magnetic ring setup on bar. Wound copper coils are then looped around the tube like a donut lined up perpendicular to magnetic fields. Ends of copper coils are connected into separate construct that will allow electrical current to flow somewhere else. Circular construct is built like a stand that goes around the outside of motor segment. Circular construct has flat ring of high permeability (magnetic field shielding) material that has small openings that will allow magnetic fields through specific locations. Top of circular construct has groove to allow the power bar to balance on. Circular construct can also be placed on other end of power bar so it is balanced. The motor segment is positioned so the disc connected to the bar that is connected to the motor is lined up so the disc passes under the power bars disc that is at end of power bar. The high permeability material keeps the magnetic field from the embedded magnets exerting their force upwards from hitting into the disc in the power bar until just the right moment when the impact will cause the disc in power bar to spin which will perpetuate the piston motion in the power bar. More power bars of the same design are built and positioned around the motor segment in a circular fashion all the way around. The bar connected to the motor can be increased in length to desired height and more of the exact same setup is repeated higher and higher up maximizing the over unity potential of the construct to ridiculous proportions. :D Current from the power bars is diverted to power the motor as needed and all other current is diverted to power my game console or the world. :) Interesting variation to this design would be to connect the spinning discs on far ends of power bar to main bar that magnets are connected to so the magnets spin instead of getting pistoned back and forth. So long as moving magnetic fields are perpendicular to copper wires it should work. By AMA

Good old Mechanical engineering, with just a touch of electronic warfare... !

I was only thinking about this the other day. Maybe coastal areas could also make salt water damns for hydro-electric, using renewable to refill its capacity.

Sterling Engine full video

Would love to hear more about the gyro bus. Sound intriguing. 🤔

Sending some momentum to keep the channel going. Cheers.

In space a flywheel arrangement can also replace vernier jets for pitch roll and yaw.

First; Great show. B; Looking forward to the next one III; I appreciate all the hard work. Remarkable.

Could get a lot of energy stored by pumping lake tahoe up to the top of the Rocky Mountains. Many conventional hydro plants could be updated/operated as a pumped storage system. Quebec Hydro comes to mind here.

The trouble with flywheels is that you have to have a large enough structure/mass to make it worth it...which is ok when talking about a battery storage site. Much less so when you are talking about flying it to space...

Pure Quantity Content!!

Flywheel VS Liquid Metal Batteries... GO!

Are you having a Dad Joke contest with Matt? 😂😂

I believe the first hydroelectric plant was on the fox river in Wisconsin in the late 1880s

I know it's probably not economically viable, but whenever I see these things I always think off all the ways that you could combine these- cover wind turbines with solar, and if they are out at sea harvest wave and tidal at the same spot and skim the algae for biofuel... It's like Rube Goldberg energy storage- Make a giant mass for a weight drop generator, but pressurize the shaft first (and use that energy first), then spin the whole mass as a flywheel, and oh, by the way, the mass is also made out of batteries and the walls of the shaft are lined with heat exchangers and any waste heat that gets beyond all that is captured with piezo electric switches... Hmm... I wonder how much energy you could get dropping meteors down a space elevator...

Great set of videos. Cam here from the flywheel bus video. If you don't mind, wanted to ask as to how you get such cinematic, boomy voice ? I've met a lot of deep, baritone voiced people, but very few of them could sound like this when recorded.

I think one of the most powerful and everlasting batteries is the rise and fall of the tides....with a dammed enclosure you can capture the energy of the water both flowing in and flowing out. This is the same a a man made device called a mill pond where a small stream of water is collected in the mill pond and released to drive a water wheel, normally the stream is too small to drive the water wheel but when it's stored it has a huge potential energy due to the weight of the volume of water stored......it's a battery, and like a battery it's capacity is limited by it's volume of storage. You cannot compress water to make more capacity in a smaller space and at the same time you cannot compress air in a smaller space to get more capacity because in the end you end up with liquid air and that is the same as liquid water that can only release the energy by applying more energy in the form of heat to make steam to get the stored energy out.

The Stirling engine has always been just around the corner, but never came. It has reciprocating pistons so cannot be highly efficient. I did read a rotary version was made in some R&D. That would be a great advance. For automotive use it is too big and heavy. Great for a hybrid in a large vehicle like a truck, bus, train or ship. It actually powers submarines. The Stirling is limited to niche applications. But worth a vid on it.

