OCT 04

GO GO GO BCON

So far flywheels have only seen usage in small scale application (Datacenters, buses, labs,...). Its good to see that the technology is getting ready for the use in the grid.

I think that FES can be used in combination with other storage systems (e.g. pumped-storage hydorelectricity) to help in peak situations.

if this technology is so great, and the DOE is pumping money into it,why is Beacon's stock at a 12-year low of 30 cents ??? what is amiss???????????????? would someone explain to me like i'm a 6 year-old why Beacon's stock stinks ???

the threat of de-listing Beacon's stock is a red herring. if their business model is truly viable and the business is real, the company should breeze through the appeal process and remain listed. the government is providing the company loan guarantees and grants (free $$$), private investors and v.c funds continue to finance them, and yet on good news the stock continues to languish. are their patents REAL ?? environmental goodness and technological breakthroughs don't take place through "invocations". real investors have always financed new technologies.. so far its reality ZERO and hype $125 million (12 years of losses). show me the money !!!

From the DOE website http://www.energyempowers.gov/...plant.aspx

The Tyngsboro, Mass.-based company’s innovative flywheel energy storage plant—which is the first of its kind in the world—is expected to improve electrical grid reliability and efficiency by continuously absorbing and injecting electricity, in effect “recycling” it.

someone's drinking the cool-aid

As we know government supports any project that can create new jobs. Maybe this is one of examples. Apart of that the idea is more then good. Obviously we should stop rely on fossil fuels and turn towards new sustainable sources of energy. Well, we should keep up thumbs for this kind of projects…

I get so sick of people claiming they're a PE or something or talking about renewables as emotional or saying stupid things like conversion causes losses or stooping to the least intelligent form of debate which is saying that they can't be an answer because they aren't already an answer.

Mr. Jerry A, Please turn your brain on when you write something. The benefit of flywheels is that you can reduce peaks and fill in valleys. That needs to happen on a second, minute, hourly and daily basis and these can cheaply do more than one of those. The cost you pay for electricity and the overall energy required is by and large, set by the peak rates, not the total amount used. It costs way more to keep up with variable demand than it does to simply provide what you can without consideration for timing. California has some tier rates that vary from 9 cents (off peak) to 56 cents (peak). If a flywheel can smooth that out by half, that range will be cut in half!

Please read that again because it seems to be a foreign concept. I say this because you then follow those comments with the most ignorant of the comments on this article. That being that we should support nukes. With the concept refreshed in your mind, please consider what a nearly endless supply of 'baseload only' would do to the peaking situation. You can't simply turn a nuclear plant up and down. That takes hours.

On top of that, nuclear is by far, the most expensive. Current estimates are $1,400 per kilowatt to build a plant compared to $600 for natural gas, $400-1,200 for coal (w/wo sequestration), $1,100 for wind, $1,300 for solar.

Nuclear is un-insurable so are you saying you want the taxpayers to again subsidize this risk?

The mining to support nuclear are just as bad as the coal ones because it takes tens of tons of dirt mined to get a pound of fuel which basically equals the same generation as the coal found in that much dirt. Since the coal mines are most polluting because they concentrate their found contaminants into their tailings (waste water), don't you think that removing less stuff would increase the contaminant percentage-wise and make them a bigger problem?

Since nuclear is most economic in massively large concentrations, don't you think that this would increase the concentration of transmission lines in one area which causes the most effect during an outage?

Since nuclear is similar to coal and natural gas in that it requires processed potable cooling water to remove roughly double the heat that it produces in electricity, don't you think that our water shortages should be considered when you go committing another few million gallon per day to this?

Honestly people, we have problems headed our way and we need to solve them, not spout industry talking points that haven't been researched. Our world has become immensely dependent on fossil fuels and they're not always going to be here. They not only pollute at every stage of their use, they cost a tremendous amount at every stage also. But the worst problem with them is that they're finite. When we hit a problem with one of them, the problem will propagate to the others in no time. You might want to start here...

The US imports 15 million of the 20 million barrels of oil it takes to operate each day.
Perception of a problem is the most frequent cause of the problem itself.
Many exporting countries shut off food exports in '04 within two weeks after the perception of a food shortage.
Oil reserves are NOT audited and oil revenue rises with inflated reserve reports.
The numbers of countries hitting their peak production is not only increasing, it's accelerating.
The numbers of wells it takes to sustain production is not only increasing, it's accelerating.
The size of the average "producing" oil field is not only shrinking but that's accelerating.
The announcement or leak of news about the perceived shortage or real shortage would cause hoarding.
Hording would more than double our demand in one day, draining storage tanks immediately.
The US military uses fully half of our oil.
During a shortage, priority use would go to military, emergency and life saving operations.
Under a major crisis, marshal law would be imposed to stop looting.
Domestic military would be used to maintain order under marshal law.

You do the math. It's not a pretty sight for a continued reliance (and increasing reliance) on fossil or imported fuels. It's not even smart to spend excess money on nuclear which costs in so many hidden ways. Renewables have only one problem. They don't get to play on an even field when it comes to money. All the other sources got more money, more time and a much easier regulatory environment for their emergence into the market. Only naivete can say otherwise. Let's concentrate on helping privately fund the developments that will take this industry to the next level, not rely on the entrenched and lobbying so called experts to tell us they're doing it for us.

The nuclear industry has to self-insure for $10B dollars. Have you even read the Price-Anderson Act? How much is BP required to carry? Your estimated costs for solar & wind don't include huge transmission costs, storage and gas backup. Since the Uranium atom contains 2 million times more energy than a coal atom, there is significant less mining required.

There is similar water requirements for solar thermal plants as they also us steam to power their generators. A large nuclear plan has the same water requirements as 100 acres of farm land.