CaptainPanic

Safety comes first... especially in places where flooding is a risk. Because flooding is a real risk that can completely destroy the buildings, people now realize that nature is a very good buffer to absorb water and slowly release it. The Netherlands is actively re-constructing nature (ok, I know that sounds stupid) to give the rivers more space. The Dutch are demolishing houses close to the rivers, and moving the dikes / levees away from the river to give it more space in case of high water.

Water holding capacity is important if you want to hold water. But what are we talking about? Soil again?

I guess you need a percentage, or a fraction? It is very important that you say if it is a volume% or mass%... makes a huge difference. In practical terms: Take the weight of the soil. Then add water, to fill up all the air pockets in the soil and measure how much water you use or take the weight again of the soil. (Hopefully the volume did not chance)... The water has a density of about 1 kg/liter... so if you know how much water is added, then you know how much volume is added... Until there it's the same for volume% and mass%, but after this it's different for both. [edit] OOPS - I just checked the date of the Opening Post - I guess we're a bit late with the answer? By now Tellie should be 4 years further in education And (s)he obviously never visits the forum anymore.

Turning it into a solid is easy: freeze it. the tricky part is dissolving it into water... that's just not going to happen. If you use eucalyptus oil in water, it forms a thin layer on top, and it does not dissolve. You should read the following wikipedia sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_oil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_globulus#Essential_Oil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cineole The cineole, also known as Eucalyptol, is insoluble in water. Often, solubility of a large organic molecule from biological origin can change its solubility as a function of the pH, but the absence of any functional groups (-COOH, -NH2, -OH) means that this cannot happen.

I will translate my question to the analogy of maintaining a nice yard. You have a lawn. In fact, let's make it a golf course. The green should have a preferred length of the grass of 2 cm (assumption, there are probably rules about this). So... do you cut it once per week? (a part-timer can do the work). Cut it every 2 days? (you need a full time employee) Or do you constantly have a lawnmower on all 18 greens? (you need 18 full time employees) Obviously, you cannot stop cutting the grass. Choosing better words I apologise for using the words "stop spending money". I'd like to correct this to either "stop spending more money" or "spend less money". Obviously, we do need some army, some police, and I do not want a complete anarchy... but I believe we're doing too much to solve a particular problem and too little for others. I need to pay attention on a science forum where people tend to take every word literally (as a good scientist does).

