How 40-Ton Spinning Wheels Are Saving the Power Grid
How a Mechanical Battery Could Prevent Deadly Blackouts
When Spain's power grid failed on April 28th, 2025, it quickly became a very serious issue. Not only for the economic impacts, but life-or-death serious due to multiple, indirect deaths associated to the blackout. Emergency services, transportation, communication and other vital services were halted during this power outage.
Not only did it blackout Spain, it also hit Portugal, parts of France and Morocco.
But here's the thing … the UK went through something very similar back in 2019. The difference is: they've already figured out how to stop it from happening again.
Spoiler: it involves 40 metric ton flywheels. Lots of them.
We've covered flywheels before. But there's a wild new use case involving technology originally designed for space lasers. Yeah, you heard that right.
Correction
Shortly after the video's release, Salt Lake City International Airport reached out to me stating that they are not using or are affiliated with Torus. Since then I've been in contact with both Torus and SLC Airport and it appears to have been a communications issue.
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Chapters
- 00:00 - Intro
- 02:59 - The UK's Solution
- 06:01 - Where Are They Now?
- 08:35 - Space Lasers to Port Cranes
- 10:33 - The Catch
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