Is There a Flywheel in Your Future?

The need for new urban vehicle propulsion alternatives has been spurred by the growing concern in our cities over photo-chemical smog, smoke, odor, and noise, which are to a large degree the products of present vehicle powerplants. The incorporation of practical energy-storage elements into vehicle drives offers the potential of significant reduction of objectionable vehicle emissions. The recent “rediscovery” of the kinetic energy flywheel as a highly effective energy-storage system provides several new candidate propulsion systems either in heat engine/flywheel hybrid- or pure fly-wheel-drive configurations.