Economics First of all, the real calculations start after this paragraph. This paragraph is a bit of a test for me. It might contain mistakes. I just wish to learn about investment - I know little about it, but I have some ideas that need testing. I believe that wind power has an added value (saving the planet and humanity). Therefore, I think that we should look at the construction of wind power not from a point of view of competitiveness with fossil power, but from a point of view of a stand-alone investment. In addition, while fossil energy will cost money all the time for exploration, production, transportation and so on, wind electricity will have a certain pay-back time, and after that, its costs are greatly reduced (only maintenance). The total economics of any project are divided into operational costs and the initial investment. I believe that the initial investment for wind are higher, but the operational costs are lower when compared to fossil energy. Therefore, the longer the project runs, the cheaper it gets in comparison to fossil energy. I do note that I have no source for this comparison. I believe (but I have no source!) that most economic comparisons of sustainable power and fossil power are taking a relatively short life time of wind/solar into account... and that is why I just want to see how much it actually costs to get a 100% sustainable economy before 2020 from wind power. (Yes, I also know that it's a stupid idea to use only (100%!) wind - but it's just a lot easier to calculate, and the outcome is interesting I believe). Calculation 1. Energy consumption Netherlands http://www.milieuennatuurcompendium.nl/indicatoren/nl0201-Stroomdiagram-energie-voor-Nederland.html?i=6-40 2. Price windturbine (1998) http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/index.htm 3. Gross National Product Netherlands http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_landen_naar_bnp (1) Energy consumption The Total energy consumption in the Netherlands is 3311 PJ/year. 3311*10^15 / (365*24*3600) = 104*10^9 J/s Or: 104 GW. Assuming an average windturbine is 2 MW, and works about 30% of the time because of no wind or maintenance (0.6 MW average), then we need 173,000 turbines. With a total land surface of 44,000 km2, that is not unrealistic. (2) Let’s also assume: 1 kW windenergy = 1000 dollar (1998 price) Conversion to 2007 and euros: 1 kW = 1000 euro (2007: inflation but also economy of scale using larger than 2 MW turbines. The euro / dollar conversion is irrelevant because we will not purchase turbines in the USA). Unfortunately for this comparison, I cannot find how many years of maintenance are included, but the turbine companies give a few years of maintenance included in the price. Also, I do not have a decent estimate for wind turbine maintenance. The fact that turbines do not produce any power due to maintenance is included in (1). So, a turbine of 2 MW costs an estimated 2 million euro. So, 173,000 windturbines of 2 MW cost 346,000 million euro, or 346 billion euro. Energy storage costs money too: it doubles the price (assumption, no source). A lot of options are possible: from batteries and hydrogen to storage in artificial lakes both in the Netherlands or abroad. We will just assume it doubles the price. So, the total is now 692 billion euro. (3) The Gross National Product of the Netherlands is 630 billion euro (2005 estimate). So, until 2020 we have 12*630 = 7560 billion euro to spend (about). So, to replace all energy supply by windenergy before 2020, will cost 692/7560 =9.2% of our Gross National Product. The question is now: What happens to our lives if we actually do this? What does it mean if you apply this much money on 1 project? I don’t know, because I don’t really know what the money is spent on now, and what the effects would be on the economy. (In other words: I don't understand economy). Steel needed for all these windturbines Some people say that there is not enough steel for this massive plan. Including the gearbox and blades, I'm assuming that a windturbine is 100 tonnes, and is made of 100% steel... I did a simple estimate myself, but added a link to a relevant article in case anyone wants to do a detailed study of this [4]. Estimate: A wind turbine is 100 m high, 5 m wide at the base, and about 1.5 m at the top, and using 1 cm thick steel plating for the tower, you have an 80 ton tower. The blades are much thinner, and are actually not 100% steel. 173,000 windturbines of 100 ton each. Total need for steel: 17 million tonnes. In a 12 year period: On a yearly basis we will need: 1.4 million tonnes steel. Global steel production is: 900 million tonnes / year We will need 0.15% of the world’s steel production, for a period of 12 years. To put that in perspective: Netherlands has 0.26% of the world’s population. The Dutch steel mill “Corus” in IJmuiden yearly produces 7 million tonnes. Note that after the 12 years, even Corus’ steel production runs on wind energy! Railion (freight train company) yearly transports 125 million tonnes of steel through Europe. [4] Wind turbine weight. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V2Y-4M2XFD6-2&_user=198995&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000013938&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=198995&md5=6afd641bded8fe2f7d20ae92dc6a76f0 [5] Yearly production of steel (Corus / world) http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staal_(metaal) [6] Steel transport http://www.railion.nl/site/logistics/railion/railionnederland/nl/branchenkompetenz/montan/montan.html

"Feasible" in this case means "competitive with fossil energy" I guess? Because some people also look at "feasibility" from the perspective of "affordable". They see that sustainable energy has an added value compared to fossil energy (like "saving the planet and humanity" and stuff), and are realizing that this added value has to be compensated by a higher price. (And now, the only compensation is in the form of carbon-credits, which is not a lot of money). I believe that transforming to a completely sustainable economy is feasible. I also did a calculation on that once for the Netherlands... if about 9% of the gross national product until 2020 is spent on sustainable energy, then we're done - completely 100% sustainable forever. Is that feasible?

