Tapping Subway Trains For Energy 229
An anonymous reader writes "Industrial flywheel manufacturer Vycon Energy believes that they can tap the immense amount of kinetic energy carried by moving subway trains to subsidize city power systems. Not only would this reduce emissions, but it would also help to avoid peak power emergencies. This energy could the be used to start the trains up again — a 10-car subway train in New York's system requires a jolt of three to four megawatts of power for 30 seconds to get up to cruising speed — that's enough energy to power 1,300 average U.S. homes."
Re:Toyota called... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say there's a lot more energy involved in moving subway trains than your typical Prius. Perhaps the trick here is creating a system able to store so much energy efficiently?
We've had airplanes since the Wright brothers in 1903, and jetliners since the early 50s. That doesn't mean that Boeing's 787 is an old idea and not worth talking about. The real advances in engineering are always in the little fiddly bits that screw you over when you first try to scale up.
Energy != work (Score:3, Insightful)
a 10-car subway train in New York's system requires a jolt of three to four megawatts of power for 30 seconds to get up to cruising speed — that's enough energy to power 1,300 average U.S. homes."
For how long?
Sounds like a win-win. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's okay. There are plenty more where those came from. PLENTY more.
Power != Energy (Score:5, Insightful)
The corrected sentence is much less impressive: "— that's enough energy to power 1,300 average U.S. homes for 30 seconds."