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I'm getting a lot of job offers from this sector of late. I'm sure it's going ahead, The "Debate" may be of little consequence and the decision has already been made if they are at the hiring stage. 3 different agencies are all look for engineers, It look's like some big projects are coming up. Some of the job's on offer: “It will cost up to £1.4bn to upgrade Britain's electricity network if a new fleet of nuclear power stations is built, says the National Grid.”, Daily Telegraph 13/07/2006 Current and future projects mean the UK Power Industry finds itself themselves in even greater need of the services of skilled Engineers and related personnel. With a dearth of quality individuals, this means xxxx xxxxx is able to command top notch remunerations for candidates such as yourself, experienced and talented. Below is a selection of some of the positions that currently need filling. If you would like to learn more about any of them

Flywheels can contain a massive amount of energy and can go Bang !, But that's why they go in the garage in a pit (under the petrol tank) Erm maybe under the fish pond is a better idea There are heavy flywheels and newer light flywheels; these use composite carbon materials borrowed from jet engine technology and spin much faster, but if they break up the energy dissipated laterally is very low thus causing little damage to surroundings. Just think next time you fly and are sat next to the window looking at the flimsy aluminium cowl of a 737 engine spinning at 10,000 plus rpm built of composite carbon and ceramic parts that for a 20g item has an effective mass of 3 tons. Ignorance is bliss. What I am saying is that "these problems will be solved" I don't want to go off into a wright brothers rants about this one. Something to keep in you mind is that the energy stored is proportional to the mass but to the square of the velocity, so the light fast fllywheels may be the future. E=MC^2 (Familiar ?), C= The speed of light, If you get into any physical science it's amazing how often you meet this and makes you realise what a genius Einstein was and how simple and beautiful this is. The numbers i'll have to get back to you on, but i can say that it is very scalable from kW to MW but my favoured application is the small 40kVA domestic load back garden type. RPM is a difficult one and largely irelevant, I think what you digging at is the potential hazard, sorry but I don't think about life in that way. I often think talking to people on the street with a non physics/electrical background that they have very little comprehension of the vast energy that is released from fossil fuels when compare with alternative alternatives. I think petrol is 27Mj/kg, It's a phenominal energy source and with and S.G. around unity, perfect for light transports using internal combustion engines and aeroplanes. Thats what we are up against, And don't kid yourself that a cheap alternative is around the corner.

I always liked flywheels Batteries and inverter systems suffer from losses: I2R (I Squared R or copper losses), Iron Losses depending upon the magnetic medium and harmonics losses due to the quality of the waveform. They also are expensive to produce(I know enconomy of scale etc) and contain lots of nasty chemicals. Flywheels are an old mechanical method of storing energy and coupled with a Motor/Genny power unit they could become very accessible ways of energy storage. Some electronic energy conversion/inverter will be necessary as the Flywheel maybe spins 2000-30,000 rpm to get 50hz 230V AC and it make everything easier to do. (unless you want a commutated DC system for the house). Another big strength is the discharge rate, they can spend all day charging up on solar cells or wind, water whatever you want to use a the prime source and then release a lot of the stored energy over a short time period. I think its important when talking about energy storage to look very closely at energy usage. If your using solar power, well while the suns shining your out at work. The household demand is very low, the device stores at a trickle rate. But when you come home you switch on the TV, kettle for a cup of tea, electric shower etc and the demand is very high but for a short period of time. I remember a lecturer telling me that power station engineers used to use a copy of the radio times to plan for peak energy demand (to avoid transient instability). If the world cup was on they would crank everthing up 5 mins before the commercial break as people would put the kettle on, flush the toilet(this is a big often forgotten energy usage-pumping water), the UK power demand could increase by 30% for 5 minutes. Batteries are really a portable solution, just look at electronics CMOS was developed for battery powered devices due to it's Non-Quiescent power usage. The big driving force in electronics has been for portable devices but little has been invested in heavy power. An interesting point is that if you look at the HV heavy current devices that came out of the collapse of russia, they had SF6 circuit breakers about the quarter of the size of rest of the world because our world concentrated on the sony walkman and was consumer driven whereas russia continued with a heavy current bias (build it big). Incidently if you think Dyson is a genius, It was basically a russian design - just look at the timing ! Flywheels have the potential of being very accesible to a mass market and a low tech solution. Maybe you could buy a "Flywheel Kit" and B&Q, dig a hole in your garage, drop in the specialist parts like the bearings and control box then just fill the Flywheel container with concrete, follow the balancing instruction (this might be the weak link) and hey presto cheap easy storage at 90% plus efficiency. I can image the future where your every day Dave has a couple of wind turbines, a few solar cells and lightly buzzing Gyro Inc Flywheel storage unit humming away in his garage inspection pit as he flips steaks and sausages on his Green Electric barbecue. Some Googled Links Simple Explanation Commercial Products Wiki