If you scale back your maintenance on sea defense, the chance on a disaster also increases, so I fail to see the difference. I view the war in Afghanistan as 100% war on terror, while the war in Iraq has an economic motivation, but has partially been sold to us to also help fight terror (not just in the USA, but definitely also in Europe, including my own little country (Netherlands)). I do see that expenses on anti-terror measures still increase, so I guess that it's not really helping so much. Our army, and I guess also the US army (I don't know), claim success though... and recently, there is less bad news from Afghanistan (and Iraq). Other anti-terror measures are: -More police (national prevention), and increased patrols or even permanent guarding of any possible target (and there are lots of those) -Security at airports, including the you-cannot-bring-liquids-but-lighters-are-OK -Security cameras in urban areas -Increased military expenses to replace equipment -Data logging, data analysis (financially cheap, expensive in loss of privacy - I know that this is hard to measure, subjective, and does not make the discussion easier) -New passports and laws requiring anyone to carry ID (so you lose it more often) -Doubling the size of the secret service (roughly doubled in the Netherlands, not sure how much the CIA's and secret polices increased lately in other countries) -demanding that companies increase their security at their own expenses -Physical barriers at the borders of Europe and the USA -Patrols at the borders Probably missed a few, and I admit that not all in this list are of equal importance... but that's the type of things I mean. I wrote: So, you do try to assess the effects of the measures you take, and you take those measures which have the greatest effect. Reduced measures means increased chance and possibly increased effect. But it would also free some resources to be used elsewhere. For example: if the allied forces leave Afghanistan, the terror threat will not be zero, but it will hopefully be reduced. Then at some point our governments will decide that it's no longer good value for the money, and they retreat. This will of course give the few terrorists that are left in Afghanistan more freedom, but the armies that are there now will be free to do good work elsewhere, and possibly even at home, to make people safe somewhere else. (Aren't the army engineers involved in the construction of sea defense in New Orleans?) Your last remark is in fact exactly why small robberies do go unsolved, or why police sometimes give up on a case. Now you may say that a small robbery is not such a big deal... I totally agree that quite a lot of effort has to be put into the arrest of a murderer. Police sometimes use teams of up to 50 people for weeks in a row to track down somebody. But at some point, enough is enough. You cannot use the entire army to track down a common serial killer. It would have to be the world's most wanted person (like Milosevic or Saddam). Risk in chemical industy In chemical industry, the risk assessment really does put a value on a human's life. Operators (humans), loss of equipment (factory), loss of production (revenue), pollution, are all part of the risk assessment. It's really hard to discuss this in class at university, and we had heated debates... but a chemical process just is not 100% safe, and somebody has to work there... when do you stop to make the process safer?

The last remark in Sayonara's post (before the merged post) above is quite the opposite of the point I keep trying to make. There are people who are quite in the middle of reality... and see real dangers in this world which are not receiving the attention they should while too much money is being spent on the prevention of a problem which is not there which is overestimated. While it is true that individual people would like to see every risk removed so that they are guaranteed that they'll eventually die of old age, and nothing else, governments cannot think in such terms. Governments must use resources to tackle the biggest issues which will have the biggest effect. The Dutch have stopped investing heavily in sea-defense, because (in most parts) the chance of a flood has been reduced to less than once per 10000 yrs. At some point, you have to stop with prevention, and use your resources for a better purpose. We could build a sea wall of twice the height... but it's not necessary. Finally, I realize that I wrote that we should neglect terrorism altogether. That might have confused people. What I meant is that we should consider it the threat that it really is. And in my calculating way of thinking, that does mean a simple risk assessment. Risk = chance * effect Compare that to a number of other risks, and determine the biggest risk. Then you look at the price of prevention, and make a cost benefit analysis. And if I do that, I find that we're spending way too much on terror-prevention.

I think it's cheaper to put a solar panel on a roof than over a road. That's because buildings on which the solar panels are placed generally will not move at 100 km/h. I once compared the area in the Netherlands with buildings with the area needed to replace all Dutch electricity consumption. Conclusion: filling up 65% the roofs of houses is enough to replace 100% of the electricity consumption. If you use all buildings then this is even less than 50%. Calculation follows below with references (links). Calculation: The total energy consumption of the Netherlands (2006) was 120 TWh, or almost 14 GW [2]. solar panels are assumed to convert 10% of the sun's energy into electricity (new panels can do 15% I believe, but let's be a bit conservative). Source [3] shows the average insolation (radiation from the sun) in Europe. Amsterdam gets 2.27 kWh/m2/day. That is an average (24 hrs average) of 95W. The panels convert 10% into electricity, so that is 9.5 W/m2. To generate 14 GW with 9.5 W/m2 means we need about 1400 square kilometers (km2). The total surface in the country for housing is 2218 km2. The total built environment is even 3096 km2. And the total surface of the country is about 44000 km2 (so, yes, our country is quite full). [1] http://www.milieuennatuurcompendium.nl/indicatoren/nl0201-Stroomdiagram-energie-voor-Nederland.html?i=6-40 [2] http://www.energie.nl/ [3] http://www.apricus.com/html/insolation_levels_europe.htm [4] http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/natuur-milieu/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2003/bodemgebruik-in-nederland-geharmoniseerd-met-top10vector.htm - click the Excel sheet at the bottom (all in Dutch) [5] http://www.herbergpv.nl/kosten.htm Note that electricity consumption will go up with the use of electric cars... which is obviously not yet included here.

