Flywheels
by Peter Holmes

Introduction
The successful and efficient storage of energy has long been a goal of engineers and scientists and the search for new techniques has certainly been accelerated by the predicted end of the era of ‘easy’ energy from naturally-occurring oils. It is not that energy storage is a new concept, however.
It began on a large scale with the development of agriculture and the production of crops for storage between harvests. These crops represented the energy that was stored to feed the human population, as well as their draught animals – oxen, horses, donkeys, etc-throughout the year.
Increasing mechanisation led to the use of water power and the creation of water storage - dams, lakes, ponds, pools - to even out the supply of water. As the power demanded from such installations grew, water supplies were insuffi cient and, in the early part of the industrial revolution in Britain, steam engines were used to pump water back into the storage reservoirs in order to keep the water wheels turning.

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