China has carbon nanotube bundles in the lab that are 20 times stronger than kevlar. They are trying to scale them up for mass production. If they succeed in mass producing tons of this material then what has been impossible become possible engineering. Superstrong materials were the key part of molecular nanotechnology speculation.
Carbon nanotube bundles could replace diamondoid in previous molecular nanotechnology speculation.
The engineering that is possible with higher power densities is changing from Chevy Volt power density to jet engine and nearly jet fuel power density. It is also changing the material to nearly diamond levels of strength to weight ratio.
Space elevators are at the extreme edge of possible engineering even for molecular nanotechnology. Thousands of tons of the superstrong material are needed and the fibers need to be formed into a structure 40,000 miles long.
Tens of kilograms of carbon nanotube bundles could be made into flywheels that provide 40 times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. 10 to 11 kilowatts per kilogram of energy storage makes for space vehicles and airplanes with insane performance.
Superstrong materials would lighten up a spaceplane body and increase the power to weight of the engine and power to weight of the energy storage. This would enable a single stage to orbit spaceplane.
Supersonic vertical takeoff and landing electric planes.
The GE90-115B Brayton turbofan jet engine used on the Boeing 777 has a power to weight ratio of 10.0 kW/kg.
An electric motor made for aviation, Emrax 268 Brushless AC has 10.05 kW/kg.
Super material flywheels would enable full sized electric power passenger planes and even supersonic electric passenger planes.
There was a design of vertical takeoff and vertical passenger electric planes.Elon Musk has talked about creating a supersonic vertical takeoff and vertical landing electric passenger plane.
This would enable airports without runways to be in cities. The design was based upon batteries that had 1000 wh/kg and superconducting engines that had 7-8 kw/kg. The super flywheel would vastly outperform the theoretical batteries in Elon’s design.
Single stage to orbit spaceplanes with chemical rockets would be possible.
Supermaterials and fantastic power to weight would make incredible spaceships
Superstrong materials would enable lightweight but powerful spacecraft. Laser pushed solar sails and other spaceships would have acceleration 100 times better than current systems. Speeds would be far higher as well.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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With those hypothetical energy storage levels, they could probably do it by converting the stored energy into thermal and passing it onto the fuel. Kind of a thermal rocket sans nuclear reactor or external energy source. But I fully expect this to be possible only after a long and protracted development cycle, with several technical miracles yet to be proven to exist.
Why all the focus on space elevators and none on sky-hooks? Instead of building something from the ground extend a cable down and up from geo-synchronous orbit until it reaches the upper limits of the atmosphere. Avoid the issue of planes running into it lightning storms jet stream winds etc. Still need to launch something that can just get into the edge of space grab the sky-hook and then it gets a lift up to the desired orbit.
With those hypothetical energy storage levels they could probably do it by converting the stored energy into thermal and passing it onto the fuel.Kind of a thermal rocket sans nuclear reactor or external energy source.But I fully expect this to be possible only after a long and protracted development cycle with several technical miracles yet to be proven to exist.
Can the fabrication process for these materials be scaled up and reduced in cost such that these materials become cheaper than steel for building construction?
Why all the focus on space elevators and none on sky-hooks? Instead of building something from the ground, extend a cable down and up from geo-synchronous orbit until it reaches the upper limits of the atmosphere. Avoid the issue of planes running into it, lightning storms, jet stream winds, etc. Still need to launch something that can just get into the edge of space, grab the sky-hook and then it gets a lift up to the desired orbit.
I see from the earlier posting that these materials are made by a CVD process. Is this an atmospheric pressure thermal CVD process or is this a high vacuum plasma CVD process. I have experience with the latter. it is a good process for semiconductor device fabrication. However plasma CVD process is way too slow and way too expensive for making large quantities of structural materials.
Can the fabrication process for these materials be scaled up and reduced in cost such that these materials become cheaper than steel for building construction?
Great challenges in solar energy are storage and distribution losses. Cover 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of your Utah with solar cells and you may power state of California (guess not scientific; someone else figure out path please if it matters). But how to move the power? Imagine a railroad cars with flywheels or a ship. It goes to Portland or Seattle after a disaster and is able to help. Didn’t see how long the flywheel spins or discharge rate.Such materials could build very sturdy cars and truck too. Imagine a strong car refueled in 5 minutes that could go 500miles at 100mph and drives itself.Maybe build cyclone proof buildings for Manilla Philippines and other places. This is good for 1{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} or 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} rich who want VTOL SSTs and bleeding edge science ideas. It is good also for us Pareto distribution 80{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}+ not so rich.
Its OK, being off by a factor of 10 and CATCHING IT. Good job. The actual solution to the Storage Problem is to use all available means, whatever they turn out to be. For instance, fairly obviously one can use “lifted mass” storage, provided one is willing to lift a LOT of mass a reasonably HIGH distance up. This would be “gravitational storage”. Doesn’t matter whether you’re lifting rocks or water. Near the West Coast of America, there are enough mountains conveniently placed that filling large coastal salt-water reservoirs with ocean water is a darn convenient gravitational storage method. It does however take a LOT of water to store a lot of power. Raising water only 200 meters (about the height of many inland reservoir prospects) has a distance of 200, and a force of 9.8 N/L of water. 9.8 × 200 → 2,000 (more or less) joules per liter of water. Moreover, a kilowatt hour is 3.6×10⁶ joules, so ⇒ 3,600,000 J/kWh ÷ 2,000 J/kg = 1,800 kg/kWh Or about 2 tons of sea water per single kilowatt hour of stored energy. This is not an impressive result. 2 cubic meters per kilowatt hour. It also is assuming near–100%-perfect energy-investment-and-return. Which would be closer to 80% overall, in practice. ________________________________________ BUT, I’d argue, there’s a LOT of water in the oceans, and a lot of potential near-fallow land suitable for said reservoirs. We might need to store what, 100 gigawatt hours of energy in California alone to weather through the vagarities of weather, but I learned that California in 2017 used 245,000 GWh of electricity as a state. One DAY’s worth is 667 GWh. So… no… more like maybe what, 4 weeks worth or 20,000 GWh? 20,000 GWh × 1,000 MWh/GWh × 1,000 kWh/MWh × 2 m³/kWh → 40,000,000,000 cubic meters That is a LOT of sea water. I wonder how much that is in acre-feet. 30,000,000 acre-feet. Wow. That’s a lot. And that’s a month of reserve storage in California. ________________________________________ Th
How delightful, calculus is. (I suppose one could just google for the facts I found, but what’s the fun in that? Anyway, I learned that a material with a ρ (density) of 1.5 kg/L (i.e. about that of composite CWNT) if in ‘rod’ form, has a performance of about 8,100 MPa/kWh. Makes no difference the diameter, or the length of a particular fiber, when a balanced fiber is spun around its midpoint, the “performance” of the material is about 8,100 megapascals per kilowatt hour of kinetic rotational energy. So, if the maximum working tensile strength of something like Kevlar is about 2,000 MPa, then one quite easily can reverse that and say: 2,000 ÷ 8,100 → 0.25 kWh per kilogram of Kevlar. Now this article is claiming that the long-nanotube bulk Chinese material is “20× stronger” than Kevlar, or a working strength of 40,000 MPa. Easy enough, it ought to then store 20× the kinetic energy per kilogram as a performance metric. 40,000 ÷ 8,100 → 5 kWh/kg. While that’s not exactly 10.6 kWh/kg (per some of the summary calculations of the referenced article), that’s OK. Its within shooting distance. Maybe “breaking strength” versus “working strength?” Sure. More importantly, are the Glib Gotchas. The first Glib Gotcha is that, well, a real, working kinetic energy flywheel would have to have… an enclosure, bearings, magnetic hoo-ha to invest and return energy to the flywheel. It’d need a safety shroud, gimbals (think of the inertial moment! of gyroscope effect) and metrology to figure out how it is working. More mass, that. Then there is “when it accidentally blows apart like a BOMB”, the maker has to balance the mass (and contained energy) of the flywheel with the enclosure’s ability to handle that energy, all turned … inevitably… into shock forces and HEAT. For instance, if 100 kg of CWNT stuff is the storage medium, at 5 kWh/kg, it’d hold about 500 kWh of kinetic energy. Blowing itself to bits because of some structural problem results in 500 kWh ×
So if it raining in Utah, the US shuts down?
