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The Mechanical Battery (damninteresting.com)
5 points by nickb on Oct 15, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments



The datacentre where my servers are hosted uses giant flywheels to power the whole building for the 20 seconds until the diesel generators are ready to take the load, in the event of a power outage.

I didn't know why until I read this article - they are more energy-dense than lead acid batteries!


flywheels aren't the only type of mechanical battery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_accumulator

i've often wondered how much power a simple 2-3 stone weight could generate for powering small appliances. kinda like the dynamo powered torches and radios but for permanent installations.




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