(Apologies for length) A few times I heard that “damaging the economy for decades” is something that can be caused by terrorism. Yet, the current economic crisis… That is pretty much what I was thinking would be the main response here. People are assuming that: 1. Taliban or other groups are actually are capable of developing the same weapons that the world’s main powers developed… or at least able to obtain them somewhere. 2. That they’re able to travel across the world with it. 3. That the current security checks and bombings in Afghanistan are able to stop them. In fact, people are not only assuming this, but from the replies here, I get the idea that they get a bit pissed off if you don’t agree with these points (does that mean it’s like a religion, and not science?)… Personally I doubt points 1 and 3. 1. Taliban are mostly interested in suppressing the local population into the Sharia (fundamentalist islam law). The majority is illiterate (!). The type of weapons that kill millions are actually pretty hard to make, and require a lot of resources and organization. 2. Anyone can travel anywhere with enough money. And anyway, the biggest threat does not necessarily come from a Muslim from the Middle East. 3. There is overwhelming evidence that practically anything can be smuggled to anywhere, despite all security. In fact, nature can make diseases that are capable of wiping out continents. However, the budget of the research being done in this field is totally negligible compared to the war(s?) on terrorism. What of global warming? We might say that both terrorism and global warming pose quite a serious threat. Both are caused by mankind. Both will have uncertain consequences. But I'm sure that the war on terror receives more money. (And I actually think that global warming can be far more devastating on the long term). Well… that’s my point: With the current 6,700,000,000 people on earth, and an idealized life expectancy of 80 yrs, an average of 84 million people die every year from any cause (I guess mostly disease, hunger, war and old age). The economic crash that you mention will come from an emotional outburst where people just stop thinking rational. World War II devastated a number of continents, and that took about a decade to rebuild. One city is a bad thing, no doubt… but still no big deal for humanity or the world’s economy… unless everybody just panics. If the world population as a whole stops going to work... then yes. The economic crisis following 9/11 was caused by a panic reaction on stock markets, not by actual economic loss of value. Earthquakes and hurricanes can have a similar effect. Except that people don’t panic, but actually unite and help. Sounds stupid, but a good disaster can actually give a boost to the economy. I agree. This is the issue. Mostly emotional. People read in the newspaper, and extrapolate. Another reason to ignore it. If even your neighbour can be a terrorist, then surely you cannot defend against it. I’m not saying that you should be handing out knives to strangers in the streets and tell them you’re loaded with cash… I am saying that you must look at statistics, and feel safe. We do enter a time indeed where dirty bombs, bio- and nerve agents are used... we're have been living in such a period for the last couple of decades, and we did see a few horrible acts. People seem to forget that humanity has suffered from much worse things and has practically ignored it. Tsunami’s, earthquakes, wars… generally most effects are gone in a decade. I say: accept to lose an entire city every now and then. Realize that there exist hundreds of large cities, and that therefore even if a large city is hit with devastating effects, then still the effect is negligible and insignificant. Katrina was also insignificant enough. What kind of budget has been allocated to prevent it from happening again? Compare that to the budget allocated to the war in Afghanistan (and Iraq, although I believe that's for oil). For crying out loud, natural disasters are part of life, and people accept it. It's just not rational to live in Los Angeles or San Francisco and be afraid of terrorism while you're sitting on an active fault line.

I believe that the whole issue is that it's not such great business to sell internet... There is real competition (as in: more than 5 companies on the market), and the profit margin isn't very large (because they're cutting each other's throat - which is great for the consumer). So, I vote that we just give the managers some big bonus. He doesn't have to do anything for it. Just collect some... eeh... what is "enough" for a modern manager? 50 million euro? Let's all put 10 cents in the bag, and give it to the big chief. Then we can continue business as usual, manager gets bonus, we get our neutral net, everybody happy. In fact, this could be a business model in many other cases. Give a manager a bonus for not doing something. I mean - in the end, the big guy gets the bonus anyway. So, if we just guarantee the bones, regardless of the job he does, then at least they cannot screw it up by stupid short-term thinking. Obviously, destroying the net neutrality will only inspire the construction of a new internet. Such naive ideas can only come from top-managers who need to secure their 2009 bonus.

