Word: flywheel
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...year, the Rosens will have spent $13 million on their project. They expect to spend an additional $10 million to $15 million next year, nearly all of it from Ben's silicon-lined pockets. They also plan to begin selling their flywheel to utilities for stationary power generation next year. Says Ben: "By the end of next year, we will have generated enough risk reduction to seek external funding." Eventually they plan to sell shares to the public. They want to build their own plants to make their own power trains and sell them to car companies. In their vision...
...essence of the hybrid is that very little energy is wasted. Not only does the turbine re-spin the flywheel, but so does braking, which in today's cars produces energy that is lost. The same goes for fuel. With a catalytic "combustor" on the turbine that burns gas more efficiently, the power train will produce what is, by EPA standards, "zero emissions." According to the Rosens, the turbo-flywheel combination will at least double the gas mileage of the car in which it is used, produce a satisfying sound not unlike that of a Lear Jet (albeit far quieter...
That's one reason many competitors in the race for a new engine remain exceedingly dubious. "I consider Rosen Motors to be a very small part of the overall flywheel effort," says Joe Beno, program manager for the electric-vehicle program at the University of Texas at Austin, whose group will put a flywheel motor in a commercial bus in Houston next year. Kevin M. Myles, director of the electrochemical technology program at Argonne National Laboratory, who has done extensive work with alternative-fuel vehicles, doesn't think the Rosens have addressed the safety problems inherent in flywheels. A wheel...
...away the field in part because Harold and his team of engineers have solved a set of daunting technological issues just in the past year. Harold is, after all, a rocket scientist. For instance, he has been able to create and sustain a relatively pure vacuum in which the flywheel spins, using such exotic devices as molecular drag pumps and molecular sieves. A better vacuum means less friction, thus better spin. He also has been able to suspend the rapidly spinning flywheel in its unstable environment by using sophisticated gimbals and magnetic bearings--something very few, if any, other scientists...
This is not a vision that anyone in Detroit shares. Instead, the industry is working closely with Rosen competitors like U.S. Flywheel, Trinity Flywheel and Unique Mobility. That's a badge of honor to Harold and Ben, who are clearly thrilled to be working together. When they were younger, Ben was very much the little brother walking devotedly in the older brother's footsteps: he followed Harold to Cal Tech, and then to Raytheon Corp. in the 1950s, when Ben got his very first job working for his brother, building missiles. Their paths diverged when Ben went East...