BlackTachyon29 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Seems silly to use this. (Score 1) 275

by BlackTachyon29 on Monday December 29, 2008 @08:17PM (#26263553) Attached to: Batteries To Store Wind Energy

It's not a big effect, but there are no "small effects" when we're talking about gigawatts of kinetic energy :)

You just need to align the axis of rotation of the flywheel with the axis of rotation of the Earth. As a bonus you get a way to avoid adding leap seconds to UTC.

Yeah and with enough of them and plenty of energy we could eventually have a year with exactly 12 months, each exactly 30 days long. Just don't ask me how long the day would be. ...Then somebody decided base 10 was nicer than base 12, and future generations liked base 2, and before we knew it, the earth was tidal locked to the sun...

Comment Re:Recharge Cycles (Score 1) 238

by BlackTachyon29 on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @07:40PM (#21758522) Attached to: Nanowires Boost Laptop Battery Life to 20 Hours

From TFA

This expand/shrink cycle typically causes the silicon (often in the form of particles or a thin film) to pulverize, degrading the performance of the battery.

and

The nanowires inflate four times their normal size as they soak up lithium. But, unlike other silicon shapes, they do not fracture.

This implies that this design can not only pack more energy into the volume but may not have the charge/discharge life cycles that normal lithium batteries have because of said fracturing.

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