The most important thing that you should realize about terrorists: they're insignificant. Airplanes are considered incredibly safe, yet in the Western countries more people die in aircrashes than from terrorism. So stop being so paranoid, and stop investing so much money in prevention, and in stead invest it in things that DO matter. Don't worry and ignore the media (or at least, when you see how many people die in this-and-this attack - realize that there are almost 7 billion people on earth). In numbers: total deaths in Western countries from terrorism: about 5000 in the last 10 years? That's 3000 in the twin towers, some in Madrid, some in London, and another 1000 in places I never heard of. Note that I exclude Iraq, Afghanistan and a few more countries where they have a war going on. In western countries, there are an (estimated) 800,000,000 people. Odds that you die from terrorism in the next 10 years: 0.0006%... Even if it was a hundred times more, then still, I don't think we should invest so much money and manpower in the prevention. I believe that you can include China, India and South America in this equation as well... but I'm less well-informed about those regions. Who cares if another attack happens? I mean, nobody cares if the flu claims another 1000 victims this winter? That doesn't make headlines. But if someone, anywhere in the world, blows himself up, we almost always hear about it. My neighbour might die in a car crash, and I won't hear about it. Some Afghan dude attempts to kill a soldier, but in stead only kills himself, and it's front page news. Weird world. The main argument that I am expecting here is: "yes, but you don't know how many attacks there would have been if we hadn't invaded the Middle East and constructed all our security measures". And indeed, I hope that you will discuss this issue: is it worth the investment? And shouldn't we invest this enormous amount of money in something else?

There is a reason why one of the few applications that actually run on a spring is a clock (wristwatch, and other clocks). The electric versions of those run for 4 years on a tiny battery. In other words: they use almost no energy at all (much less than 1 watt)... and the spring is adequate for the job.

Why not put the solar panels next to the road? The world ins't that full yet that we have to optimize things that much. How would you transfer the electricity to the cars? With a system like the bumper cars, or overhead cables? Perhaps it's a good idea to cover existing overhead cables of trains with solar panels. The steel structures are already in place, and maintenance is easier because of train schedules (often tracks are hardly used at night - making it accessible for maintenance). But again, it might be easier to place the solar panels next to the tracks. I'd be worried about short-circuiting. Do you know how often the overhead cables of trains are broken (lightning, trees falling)? The traffic problems would be unimaginable. Not one car that stops, but the whole traffic system can come to a halt in a thunderstorm When trains stop running, the train company can use buses... but with cars, even if you can arrange another form of transportation, people might be reluctant to leave their cars behind.

Big Brother isn't watching, but it's recording everything to be analyzed when needed. (Storing data is no problem, but I think that still analyzing all the junk is quite an issue.)

Photosynthesis? When a plant grows, it consumes water and CO2, to produce glucose and oxygen: [ce]6CO2 + 6H2O -> C6H12O6 + 6O2[/ce] The reaction has been happening for hundreds of millions of years, and you can investigate it without safety goggles or a fume hood.

Hmm... my previous post could have been better. Let me try again. First of all: "In thermodynamics, the term exothermic (literally meaning "outside heating") describes a process or reaction that releases energy [...]". Since hell is neither a process or reaction, but can be considered (in chemical terms) a substance, the words exothermic or endothermic already do not apply. In an easy example: consider the combustion of methane. CH4 + 3 O2 --> CO2 + 2 H2O I say that the reaction is exothermic. Other people seem to imply that CO2 and H2O are exothermic (since they give off the heat?) I think we can agree that it is the reaction that gives off the heat. Consider a compressor, and a gas cylinder. The compressor pushes gas into the cylinder. The cylinder will heat up. Is the cylinder exothermic? I do not think so. In fact, I doubt that the compressor can be considered exothermic or endothermic. The reaction that powers the compressor is what is exothermic or endothermic.

Go green by: 1. Saving energy. Energy that you do not use is greener than the greenest energy that has to be produced. 2. Get a bike, and use it for trips up to 5 km (unless you live in a big city where that would be suicidal - then take the public transportation). 3. Stop accepting the plastic bags at shops. Bring your own bag. 4. Take a shorter shower. Hot water is one of the biggest energy consumers in a household (and nobody seems to realize that). Just a few points, there are many more. Buying things (consuming) is not very green in any way... the greenest thing is not to consume, unless you need it. And save energy... that's so much more important than people think. But of course, eco friendly products will simply have a logo, because it's an interesting marketing strategy. Just look on the products if they're eco-ish.