Ooops. off by a power of ten. It takes nearly 100,000 sq. km to power the U.S., so 1/2 of Utah. This is also the surface area of all of our roads, so if we could build roads out of solar panels, we wouldn’t need to take up any additional space.
Looking it up, a site that did the math for me said that 10,000 sq. km. of solar panels would be needed to power the US. (This was with 2005 technology and electric usage, using 70% sunny days, and other assumptions). Utah is 220,000 sq. km, so 1/20th (5%) of Utah would actually power the whole US. If it matters.
Not currently. I imagine the nanotubes would have to be made a specific length without defects, and that’s been problematic as well. So first it has to be possible, then it has to economically feasible. We’ve got a while to wait on both issues.
This, not that this will also benefit traditional rockets just as much for the lightweight materials as in adamantite. Add some unobtanium as in room temperature superconductors, you only need an high energy electrical storage better than hydrolox. A bit easier than an warp drive, harder than stuff like radical life extension. And it would have way higher impact on overall industry and transport than an shift from BFR or Skylon to it in space. In short an secondary effect.
I see from the earlier posting that these materials are made by a CVD process. Is this an atmospheric pressure thermal CVD process, or is this a high vacuum plasma CVD process. I have experience with the latter. it is a good process for semiconductor device fabrication. However, plasma CVD process is way too slow and way too expensive for making large quantities of structural materials.
Great challenges in solar energy are storage and distribution losses. Cover 20% of your Utah with solar cells and you may power state of California (guess, not scientific; someone else figure out path please if it matters). But how to move the power? Imagine a railroad cars with flywheels, or a ship. It goes to Portland or Seattle after a disaster and is able to help. Didn’t see how long the flywheel spins or discharge rate. Such materials could build very sturdy cars and truck, too. Imagine a strong car refueled in 5 minutes that could go 500miles at 100mph and drives itself. Maybe build cyclone proof buildings for Manilla Philippines and other places. This is good for 1% or 20% rich who want VTOL SSTs and bleeding edge science ideas. It is good also for us Pareto distribution 80%+ not so rich.
Its OK being off by a factor of 10 and CATCHING IT. Good job. The actual solution to the Storage Problem is to use all available means whatever they turn out to be. For instance fairly obviously one can use lifted mass”” storage”” provided one is willing to lift a LOT of mass a reasonably HIGH distance up. This would be “gravitational storage”. Doesn’t matter whether you’re lifting rocks or water. Near the West Coast of America there are enough mountains conveniently placed that filling large coastal salt-water reservoirs with ocean water is a darn convenient gravitational storage method. It does however take a LOT of water to store a lot of power. Raising water only 200 meters (about the height of many inland reservoir prospects) has a distance of 200 and a force of 9.8 N/L of water. 9.8 × 200 → 2000 (more or less) joules per liter of water. Moreover a kilowatt hour is 3.6×10⁶ joules so⇒ 3600000 J/kWh ÷ 2000 J/kg = 1800 kg/kWhOr about 2 tons of sea water per single kilowatt hour of stored energy. This is not an impressive result. 2 cubic meters per kilowatt hour. It also is assuming near–100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}-perfect energy-investment-and-return. Which would be closer to 80{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} overall in practice. ________________________________________BUT I’d argue there’s a LOT of water in the oceans and a lot of potential near-fallow land suitable for said reservoirs. We might need to store what 100 gigawatt hours of energy in California alone to weather through the vagarities of weather but I learned that California in 2017 used 245000 GWh of electricity as a state. One DAY’s worth is 667 GWh. So… no… more like maybe what 4 weeks worth or 20000 GWh?20000 GWh × 1000 MWh/GWh × 1000 kWh/MWh × 2 m³/kWh → 4000000 cubic metersThat is a LOT of sea water. I wonder how much that is in acre-feet. 300″”000 acre-feet.”
How delightful calculus is. (I suppose one could just google for the facts I found but what’s the fun in that? Anyway I learned that a material with a ρ (density) of 1.5 kg/L (i.e. about that of composite CWNT) if in ‘rod’ form has a performance of about 8100 MPa/kWh. Makes no difference the diameter or the length of a particular fiber when a balanced fiber is spun around its midpoint the “performance” of the material is about 8100 megapascals per kilowatt hour of kinetic rotational energy. So if the maximum working tensile strength of something like Kevlar is about 2000 MPa then one quite easily can reverse that and say: 2000 ÷ 8100 → 0.25 kWh per kilogram of Kevlar. Now this article is claiming that the long-nanotube bulk Chinese material is “20× stronger” than Kevlar or a working strength of 40000 MPa. Easy enough it ought to then store 20× the kinetic energy per kilogram as a performance metric. 40000 ÷ 8100 → 5 kWh/kg. While that’s not exactly 10.6 kWh/kg (per some of the summary calculations of the referenced article) that’s OK. Its within shooting distance. Maybe “breaking strength” versus “working strength?” Sure.More importantly are the Glib Gotchas. The first Glib Gotcha is that well a real working kinetic energy flywheel would have to have… an enclosure bearings magnetic hoo-ha to invest and return energy to the flywheel. It’d need a safety shroud gimbals (think of the inertial moment! of gyroscope effect) and metrology to figure out how it is working. More mass that. Then there is “when it accidentally blows apart like a BOMB” the maker has to balance the mass (and contained energy) of the flywheel with the enclosure’s ability to handle that energy all turned … inevitably… into shock forces and HEAT.For instance if 100 kg of CWNT stuff is the storage medium at 5 kWh/kg it’d hold about 500 kWh of kinetic energy. Blowing itself to bits because of some structural problem results in 500 kWh × 3.6×10
So if it raining in Utah the US shuts down?
Ooops. off by a power of ten. It takes nearly 100000 sq. km to power the U.S. so 1/2 of Utah.This is also the surface area of all of our roads so if we could build roads out of solar panels we wouldn’t need to take up any additional space.
