In the day of technology, it’s almost hard to remember a simpler time. Like cars, we are taking many strides to go electrical. In the case of renewable energy, we are doing this to sustain our life on Earth, because soon we will run out of coal/oil and when we do, we need to be ready with another source of energy to take over. Luckily, with electricity produced by wind, waves, and the sun, we can do this. Another great stride is the use of flywheels. We will discuss what they are, how they create energy, and the use of them as batteries.
To start, flywheels are wheels that take much force to spin. They store a lot of kinetic energy, but think of it as a “mechanical battery” (Woodford). It can have a large or smaller diameter made from carbon-fiber and it needs a lot of force to start it spinning and a lot of force to stop it spinning, “but it’s storing energy in the form of movement (kinetic energy, in other words) rather than the energy stored in chemical form inside a traditional, electrical battery” (Woodford).
