Article-I.D.: <2564@mordor.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 10:08:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: mordor.2564
Posted: Tue Jul  9 10:08:47 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 10:46:58 EDT
Sender: daemon@mordor.UUCP
Lines: 21

From: DIETZ@RUTGERS.ARPA

I got some details from Argonne on that megnetically levitated loop
kinetic energy storage system.  The baseline system has a radius of
1 km, a velocity of 7 km/sec and a stored energy of 7000 megawatt hours
(about 5 kilotons).  The system uses a leviated superconducting coil;
there are severe cooling constraints.  An attractive maglev system using
radially stable vertically unstable attractive levitation is also mentioned.
It has a lower power density but seems more tractable, since the ring can
be at room temperature.

Aside from Lofstrom Loops, this technology seems directly applicable to
SDI.  Depending on your power extraction/conditioning equipment, one could
extract energy from the ring very quickly.  Dumping in 300 seconds gives
a power of some 80 gigawatts -- that will pump a BIG laser.  It might also
be useful for laser powered surface-to-orbit rockets.  The loop can also
containing ring segments, which can be accelerated like particles in
a synchrotron.  Since the velocity would be added to these pieces gradually
high efficiencies (95%?) should be possible, making the system (or a variant
using repulsive maglev) a candidate for use as a mass driver.
-------