Short Version: Read the 3rd paragraph

I'm a 4th year mechanical engineering student and have been researching emerging battery technology for the last two years. Over that time I have come up with some pretty revolutionary possibilities associated with flywheel energy storage units (FES) that have not been exploited. I am looking to at least develop functional prototypes to validate my calculations, but am also entertaining the idea of starting a few companies to commercialize the technology and their support industries. I am going to start with applications to NSF, Darpa, etc. but am looking for other ideas as well from this forum.

After synthesizing research and development done on electromechanical energy storage devices over the past decade, I have concluded that conventional batteries can be greatly improved upon. FES units have been used in the past as energy storage devices but have been limited due to their low efficiencies over long storage periods. With developments in supporting technologies over the past decade, this problem can be almost entirely mitigated. Low cost prototypes and not-so-advanced industrial units are being developed, but none that come close to pushing the limits of todays technology towards creating a superior consumer product.

Here is just one vivid example of their breakthrough potential. Although I am still working on optimizing their design with existing materials, by my calculations, these new high performance FES batteries should be capable of providing an electric vehicle with a 900 mile range (or conversely, save $3000-$5000 in costs for a shorter range, lighter model) and a 200,000 mile operational guarantee. There are several other private, public and military applications that I have thought of after realizing their improvement over conventional solutions.

Even more fun on the horizon: a nano based version of this technology should be able to increase the energy density of these units by another factor of 10 within the next decade or so, providing ample room for growth and further applications. Of course this is going to require a multi-million dollar research and development program, but hey, someone is going to do it eventually.

So after realizing all this I'm looking for ideas to expand upon the government solicitation applications I'm working on. Thanks!