Looking it up a site that did the math for me said that 10000 sq. km. of solar panels would be needed to power the US. (This was with 2005 technology and electric usage using 70{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} sunny days and other assumptions).Utah is 220000 sq. km so 1/20th (5{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}) of Utah would actually power the whole US.If it matters.
Not currently. I imagine the nanotubes would have to be made a specific length without defects and that’s been problematic as well. So first it has to be possible then it has to economically feasible. We’ve got a while to wait on both issues.
This not that this will also benefit traditional rockets just as much for the lightweight materials as in adamantite. Add some unobtanium as in room temperature superconductors you only need an high energy electrical storage better than hydrolox. A bit easier than an warp drive harder than stuff like radical life extension. And it would have way higher impact on overall industry and transport than an shift from BFR or Skylon to it in space. In short an secondary effect.
Uh, yeah, cuz we’re going to put all our eggs in one basket, besides, Utah won’t mind. That was sarcasm BTW. Geez, get real, that was just a hypothetical to get an idea of the scale involved. Plus, we’re not going to get rid of existing hydroelectric, wind (for sure), geothermal, and solar in other locations. What makes sense in one area may not make sense in another. And by the time we get that far, tide and wave converters might be practical.
Uh yeah cuz we’re going to put all our eggs in one basket besides Utah won’t mind.That was sarcasm BTW. Geez get real that was just a hypothetical to get an idea of the scale involved. Plus we’re not going to get rid of existing hydroelectric wind (for sure) geothermal and solar in other locations. What makes sense in one area may not make sense in another. And by the time we get that far tide and wave converters might be practical.
I just took the energy usage from the website, didn’t double-check that number, so thanks for that. I agree, heating by electrical is not the optimum method. Natural gas is a good choice in northern climes. Hydrothermal makes it more efficient. Really wish there was a way to edit these comments.
That is a lot of water. But why would you need a full month’s reserve? Obviously you would put your solar plants in various places, generally sunny places. No one place would be expected to have bad weather for more than a few days, and with a decent electrical infrastructure, you could ship electricity from sunny places to others. Perhaps keep a few days supply in each region for a really big weather system.
I just took the energy usage from the website didn’t double-check that number so thanks for that. I agree heating by electrical is not the optimum method. Natural gas is a good choice in northern climes. Hydrothermal makes it more efficient.Really wish there was a way to edit these comments.
That is a lot of water. But why would you need a full month’s reserve? Obviously you would put your solar plants in various places generally sunny places. No one place would be expected to have bad weather for more than a few days and with a decent electrical infrastructure you could ship electricity from sunny places to others. Perhaps keep a few days supply in each region for a really big weather system.
Super flywheel are not suitable for moving applications. The angular momentum conservation law will make almost ungovernable the plane (or car).
Super flywheel are not suitable for moving applications. The angular momentum conservation law will make almost ungovernable the plane (or car).
In terms of scaling, aerospace is an easier target than overall industry. Higher price point and lower production volume. So while you’re right in the long term, aerospace applications may appear sooner than wider industry applications.
In terms of scaling aerospace is an easier target than overall industry. Higher price point and lower production volume. So while you’re right in the long term aerospace applications may appear sooner than wider industry applications.
Oh, you have plenty of your own there. Glib gotchas. Among other things, you no more armor or try to contain a failure of a flywheel for a space lift application than you do armor the whole engine and fuel tank of a current booster–you just don’t, and accept loss of mission with catastrophic failure. The overall plan of a flywheel powered SSTO is a non-starter at first — you just get too much benefit out of TSTO, and in any case even if more perfect materials where the bulk strength was very close to theoretic maximum, the approach to that margin means you first pass through a region where TSTO is acceptable but that SSTO has too small a payload fraction. You make the lightest aeroshell you can to withstand re-entry condition for each stage, and if desired the strength to survive the failure of a flywheel. It contains largely water reaction mass and enough LN2 for cooling the critical bits, the flywheels, and engines, avionics, etc. One good thing about the flywheel vs TNT, it’s energy will be released in a plane normal to the axis, and most designs I have seen will disintegrate into high energy fluff, arrange that to dump into the inert fuel mass and have the tanks apportioned so the tank volume adjacent to a flywheel empties last and only after it has stopped, dorsal blow out panels in the tankage, given the strength to weight ratios that are being talked about, a failure may even be survivable for the vehicle… To presume this either can not or will not be done is your usual pathological skepticism.
gimbals, dude, gimbals…
Pair them with opposite rotation. Also, google cubli.
Oh you have plenty of your own there. Glib gotchas.Among other things you no more armor or try to contain a failure of a flywheel for a space lift application than you do armor the whole engine and fuel tank of a current booster–you just don’t and accept loss of mission with catastrophic failure.The overall plan of a flywheel powered SSTO is a non-starter at first — you just get too much benefit out of TSTO and in any case even if more perfect materials where the bulk strength was very close to theoretic maximum the approach to that margin means you first pass through a region where TSTO is acceptable but that SSTO has too small a payload fraction.You make the lightest aeroshell you can to withstand re-entry condition for each stage and if desired the strength to survive the failure of a flywheel. It contains largely water reaction mass and enough LN2 for cooling the critical bits the flywheels and engines avionics etc.One good thing about the flywheel vs TNT it’s energy will be released in a plane normal to the axis and most designs I have seen will disintegrate into high energy fluff arrange that to dump into the inert fuel mass and have the tanks apportioned so the tank volume adjacent to a flywheel empties last and only after it has stopped dorsal blow out panels in the tankage given the strength to weight ratios that are being talked about a failure may even be survivable for the vehicle…To presume this either can not or will not be done is your usual pathological skepticism.
gimbals dude gimbals…
Pair them with opposite rotation. Also google cubli.
With a good osmotic filtration membrane, you could produce power by dropping salt to the bottom of the ocean, and have fresh water as a byproduct. I think we’re actually close to having those membranes.
With a good osmotic filtration membrane you could produce power by dropping salt to the bottom of the ocean and have fresh water as a byproduct. I think we’re actually close to having those membranes.
Thanks for tip on the Pakistani astronauts. I will get the article up late today or tomorrow
Did you know that flywheels have already been used for formula 1 vehicles and LeMans racers? Actual vehicles racing around tracks, not powerpoint slides.
They ended up going with batteries, but clearly they can be made to work and a serious improvement in flywheels vs batteries would shift the calculations back.
Or rotovators so it can be a tiny fraction of the size required to reach geosynchronous.
Granted, diamondoid nanotech can include non-diamondoid devices such as CNT-based gears etc. Indeed, Merkle et al’s hydrogen abstraction tool relies on a polyyne. But such devices aren’t themselves diamondoid.
The official chemical definition is:
“Noun. diamondoid (plural diamondoids) (organic chemistry) Any of several polycyclic hydrocarbons whose cagelike structure resembles part of the diamond crystal lattice.”
Freitas’ and Merkle’s minimal mechanosynthesis toolkit, which includes the hydrogen abstraction tool, is designed to be self-sufficient, so theoretically it should be able to synthesize polyyne structures. Maybe it can make graphene and CNTs too, or it may need to be adjusted. But its design and that of other nano-devices analyzed so far rely heavily on the assumption that the primary structure is that of diamond, not graphene or CNT. If the primary structure is the latter, many of these devices may need to be redesigned. The software tools will need to be different too.
