Many years ago I serviced by hardware backup to tech support and
software and applications to a large computer company 'up north'.

They had a bedroom sized stone flywheel that continuously runs under
power and it in turn drives a alternator for the equipment floor.

The power company could switch taps and such - this would cause havoc
in the labs - until the flywheel was installed.

The engineering teams were positioned on a diagonal from the axis -
just in case it went rolling through the wall or flying end over end.

That was one impressive stone!
It was the best power in the state. Never missed a half cycle or
brownout. The flywheel kept on trucking.

Martin

Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:07:28 -0500, the infamous "Martin H. Eastburn"
scrawled the following:

If you consider what a bad bearing could do - freeze a shaft and blow up
the motor physically. Flywheel jerking around as a bearing grips and lets
go... Flywheel explodes.

I used to work for Palomar Technology in Carlsbad, CA back when they
were being purchased by SKF. We built vibration monitoring and
inspecting equipment to detect bearing failure prior to it happening.
Another good flak-causing explosion would be a 30' turbine blade at
the local electric generation plant. We wondered if pieces would hit
in Vista if it blew at the SDG&E's Encina Power Plant in Carlsbad.
But PT Vibralogs were showing the bearings to be sound, so we slept at
night. g

Once SKF took over, the corporate feel crept in, Dilbert reared his
ugly head, and they moved the shop to Sandy Eggo (well, Clairmont
Mesa/Little Vietnam.) I bailed with an early retirement package and
started DIVERSIFY! rather than start commuting 3 hours a day for a
$10/hr job. Feh!

--
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and
impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
-- Joseph Addison, 'Cato'