It's not (freaking) true or real, because it contains mistakes (or at least a creative use of the words exothermic and endothermic), and therefore I'd doubt that anyone would get an A for it. I've also tried to get a good grade wit a good joke. But a good professor only gives good marks for good answers, not funny answers. As I wrote before, the terms exothermic and endothermic relate to chemical reactions, and the funny answer by the "student" discusses expansion and/or compression. So, if you are going to translate it, please also correct it. You can get an A+ for it Sorry for a serious post here... but this is a science forum after all.

Microreactors are needed for some applications... pharma might need them sometimes. And perhaps many small scale reactors can do the same as one large one... at least, that's what I've understood from the microreactor researchers: they want many cheap microreactors in parallel. As far as I know, microreactors are being stirred (sometimes) in funny ways. Spinning disc reactors have two oppositely spinning discs. The liquid is sandwiched in between. This seems like a more simple concept to scale up (scaling up by building more in parallel). Of course you can just mix with convection and turbulence, using a pump. (Perhaps we should move this to a chemistry or engineering subforum?)

That post is a lot better than all the others you wrote in this thread... finally some constructive comments. Hypothetical questions still need answers, and I wouldn't be surprised if this forum is actually visited by actual NASA employees, so this might just be the right place to ask these questions... and anyway, if we would not think about hypothetical issues, we'd probably still live in caves. And anyway, I wouldn't leave this to NASA: they'd make a 100 million, 10 year project out of it... but it would have a cool acronym Which is why we will now try to find a cheap solution (cheaper than an airplane that has to be modified... I doubt that you want to simply open the door at >10 km altitude). If Christiana doesn't read the answers, then it's still fun to post, and secondly, somebody might just google this thread and use the results. On topic: Would it be possible to have a pressure-triggered system for opening and closing? I imagine a piston with a gas inside at pressure lower than 1 bar. When the balloon goes up, the air pressure outside the piston reduces, and the gas inside the piston is allowed to expand, moving the piston. This should open the sample container in the stratosphere, and also close it again when it descends.

This seems like an invention that might have interesting applications in chemical reactor engineering. (The effect is purely physics though, which is why I posted here). A thin liquid film is subjected to two perpendicular electric fields. This causes the film to rotate. I will just link to the sources for more explanation, because I don't quite understand it myself. - Original article (.pdf), titled "A liquid film motor" - Decent summary which links to the original article. I think it could be great to be able to stir a reactor without having any moving parts (other than the liquid itself). What other applications can you think of? This post is more a "for your information" kind of post. I don't have any question or discussion points. It's just cool, and I wanted to share this. Be sure to check the movies of the experiments here. p.s. I found this article through slashdot, which I'm sure you all know already.

I know and I agree. I was just explaining the concept in simple wording, because some people might not understand what we're talking about. Step 1: explain concept. Step 2: explain problems challenges. 2. Challenges As npts and others wrote, there are already a lot of good reasons (mentioned in this thread) not to use the flywheel in a car. In practice a flywheel will only be worth its weight in any type of traffic that slows down and speeds up a lot. The weight of the flywheel should be low, and it's maximum velocity high, so that you don't carry around a lot of extra weight, but you're still able to store a significant portion of the vehicle's kinetic energy... but you will carry around extra weight. That gyroscope issue could be a challenge, but I don't think so... cars only make (sharp) corners in one plane (on the flat surface of the earth), so if the axis of the flywheel is completely vertical, you won't notice any effect. There are of course exceptions to this, which must be taken into account (some funky mountain roads perhaps). In a crash, I think we could have a challenge problem. The flywheel really contains a lot of kinetic energy (the same as the moving car), so that has the potential to do a lot of damage if it goes out of control. We all know how much damage a speeding car do... and the flywheel will have the same energy (only it spins, and does not have any linear motion - does that make it any safer?). In short: car manufacturers consider safety first, and efficiency second... and I don't think we'll be seeing flywheels in cars soon. Flywheels are used, but not so much in cars... and not at all in normal road cars. I'm no mechanical engineer, and I am not able to explain it any better than wikipedia.

We do put the date first, then the month. But we refer to the event of planes crashing into two buildings as nine-eleven... Also, we call McDonalds a restaurant... even though it sells things you can get in a snackbar. Marketing. It's all marketing. Repeat the message, and people adopt it.