> “carbon nanotubes are included in the term diamondoid”
Where did you get that from? My understanding of diamondoid, is having a diamon-like structure. CNTs, graphene, etc, have a completely different structure. Therefore, both their synthesis and any nano-devices made from them would have to be designed completely differently. It may as well be a whole separate (though related) technology.
With a good osmotic filtration membrane, you could produce power by dropping salt to the bottom of the ocean, and have fresh water as a byproduct. I think we’re actually close to having those membranes.
With a good osmotic filtration membrane you could produce power by dropping salt to the bottom of the ocean and have fresh water as a byproduct. I think we’re actually close to having those membranes.
Oh, you have plenty of your own there. Glib gotchas. Among other things, you no more armor or try to contain a failure of a flywheel for a space lift application than you do armor the whole engine and fuel tank of a current booster–you just don’t, and accept loss of mission with catastrophic failure. The overall plan of a flywheel powered SSTO is a non-starter at first — you just get too much benefit out of TSTO, and in any case even if more perfect materials where the bulk strength was very close to theoretic maximum, the approach to that margin means you first pass through a region where TSTO is acceptable but that SSTO has too small a payload fraction. You make the lightest aeroshell you can to withstand re-entry condition for each stage, and if desired the strength to survive the failure of a flywheel. It contains largely water reaction mass and enough LN2 for cooling the critical bits, the flywheels, and engines, avionics, etc. One good thing about the flywheel vs TNT, it’s energy will be released in a plane normal to the axis, and most designs I have seen will disintegrate into high energy fluff, arrange that to dump into the inert fuel mass and have the tanks apportioned so the tank volume adjacent to a flywheel empties last and only after it has stopped, dorsal blow out panels in the tankage, given the strength to weight ratios that are being talked about, a failure may even be survivable for the vehicle… To presume this either can not or will not be done is your usual pathological skepticism.
Oh you have plenty of your own there. Glib gotchas.Among other things you no more armor or try to contain a failure of a flywheel for a space lift application than you do armor the whole engine and fuel tank of a current booster–you just don’t and accept loss of mission with catastrophic failure.The overall plan of a flywheel powered SSTO is a non-starter at first — you just get too much benefit out of TSTO and in any case even if more perfect materials where the bulk strength was very close to theoretic maximum the approach to that margin means you first pass through a region where TSTO is acceptable but that SSTO has too small a payload fraction.You make the lightest aeroshell you can to withstand re-entry condition for each stage and if desired the strength to survive the failure of a flywheel. It contains largely water reaction mass and enough LN2 for cooling the critical bits the flywheels and engines avionics etc.One good thing about the flywheel vs TNT it’s energy will be released in a plane normal to the axis and most designs I have seen will disintegrate into high energy fluff arrange that to dump into the inert fuel mass and have the tanks apportioned so the tank volume adjacent to a flywheel empties last and only after it has stopped dorsal blow out panels in the tankage given the strength to weight ratios that are being talked about a failure may even be survivable for the vehicle…To presume this either can not or will not be done is your usual pathological skepticism.
gimbals, dude, gimbals…
gimbals dude gimbals…
Pair them with opposite rotation. Also, google cubli.
Pair them with opposite rotation. Also google cubli.
In terms of scaling, aerospace is an easier target than overall industry. Higher price point and lower production volume. So while you’re right in the long term, aerospace applications may appear sooner than wider industry applications.
In terms of scaling aerospace is an easier target than overall industry. Higher price point and lower production volume. So while you’re right in the long term aerospace applications may appear sooner than wider industry applications.
In this case, this was more than just mimicry – it looks like naked theft/espionage.
I like your articles but I want to make one correction: You said carbon nanotubes replace diamondoid for nanotechnology estimations. Actually, carbon nanotubes are included in the term diamondoid. Diamondoid includes all hard, strong, durable carbon based materials made with covalent carbon bonds, which includes but is not limited to: Graphene, Carbon Nanotubes and all Fullerenes and Fullerene Derived materials, Diamond both natural and synthetic, carbyne, cumulene, and other forms of covalent carbon both ring, rod, and straight chain form, graphite crystals, aggregated diamondoid nano rods, all forms of diamond based materials, and, the term can even be expanded to include NON-CARBON covalent materials with a basic tetrahedral diamond structure, such as silicon oxide quartz and other forms of silicate based covalent crystals, and diamond like materials made with nitrogen and other materials.
That’s because they are carbon copies. All China really knows how to do is copy the innovation of others.
I think two counter rotating flywheels will cancel out the gyroscopic effects.
Super flywheel are not suitable for moving applications. The angular momentum conservation law will make almost ungovernable the plane (or car).
Super flywheel are not suitable for moving applications. The angular momentum conservation law will make almost ungovernable the plane (or car).
Continuing in this line, assuming REALLY good electrical-to-thermal conversion of a liquid to a high temperature expanding gas, using liquid argon for its cheapness, compactness and so on, wanting say an ISP of 500 ( × 9.81 = 4,900 m/s out-the-exhaust speed), each kg of exhaust has ½mv² → ½(1 × 4900²) → 12 MJ of kinetic energy. It also has a specific heat of 0.5 kJ/kg-K, and our plasma needs to be over 4,000° K heated. So I’ve heard. So, that becomes 2 MJ/kg for plasma heating.
14 MJ/kg. Our thruster’s flywheels deliver 14.4 MJ/kg. So… that means that each kg of argon requires a kilogram of flywheel more or less.
The thrust of each kilogram is 4900 newton-seconds. So, the thrust of (1 ⊕ 1 = 2) kg of argon and flywheel becomes 4900 ÷ 2 → 2450 newton-seconds per overall kilogram.
You really would want to eject the dead flywheel cores, continuously. Its a terrible ratio.
Supposing that you have a pretty sizeable (as in the size of the illustration) electric-gas powered 3rd stage (are we agreed?) that weighs in at oh, 25,000 kg, and is 70% reaction-mass-plus-flywheels (≡ 17,500 kg at a ratio of 0.97 flywheel-to-reaction mass), well let’s see.
Using Tsiolkovsky’s Rocket Equation, and NOT ejecting the flywheels (i.e. using them in parallel for maximum thrust), our rocket weighs 25,000 kg to start, and 16,136 at end. It has used up 8,864 kg of reaction mass, and accelerated it at 100% efficiency to 4900 m/s (ISP = 500). The ΔV is 2,150 m/s.
Using the SAME mass — 17,500 kg or 70% of 25,000, but as one of 3 binary fuel options (CH₄ + O₂, H₂ + O₂, Kerolox + O₂), with their posted ISP’s of 350, 450 and 320 respectively, And using them up, the ΔV at end-of-burn is respectively 4,130, 5,300 and 3,850 m/s.
See what I mean?
The flywheel-in-parallel thing while it does well for concentrating thrust and power, it leaves so much dead weight around that it isn’t competitive. Even at 6 kWh/kg of the flywheel nanotube stuff.