I don't know what became of it, but I remember, maybe sometime in the 90s, there was a company (French, I think) that was looking into air pressure cars and another company was looking to use air pressure for regenerative breaking for larger vehicles (the math didn't work as well for smaller vehicles).

That flywheel bus system was incredibly interesting when I first heard about them (long after they were retired)

Another twist on the compressed air battery is Highview Power's 'CRYOBattery' or liquid air battery being built in Manchester, UK.

Have you done a video on flow batteries?

There are two pump storage systems in Georgia which work well. One is the dam on Lake Oconee and the other is Rocky Mountain near Rome. Both essentially have a man made lakes above and below. RM was discovered when power company engineers in the early 70’s were flying in a helicopter between coal plants after seeing this idea at a conference. Both have reversible pump turbines.

Flywheels are for big/ huge energy storage systems..they cannot respond to instantaneous high energy demands..like in momentary grid failure../ tripping ..and have to be complimented with other energy storage systems...for better yields.

So to move forward we can look backward :-) Hey, whatever it takes! I say we look into it all. Thank you Rick

If I wanted to suspend a concrete block in the air to use as potential energy to power my home for a day, it would have to be suspended more than 32ft in the air if the block of concrete was 9 feet by 40 feet by 50 feet, or roughly the square footage of my house and 9 feet high.

You missed the option of large weights being lifted up to a specific heights and then using gravity to power dynamos. Something that can be implemented cheaply at an individual level, like for a house.

I look at the loads for my solar+storage setup. Heating and cooling, is one of the biggest loads. If this can be offset by underground storage, with heat pump, this would be real gain. It would take the load off the electrical (electronics and lighting). The big problem is cost of drilling. Maybe some of the technology from Musk's Boring company can help with this? (Also, a "smart" hot water heater as a storage device, in coordination with the solar+storage setup?)

Please do more in-depth videos on the most practical, and most Green (non-Chemical) Mechanical Power Storage solutions, and also Botanical/ Biological Power Storage (and Carbon Capture) solutions.

Ever heard of a vacuum enclosed and magnetically levitated magnetic rotor and flywheel? This was once proposed in the late 1970s and then it disappeared.

Yes the Bus and Car more more. Thank you

Could you possibly inform us regarding weighted / mass based energy storage?

Just asking for your opinion on a different concept of my own that is quite basic. The build can at least be of 2 ultra strong permanent magnets, one above another where the top magnet stays stationary on a plastic* container maybe filled with water while the other is inside that container. Between the top magnet and the container needs to be a very narrow gap for which a light sheet of lead* can easily slide between the magnets just enough to cause the bottom magnet to fall as if it were a delicate power switch that the rise and fall will help* generate more electrical power than it would take to move the lead* sheet in and out of that gap in least frictionless way, maybe levitated by other magnets. The water is basic to prevent damaging and even far too much noise. . In summary... it would be as if the permanent magnets can be switch on and off like electro-magnets. . I tend to come up with a whole lot of various ideas that worked out awesomely, but... not often able to test my ideas out.

I recently watched a video from the Royal Institution about "the invisible night sky" the video ended with a picture of the sun taken at night (you read that correctly). Not only was the image extremely interesting, but perhaps it holds the key to using solar power at night🤔

YES to Sterling engines

Back in the late '60s and early '70s, magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics used talk all the time about Stirling engines and flywheel energy storage as... for example... part of suburban houses(!). Mahalo for bringing these ideas back into the modern public consciousness! We have newer technologies... and the impetus of unfavourable climate change... to spur further development.

They should put some flywheel batteries inside the tower of a wind turbine, for some pre-storage before the power grid...

Yes more on the gyro bus please

What would be the best way to commercialize a sterling engine diy kit or flywheel doy kit especially markeketed to off gridders.

there is also the Peltier pump. or, we could use the same "Mr Fusion" that NASA created for the shuttles. nuclear thermos with a sleeve lined by the peltier pump.

Should take those heavy Lithium batteries and build a flywheel out of them. Store mechanical and electrical energy in the same device.

Can you do a video on cars that run on compressed air. This technology has been around since the 1800's. People have been working on these kind of small vehicles in Europe for over a couple of decades. Thank you.

I turned my potential energy into kinetic energy by liking and subscribing