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Esborogardius Antoniopolus's avatar

The failure modes of giant fly wheels are always, invariably catastrophic. It will surely provide us with a lot of amazing CCTV footage

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Jeff Chestnut's avatar

This is a true example of mentally ill government grovelers elevated to a position beyond their competency. But the grifters take the big government grants and go broke shortly thereafter. Anyone remember solyndra? But the public is supposed to eat the cost while the grifters and politicians eat out at fancy dining establishments.

Enough with the stupid energy stuff - get back to lowest cost generation - coal, gas, nukes.

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Al Christie's avatar

I love it when actual science, in this case physics, clarifies the reality that there is no such thing as a free lunch, just as there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. I can think of a few other wake-up facts expressed with colloquialisms, like "you can't get blood out of turnip". Archimedes said he could move the world if he had a big enough lever. Maybe we could power our grid with wind and solar if we had a big enough flywheel? No, because it would be so big and heavy that neither wind nor solar could produce enough power to make it spin.

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Ann L. Klieves's avatar

The radial bearings could be 2 weak points in a plan that has a few other potential weak points.The more supposed technology that these climate con folks use, the quicker this will fail.Thank you for this article, Mr.Shepstone.

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Lee's avatar

My bet is that lower bearing will last three weeks.

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Ann L. Klieves's avatar

Even the small ones used in the solar arrays only lasted 3 months and almost no weight!!The solar filed has now been down for 3 years and just sitting there after ruining property and taking tax payer funds.So , Lee, your estimate sounds about right!!Thank you for reply

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Jeff Chestnut's avatar

Can you imagine the maintenance on those things? And the load on the bearings precludes using cheap bearings!!

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Ann L. Klieves's avatar

We did a study about the bearings that change the solar panels direction, following the sun.Or at least that is what they were supposed to be for.In doing the study we found that there are flaws even in those bearings and then found out about similar types, like the ones in this article.They will stop working in a shirt time.Just another of the many failures in this climate con theater.

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