Just saying,
GoatGuy
PS: you’re right about space flight and shielding of flywheels. Thing is, even if you take into account the fact that conventional space fuels like (2 H₂ + O₂) or (CH₄ + O₂) are “lookup on Google” rated at 13.4 MJ/kg (stoichiometric ratios) and 10.9 MJ/kg respectively… (and 10.2 MJ/kg for KeroLOx), again, with only the least weight flywheel-energy-extraction-and-gimbaling overhead, we’re still likely to add 50% or more the mass of the flywheel active CWNT material, overall.
If the reasonably safe operating limit is near 6 kWh/kg (my numbers) for CWNT super-ribbon, Dividing by 1.5 yields 4 kWh/kg for the storage medium, “all in”.
The “glib gotcha” here is that at the end of a stage’s “electrical propulsion” (which lets face it, consists of heating something like liquid argon to a plasma via either microwave arc or straight electrical arc) in order to eject it at high velocity efficiently, … after doing this (or even if you imagine a really clever way to accelerate masses efficiently without use of heat) … you still have the dâhmned flywheels sitting in the spacecraft at the end of the stage’s acceleration.
Its the nice thing about binary fuels. They are the reaction mass AND the energy storage mass, AND they’re ejected continuously out the hind end, reducing lofted mass. Not so with those flywheels.
Being even more clever, one might contrive to “use them up sequentially then eject them immediately” say, perhaps out the side. By their own residual rotational inertia. Get rid each bit of flywheel mass as it is used up, like fuel+oxidizer. Reduce the mass of the stack.
Just so — The thruster’s flywheels are only delivering 4 kWh/kg. That’d be 14.4 MJ/kg.
The problem THEN is that getting power out of the flywheel modules serially puts the entire power-on-demand load on each flywheel. Its internal core will be undergoing maximized deceleration (i.e. rate-of-release-of-power). The torque on the shaft becomes higher, requiring yet more mass to couple to the spinning carbon nanotube flywheels. And… it adds to the mass of the electrical extractor.
Nope… realistically, when the flywheels work in parallel, a combination of more current handling, and distribution of mass between then is optimizing.
That’s not even skepticism. Just engineering analysis.
Just saying,
GoatGuy
I know I didn’t make it clear, but I was really thinking of flywheels for automotive applications. It would be mighty fine to be able to store say 100 kilowatt-hours (more than 350 miles range) in a device the size and mass of a full conventional gas tank, including with worst-case competent deflagration shielding.
1 kWh/kg … “all in” is my design point. The 5 kWh/kg Chinese lauded nanotube ribbon then needs a 4:1 ratio of enclosure-to-super-fiber.
It still requires magnetic bearings and a pretty good vacuum system to keep the spinning part from losing energy parasitically. And it requires good gimbals, as you said earlier.
Thing is, 100 kWh “entrained” might be achievable. For cars. 20 kg of CWNT seems to fit the bill, and has the nice benefit of having no appreciable cycling ageing.
Anyway, I’m not rising to your pathological skepticism tarring: most good sounding ideas tend to have “gotchas” at the core; marketing is in the business of either ignoring (or never learning about) those gotchas. As an analyst, our job is to ferret out the glib gotchas and the deeper ones still that may dilute the magnificence of the created technology. Better value it for what it is.
And that is neither pathological nor unerringly skeptical. Just open-eyed.
Have a decent Saturday.
GoatGuy
⊕1 Mr Perkins…
Electric spaceplanes? Electric jets would be hard enough – but I don’t see how any jet gets you into space – even an electric one.
Btw, when is Brian going to mention that in 2022 China is taking Pakistani astronauts to space? That trip will likely be to its next-generation space station, the ISS-sized one which is expected to be operational by then. China’s been saying recently that it wants its space station to be used by the world – a bit of a rebuttal to having been excluded from ISS. Meanwhile, not only does China’s upcoming space station look like it’s lifted technology from the ISS, but even its next-generation crew vehicles look uncannily like carbon-copies of Orion and CST-100.
With a good osmotic filtration membrane, you could produce power by dropping salt to the bottom of the ocean, and have fresh water as a byproduct. I think we’re actually close to having those membranes.
I just took the energy usage from the website, didn’t double-check that number, so thanks for that. I agree, heating by electrical is not the optimum method. Natural gas is a good choice in northern climes. Hydrothermal makes it more efficient. Really wish there was a way to edit these comments.
I just took the energy usage from the website didn’t double-check that number so thanks for that. I agree heating by electrical is not the optimum method. Natural gas is a good choice in northern climes. Hydrothermal makes it more efficient.Really wish there was a way to edit these comments.
That is a lot of water. But why would you need a full month’s reserve? Obviously you would put your solar plants in various places, generally sunny places. No one place would be expected to have bad weather for more than a few days, and with a decent electrical infrastructure, you could ship electricity from sunny places to others. Perhaps keep a few days supply in each region for a really big weather system.
That is a lot of water. But why would you need a full month’s reserve? Obviously you would put your solar plants in various places generally sunny places. No one place would be expected to have bad weather for more than a few days and with a decent electrical infrastructure you could ship electricity from sunny places to others. Perhaps keep a few days supply in each region for a really big weather system.
Uh, yeah, cuz we’re going to put all our eggs in one basket, besides, Utah won’t mind. That was sarcasm BTW. Geez, get real, that was just a hypothetical to get an idea of the scale involved. Plus, we’re not going to get rid of existing hydroelectric, wind (for sure), geothermal, and solar in other locations. What makes sense in one area may not make sense in another. And by the time we get that far, tide and wave converters might be practical.
Uh yeah cuz we’re going to put all our eggs in one basket besides Utah won’t mind.That was sarcasm BTW. Geez get real that was just a hypothetical to get an idea of the scale involved. Plus we’re not going to get rid of existing hydroelectric wind (for sure) geothermal and solar in other locations. What makes sense in one area may not make sense in another. And by the time we get that far tide and wave converters might be practical.
Oh, you have plenty of your own there. Glib gotchas.
Among other things, you no more armor or try to contain a failure of a flywheel for a space lift application than you do armor the whole engine and fuel tank of a current booster–you just don’t, and accept loss of mission with catastrophic failure.
The overall plan of a flywheel powered SSTO is a non-starter at first — you just get too much benefit out of TSTO, and in any case even if more perfect materials where the bulk strength was very close to theoretic maximum, the approach to that margin means you first pass through a region where TSTO is acceptable but that SSTO has too small a payload fraction.
You make the lightest aeroshell you can to withstand re-entry condition for each stage, and if desired the strength to survive the failure of a flywheel. It contains largely water reaction mass and enough LN2 for cooling the critical bits, the flywheels, and engines, avionics, etc.
One good thing about the flywheel vs TNT, it’s energy will be released in a plane normal to the axis, and most designs I have seen will disintegrate into high energy fluff, arrange that to dump into the inert fuel mass and have the tanks apportioned so the tank volume adjacent to a flywheel empties last and only after it has stopped, dorsal blow out panels in the tankage, given the strength to weight ratios that are being talked about, a failure may even be survivable for the vehicle…
To presume this either can not or will not be done is your usual pathological skepticism.
gimbals, dude, gimbals…
Pair them with opposite rotation. Also, google cubli.
In terms of scaling, aerospace is an easier target than overall industry. Higher price point and lower production volume. So while you’re right in the long term, aerospace applications may appear sooner than wider industry applications.
