On the New Scientist site this morning, this headline: Hybrid cars give flywheels a spin.
A British company is testing flywheels as energy-storage units in hybrid cars, to replace much heavier batteries. Their first tests will be with airport buses, which seems like a good choice.
Read down to the end of the article, and you’ll see that several other companies are working on making this technology more effective and more affordable.
Here’s where the science fiction comes into play: In the first chapter of my (still unpublished, unfortunately) novel,* the main characters drive a turbine-and-flywheel automobile … and flywheel “batteries” (if you will) are the storage medium of choice for most of the vehicles that operate in and around the lunar colony.
So, reality is ahead of my SF. I never know whether to laugh or cry over things like this.
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* WALKING ON THE SEA OF CLOUDS is the story of lunar pioneers: two couples determined to survive and succeed as part of the first commercial lunar colony. In the end, one will decide to leave, one will decide to stay, one will put off deciding, and one will decide to die so another can live.
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