Its OK, being off by a factor of 10 and CATCHING IT. Good job. The actual solution to the Storage Problem is to use all available means, whatever they turn out to be. For instance, fairly obviously one can use “lifted mass” storage, provided one is willing to lift a LOT of mass a reasonably HIGH distance up. This would be “gravitational storage”. Doesn’t matter whether you’re lifting rocks or water. Near the West Coast of America, there are enough mountains conveniently placed that filling large coastal salt-water reservoirs with ocean water is a darn convenient gravitational storage method. It does however take a LOT of water to store a lot of power. Raising water only 200 meters (about the height of many inland reservoir prospects) has a distance of 200, and a force of 9.8 N/L of water. 9.8 × 200 → 2,000 (more or less) joules per liter of water. Moreover, a kilowatt hour is 3.6×10⁶ joules, so ⇒ 3,600,000 J/kWh ÷ 2,000 J/kg = 1,800 kg/kWh Or about 2 tons of sea water per single kilowatt hour of stored energy. This is not an impressive result. 2 cubic meters per kilowatt hour. It also is assuming near–100%-perfect energy-investment-and-return. Which would be closer to 80% overall, in practice. ________________________________________ BUT, I’d argue, there’s a LOT of water in the oceans, and a lot of potential near-fallow land suitable for said reservoirs. We might need to store what, 100 gigawatt hours of energy in California alone to weather through the vagarities of weather, but I learned that California in 2017 used 245,000 GWh of electricity as a state. One DAY’s worth is 667 GWh. So… no… more like maybe what, 4 weeks worth or 20,000 GWh? 20,000 GWh × 1,000 MWh/GWh × 1,000 kWh/MWh × 2 m³/kWh → 40,000,000,000 cubic meters That is a LOT of sea water. I wonder how much that is in acre-feet. 30,000,000 acre-feet. Wow. That’s a lot. And that’s a month of reserve storage in California. ________________________________________ Th
Its OK being off by a factor of 10 and CATCHING IT. Good job. The actual solution to the Storage Problem is to use all available means whatever they turn out to be. For instance fairly obviously one can use lifted mass”” storage”” provided one is willing to lift a LOT of mass a reasonably HIGH distance up. This would be “gravitational storage”. Doesn’t matter whether you’re lifting rocks or water. Near the West Coast of America there are enough mountains conveniently placed that filling large coastal salt-water reservoirs with ocean water is a darn convenient gravitational storage method. It does however take a LOT of water to store a lot of power. Raising water only 200 meters (about the height of many inland reservoir prospects) has a distance of 200 and a force of 9.8 N/L of water. 9.8 × 200 → 2000 (more or less) joules per liter of water. Moreover a kilowatt hour is 3.6×10⁶ joules so⇒ 3600000 J/kWh ÷ 2000 J/kg = 1800 kg/kWhOr about 2 tons of sea water per single kilowatt hour of stored energy. This is not an impressive result. 2 cubic meters per kilowatt hour. It also is assuming near–100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}-perfect energy-investment-and-return. Which would be closer to 80{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} overall in practice. ________________________________________BUT I’d argue there’s a LOT of water in the oceans and a lot of potential near-fallow land suitable for said reservoirs. We might need to store what 100 gigawatt hours of energy in California alone to weather through the vagarities of weather but I learned that California in 2017 used 245000 GWh of electricity as a state. One DAY’s worth is 667 GWh. So… no… more like maybe what 4 weeks worth or 20000 GWh?20000 GWh × 1000 MWh/GWh × 1000 kWh/MWh × 2 m³/kWh → 4000000 cubic metersThat is a LOT of sea water. I wonder how much that is in acre-feet. 300″”000 acre-feet.”
How delightful, calculus is. (I suppose one could just google for the facts I found, but what’s the fun in that? Anyway, I learned that a material with a ρ (density) of 1.5 kg/L (i.e. about that of composite CWNT) if in ‘rod’ form, has a performance of about 8,100 MPa/kWh. Makes no difference the diameter, or the length of a particular fiber, when a balanced fiber is spun around its midpoint, the “performance” of the material is about 8,100 megapascals per kilowatt hour of kinetic rotational energy. So, if the maximum working tensile strength of something like Kevlar is about 2,000 MPa, then one quite easily can reverse that and say: 2,000 ÷ 8,100 → 0.25 kWh per kilogram of Kevlar. Now this article is claiming that the long-nanotube bulk Chinese material is “20× stronger” than Kevlar, or a working strength of 40,000 MPa. Easy enough, it ought to then store 20× the kinetic energy per kilogram as a performance metric. 40,000 ÷ 8,100 → 5 kWh/kg. While that’s not exactly 10.6 kWh/kg (per some of the summary calculations of the referenced article), that’s OK. Its within shooting distance. Maybe “breaking strength” versus “working strength?” Sure. More importantly, are the Glib Gotchas. The first Glib Gotcha is that, well, a real, working kinetic energy flywheel would have to have… an enclosure, bearings, magnetic hoo-ha to invest and return energy to the flywheel. It’d need a safety shroud, gimbals (think of the inertial moment! of gyroscope effect) and metrology to figure out how it is working. More mass, that. Then there is “when it accidentally blows apart like a BOMB”, the maker has to balance the mass (and contained energy) of the flywheel with the enclosure’s ability to handle that energy, all turned … inevitably… into shock forces and HEAT. For instance, if 100 kg of CWNT stuff is the storage medium, at 5 kWh/kg, it’d hold about 500 kWh of kinetic energy. Blowing itself to bits because of some structural problem results in 500 kWh ×
How delightful calculus is. (I suppose one could just google for the facts I found but what’s the fun in that? Anyway I learned that a material with a ρ (density) of 1.5 kg/L (i.e. about that of composite CWNT) if in ‘rod’ form has a performance of about 8100 MPa/kWh. Makes no difference the diameter or the length of a particular fiber when a balanced fiber is spun around its midpoint the “performance” of the material is about 8100 megapascals per kilowatt hour of kinetic rotational energy. So if the maximum working tensile strength of something like Kevlar is about 2000 MPa then one quite easily can reverse that and say: 2000 ÷ 8100 → 0.25 kWh per kilogram of Kevlar. Now this article is claiming that the long-nanotube bulk Chinese material is “20× stronger” than Kevlar or a working strength of 40000 MPa. Easy enough it ought to then store 20× the kinetic energy per kilogram as a performance metric. 40000 ÷ 8100 → 5 kWh/kg. While that’s not exactly 10.6 kWh/kg (per some of the summary calculations of the referenced article) that’s OK. Its within shooting distance. Maybe “breaking strength” versus “working strength?” Sure.More importantly are the Glib Gotchas. The first Glib Gotcha is that well a real working kinetic energy flywheel would have to have… an enclosure bearings magnetic hoo-ha to invest and return energy to the flywheel. It’d need a safety shroud gimbals (think of the inertial moment! of gyroscope effect) and metrology to figure out how it is working. More mass that. Then there is “when it accidentally blows apart like a BOMB” the maker has to balance the mass (and contained energy) of the flywheel with the enclosure’s ability to handle that energy all turned … inevitably… into shock forces and HEAT.For instance if 100 kg of CWNT stuff is the storage medium at 5 kWh/kg it’d hold about 500 kWh of kinetic energy. Blowing itself to bits because of some structural problem results in 500 kWh × 3.6×10
So if it raining in Utah, the US shuts down?
So if it raining in Utah the US shuts down?
Ooops. off by a power of ten. It takes nearly 100,000 sq. km to power the U.S., so 1/2 of Utah. This is also the surface area of all of our roads, so if we could build roads out of solar panels, we wouldn’t need to take up any additional space.
Ooops. off by a power of ten. It takes nearly 100000 sq. km to power the U.S. so 1/2 of Utah.This is also the surface area of all of our roads so if we could build roads out of solar panels we wouldn’t need to take up any additional space.
Looking it up, a site that did the math for me said that 10,000 sq. km. of solar panels would be needed to power the US. (This was with 2005 technology and electric usage, using 70% sunny days, and other assumptions). Utah is 220,000 sq. km, so 1/20th (5%) of Utah would actually power the whole US. If it matters.
Looking it up a site that did the math for me said that 10000 sq. km. of solar panels would be needed to power the US. (This was with 2005 technology and electric usage using 70{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} sunny days and other assumptions).Utah is 220000 sq. km so 1/20th (5{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}) of Utah would actually power the whole US.If it matters.
Super flywheel are not suitable for moving applications. The angular momentum conservation law will make almost ungovernable the plane (or car).
Not currently. I imagine the nanotubes would have to be made a specific length without defects, and that’s been problematic as well. So first it has to be possible, then it has to economically feasible. We’ve got a while to wait on both issues.
Not currently. I imagine the nanotubes would have to be made a specific length without defects and that’s been problematic as well. So first it has to be possible then it has to economically feasible. We’ve got a while to wait on both issues.
This, not that this will also benefit traditional rockets just as much for the lightweight materials as in adamantite. Add some unobtanium as in room temperature superconductors, you only need an high energy electrical storage better than hydrolox. A bit easier than an warp drive, harder than stuff like radical life extension. And it would have way higher impact on overall industry and transport than an shift from BFR or Skylon to it in space. In short an secondary effect.
This not that this will also benefit traditional rockets just as much for the lightweight materials as in adamantite. Add some unobtanium as in room temperature superconductors you only need an high energy electrical storage better than hydrolox. A bit easier than an warp drive harder than stuff like radical life extension. And it would have way higher impact on overall industry and transport than an shift from BFR or Skylon to it in space. In short an secondary effect.
I see from the earlier posting that these materials are made by a CVD process. Is this an atmospheric pressure thermal CVD process, or is this a high vacuum plasma CVD process. I have experience with the latter. it is a good process for semiconductor device fabrication. However, plasma CVD process is way too slow and way too expensive for making large quantities of structural materials.
I see from the earlier posting that these materials are made by a CVD process. Is this an atmospheric pressure thermal CVD process or is this a high vacuum plasma CVD process. I have experience with the latter. it is a good process for semiconductor device fabrication. However plasma CVD process is way too slow and way too expensive for making large quantities of structural materials.
Can the fabrication process for these materials be scaled up and reduced in cost such that these materials become cheaper than steel for building construction?
Can the fabrication process for these materials be scaled up and reduced in cost such that these materials become cheaper than steel for building construction?
Great challenges in solar energy are storage and distribution losses. Cover 20% of your Utah with solar cells and you may power state of California (guess, not scientific; someone else figure out path please if it matters). But how to move the power? Imagine a railroad cars with flywheels, or a ship. It goes to Portland or Seattle after a disaster and is able to help. Didn’t see how long the flywheel spins or discharge rate. Such materials could build very sturdy cars and truck, too. Imagine a strong car refueled in 5 minutes that could go 500miles at 100mph and drives itself. Maybe build cyclone proof buildings for Manilla Philippines and other places. This is good for 1% or 20% rich who want VTOL SSTs and bleeding edge science ideas. It is good also for us Pareto distribution 80%+ not so rich.
Great challenges in solar energy are storage and distribution losses. Cover 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of your Utah with solar cells and you may power state of California (guess not scientific; someone else figure out path please if it matters). But how to move the power? Imagine a railroad cars with flywheels or a ship. It goes to Portland or Seattle after a disaster and is able to help. Didn’t see how long the flywheel spins or discharge rate.Such materials could build very sturdy cars and truck too. Imagine a strong car refueled in 5 minutes that could go 500miles at 100mph and drives itself.Maybe build cyclone proof buildings for Manilla Philippines and other places. This is good for 1{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} or 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} rich who want VTOL SSTs and bleeding edge science ideas. It is good also for us Pareto distribution 80{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}+ not so rich.
Why all the focus on space elevators and none on sky-hooks? Instead of building something from the ground, extend a cable down and up from geo-synchronous orbit until it reaches the upper limits of the atmosphere. Avoid the issue of planes running into it, lightning storms, jet stream winds, etc. Still need to launch something that can just get into the edge of space, grab the sky-hook and then it gets a lift up to the desired orbit.
Why all the focus on space elevators and none on sky-hooks? Instead of building something from the ground extend a cable down and up from geo-synchronous orbit until it reaches the upper limits of the atmosphere. Avoid the issue of planes running into it lightning storms jet stream winds etc. Still need to launch something that can just get into the edge of space grab the sky-hook and then it gets a lift up to the desired orbit.
With those hypothetical energy storage levels, they could probably do it by converting the stored energy into thermal and passing it onto the fuel. Kind of a thermal rocket sans nuclear reactor or external energy source. But I fully expect this to be possible only after a long and protracted development cycle, with several technical miracles yet to be proven to exist.
With those hypothetical energy storage levels they could probably do it by converting the stored energy into thermal and passing it onto the fuel.Kind of a thermal rocket sans nuclear reactor or external energy source.But I fully expect this to be possible only after a long and protracted development cycle with several technical miracles yet to be proven to exist.
I just took the energy usage from the website, didn’t double-check that number, so thanks for that. I agree, heating by electrical is not the optimum method. Natural gas is a good choice in northern climes. Hydrothermal makes it more efficient.
Really wish there was a way to edit these comments.
That is a lot of water. But why would you need a full month’s reserve? Obviously you would put your solar plants in various places, generally sunny places. No one place would be expected to have bad weather for more than a few days, and with a decent electrical infrastructure, you could ship electricity from sunny places to others. Perhaps keep a few days supply in each region for a really big weather system.
Uh, yeah, cuz we’re going to put all our eggs in one basket, besides, Utah won’t mind.
That was sarcasm BTW. Geez, get real, that was just a hypothetical to get an idea of the scale involved. Plus, we’re not going to get rid of existing hydroelectric, wind (for sure), geothermal, and solar in other locations. What makes sense in one area may not make sense in another. And by the time we get that far, tide and wave converters might be practical.
Its OK, being off by a factor of 10 and CATCHING IT. Good job.
The actual solution to the Storage Problem is to use all available means, whatever they turn out to be. For instance, fairly obviously one can use “lifted mass” storage, provided one is willing to lift a LOT of mass a reasonably HIGH distance up. This would be “gravitational storage”.
Doesn’t matter whether you’re lifting rocks or water.
Near the West Coast of America, there are enough mountains conveniently placed that filling large coastal salt-water reservoirs with ocean water is a darn convenient gravitational storage method. It does however take a LOT of water to store a lot of power. Raising water only 200 meters (about the height of many inland reservoir prospects) has a distance of 200, and a force of 9.8 N/L of water. 9.8 × 200 → 2,000 (more or less) joules per liter of water. Moreover, a kilowatt hour is 3.6×10⁶ joules, so
⇒ 3,600,000 J/kWh ÷ 2,000 J/kg = 1,800 kg/kWh
Or about 2 tons of sea water per single kilowatt hour of stored energy. This is not an impressive result. 2 cubic meters per kilowatt hour. It also is assuming near–100%-perfect energy-investment-and-return. Which would be closer to 80% overall, in practice.
________________________________________
BUT, I’d argue, there’s a LOT of water in the oceans, and a lot of potential near-fallow land suitable for said reservoirs. We might need to store what, 100 gigawatt hours of energy in California alone to weather through the vagarities of weather, but I learned that California in 2017 used 245,000 GWh of electricity as a state. One DAY’s worth is 667 GWh. So… no… more like maybe what, 4 weeks worth or 20,000 GWh?
20,000 GWh × 1,000 MWh/GWh × 1,000 kWh/MWh × 2 m³/kWh → 40,000,000,000 cubic meters
That is a LOT of sea water. I wonder how much that is in acre-feet. 30,000,000 acre-feet. Wow. That’s a lot. And that’s a month of reserve storage in California.
________________________________________
The other thing that might be “an oops” in your calculation(s) is that you were referring to 100% of ALL energy used by the United States, whether that energy is electrical, motive, heating or otherwise.
I think that while the sentiment is nice that somehow we could entirely free ourselves from fossil energy, the truth is … at least for heating … it is darn efficient and pretty equally CO₂ miserly. Especially natural gas.
Anyway…
Just saying,
GoatGuy
How delightful, calculus is. (I suppose one could just google for the facts I found, but what’s the fun in that?
Anyway, I learned that a material with a ρ (density) of 1.5 kg/L (i.e. about that of composite CWNT) if in ‘rod’ form, has a performance of about 8,100 MPa/kWh. Makes no difference the diameter, or the length of a particular fiber, when a balanced fiber is spun around its midpoint, the “performance” of the material is about 8,100 megapascals per kilowatt hour of kinetic rotational energy.
So, if the maximum working tensile strength of something like Kevlar is about 2,000 MPa, then one quite easily can reverse that and say: 2,000 ÷ 8,100 → 0.25 kWh per kilogram of Kevlar.
Now this article is claiming that the long-nanotube bulk Chinese material is “20× stronger” than Kevlar, or a working strength of 40,000 MPa. Easy enough, it ought to then store 20× the kinetic energy per kilogram as a performance metric. 40,000 ÷ 8,100 → 5 kWh/kg.
While that’s not exactly 10.6 kWh/kg (per some of the summary calculations of the referenced article), that’s OK. Its within shooting distance. Maybe “breaking strength” versus “working strength?” Sure.
More importantly, are the Glib Gotchas.
The first Glib Gotcha is that, well, a real, working kinetic energy flywheel would have to have… an enclosure, bearings, magnetic hoo-ha to invest and return energy to the flywheel. It’d need a safety shroud, gimbals (think of the inertial moment! of gyroscope effect) and metrology to figure out how it is working.
More mass, that.
Then there is “when it accidentally blows apart like a BOMB”, the maker has to balance the mass (and contained energy) of the flywheel with the enclosure’s ability to handle that energy, all turned … inevitably… into shock forces and HEAT.
For instance, if 100 kg of CWNT stuff is the storage medium, at 5 kWh/kg, it’d hold about 500 kWh of kinetic energy. Blowing itself to bits because of some structural problem results in 500 kWh × 3.6×10⁶ J/kWh → 1.8×10⁹ joules of thermal energy being released in a few milliseconds.
Putting THAT into perspective, 1.8×10⁹ J ÷ 4,186 J/g (TNT) → 430 kg of TNT.
Its also rotating over 250,000 RPM.
Tell me, what kind of container is going to be needed to contain a HALF TON of TNT going off all at once?
See what I mean?
Glib Gotchas.
I could come up with more…
Just saying,
GoatGuy
So if it raining in Utah, the US shuts down?
Ooops. off by a power of ten. It takes nearly 100,000 sq. km to power the U.S., so 1/2 of Utah.
This is also the surface area of all of our roads, so if we could build roads out of solar panels, we wouldn’t need to take up any additional space.
Looking it up, a site that did the math for me said that 10,000 sq. km. of solar panels would be needed to power the US. (This was with 2005 technology and electric usage, using 70% sunny days, and other assumptions).
Utah is 220,000 sq. km, so 1/20th (5%) of Utah would actually power the whole US.
If it matters.
Not currently. I imagine the nanotubes would have to be made a specific length without defects, and that’s been problematic as well. So first it has to be possible, then it has to economically feasible. We’ve got a while to wait on both issues.
This, not that this will also benefit traditional rockets just as much for the lightweight materials as in adamantite. Add some unobtanium as in room temperature superconductors, you only need an high energy electrical storage better than hydrolox.
A bit easier than an warp drive, harder than stuff like radical life extension. And it would have way higher impact on overall industry and transport than an shift from BFR or Skylon to it in space.
In short an secondary effect.
I see from the earlier posting that these materials are made by a CVD process. Is this an atmospheric pressure thermal CVD process, or is this a high vacuum plasma CVD process. I have experience with the latter. it is a good process for semiconductor device fabrication. However, plasma CVD process is way too slow and way too expensive for making large quantities of structural materials.
Can the fabrication process for these materials be scaled up and reduced in cost such that these materials become cheaper than steel for building construction?
Great challenges in solar energy are storage and distribution losses. Cover 20% of your Utah with solar cells and you may power state of California (guess, not scientific; someone else figure out path please if it matters). But how to move the power? Imagine a railroad cars with flywheels, or a ship. It goes to Portland or Seattle after a disaster and is able to help. Didn’t see how long the flywheel spins or discharge rate.
Such materials could build very sturdy cars and truck, too. Imagine a strong car refueled in 5 minutes that could go 500miles at 100mph and drives itself.
Maybe build cyclone proof buildings for Manilla Philippines and other places.
This is good for 1% or 20% rich who want VTOL SSTs and bleeding edge science ideas. It is good also for us Pareto distribution 80%+ not so rich.
Why all the focus on space elevators and none on sky-hooks? Instead of building something from the ground, extend a cable down and up from geo-synchronous orbit until it reaches the upper limits of the atmosphere. Avoid the issue of planes running into it, lightning storms, jet stream winds, etc. Still need to launch something that can just get into the edge of space, grab the sky-hook and then it gets a lift up to the desired orbit.
With those hypothetical energy storage levels, they could probably do it by converting the stored energy into thermal and passing it onto the fuel.
Kind of a thermal rocket sans nuclear reactor or external energy source.
But I fully expect this to be possible only after a long and protracted development cycle, with several technical miracles yet to be proven to exist.