1) (This is for Dave Santos, since he likes complicated stuff that "may" someday have a place in AWE:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkdfJ9PkRQ
reminds me of something, not sure what...

2) Upcoming Space Elevator Conference
http://spaceelevatorconference.org/default.aspx
For you tether freaks, they will discuss tethers...

:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com
ever heard the expression:
"Go Fly a Kite"?
:)))

Dear Dave,

Hi David C:
You're right, I need a business partner.
What you call "negative energy", however, is me trying to give others a heads-up. I'm confirming what one person here has surmised: that the highly-connected and the already-highly-funded will get the grants. They are the ones with the money and time to waste on the paperwork. They are the ones that the reviewers will subconsciously find reasons to get behind, since it's always easier to go with the herd than to rise above it.

They just want to have an excuse when the idea doesn't work out: "Well they were funded by Google". They just need that excuse, and that excuse is not as easy to come up with if they ever went out on a limb and just found an independent inventor with a promising idea and funded that inventor.

Instead they expect that independent inventor to compete with Google in ability/desire to drown in paperwork in a hoop-jumping frenzy to convince people who are too busy to listen of simple facts. meanwhile that independent inventor has already run the gauntlet of paperwork to get the ideas patented. The patent depository is supposed to be our national treasure-trove of workable technology, and yet it is mostly ignored. They should be exploring all the relevant Official U.S. Patents and contacting the inventors, not passively demanding reams of paperwork that they will never read.

All I'm talking about here is facts. Like I try to warn people away from proven bad wind turbine designs, to save them repeating past mistakes, it can be a thankless task to warn people away from what they perceive as desirable.

Hey this is not about me, this is about "global warming" this is about "peak oil". This is about the impending doom of the human race, or so we're told. Do you believe all this, about the global warming? Do you believe the world will warm so much we all die, as we go forward?
Then you should take what I say seriously and not try to change the subject, which is clean energy breakthroughs that are here and not being pursued at all while they say they are working as hard as humanly possible on it.

How does this sound for future history?
"Well back in the early 21st century, when humankind almost blinked out of existence due to a lack of clean energy, there actually WAS a solution right in the patent literature, in magazines and even on Discovery Channel - and records show that it was in fact put in front of the agencies in charge of developing clean energy solutions, but a technical reviewer said the inventor didn't write a good enough "business plan". He was too busy inventing and filing patents and building prototypes and, well, running his business... (and posting on the web - ahem!) So the solution was never developed".

There, how does that sound in big-picture retrospect? Where's the excuse? Notice there isn't any excuse, other than blaming the ignored inventor. Is blaming someone who invented the solution a valid excuse for the end of the world? The guy with the solution was too busy inventing to write hypothetical business plans all day every day? Does it sound like anyone is serious about finding a solution? Maybe these people don't even really believe in global warming. Did you ever think of that? Maybe they know, deep down, that if they fail, nothing will happen, so that's why they "only work 8-hour days". Hey it's just a job - a paycheck and a retirement. That's why they don't really care about anything but making sure they will have another excuse. Because they know, deep down, they really don't need results. They just need an excuse. And so they go after what they really need. More excuses.

I mean, is this the end of the world or not? Remember the Manhattan Project? Did they "only work 8-hour days"? Because that's how important it was? mmmm-hmmmm... Do 8-hour days jive with an end-of-world scenario?
Is there something wrong with this picture?

Now let's get to the meat of what you say:
You say you are defending ARPA-E and your reason is they only work 8-hour days. Thanks for agreeing with me. You have provided a predicted excuse. "Only 8-hour days". There's no limit to the number of these excuses. "We were overwhelmed" "This has been a learning experience"... That's why I say:
"Almost Ready to Produce Another - Excuse", and you saved them the effort, producing "another excuse" FOR them. 8-hour days... who knew?
Probably no weekends too, huh? Because this is the most important thing mankind is doing, right? A world emergency. 8-hour days. uh-huh...

Please let's review the supposed context for all this:
We've got a "national emergency" - no wait, a "world emergency", of "Peak Oil", combined with "Global Warming", and we're told that the world as we know it is literally going to end if we don't solve these dual problems with a clean energy solution. The world is hoping the U.S. will solve the problem. ARPA-E is created as a "pull out all the stops" agency. "We are finally serious about exploring promising new solutions". And then you come along and get them off the hook:
"Well they only work 8-hour days".

Well OK fine then. They only work 8-hour days. Figure out how to spend your time.
Look up how many different or alternative turbine designs NREL has explored in all its years of existence, and with all those decades of multi-million dollar budgets, and the number is maybe 1 or 2, basically a couple of vertical-axis turbines that were already known to be not-so-great. That's a lack of imagination. "Too busy", "upcoming vacation", "gotta go to a conference", "We'll issue another solicitation for proposals in another year or two"... again, no end to the excuses.

I remember when my patents were first filed. I expected NREL to contact me when the application was first published, if not before, assuming they were all serious about this advanced turbine stuff, monitoring the patent system, and pursuing new ideas at least insofar as contacting the innovators. You know, like they were EAGER to TRY new things, not like they had to be convinced against their will...

However I grew to learn that no such outreach program exists. No program to monitor the patents and pursue new ideas therein is even on the radar screen. It's not proactive, but reactive.

And what I realized is that it's not a lack of money holding any of us back, it's our own lack of focus. I make more progress WITHOUT the grants. One can build small prototypes that prove a concept for a pittance. For less than the cost of submitting a grant proposal, you can probably build whatever you want to build and prove it in the same time you can beat your head against the wall trying to convince a bureaucracy, with page after page of forms. And if you DO ever get a real wind turbine model in production, you'll find that refining it is a full-time job. Customers will expect reliability, which is not as easy as it sounds to achieve. You never needed the grant, you needed to get a product out there and make it reliable.

Anyway, hey these guys at Kleiner seemed OK. They were nice enough guys. I'm just saying they are spending millions on wind energy ideas that I know are not the right way to go at all, and they don't seem to comprehend why the idea is a bad one if you talk right to them personally. And before that I saw them funding other ideas that my diligence says are not fruitful. And now I see ARPA-E acting just like their predecessors: a wall of bureaucracy too high to easily climb, and most likely not worth it to try. Money being wasted on a grand scale while the true solutions are completely ignored because the people promoting them are not already at the top of the heap.

OK gotta get back to work myself before I succumb to "the all-talk format" so common in this "industry".
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com
<brawk!

Believe me, I am sympathetic. Your frustration is warranted. But you clearly suffer from inventor's disease: you are confusing how the world actually works from the way you believe it should work. There is both beauty and tragedy in this. The beauty is your vision, and your inspiration to make it real. The tragedy is the tremendous gap between what you legitimately want and what actually is.

The world moves slowly. But there are some crisis-driven exceptions: Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin, 1973 oil crisis, 9/11. Value-driven change, on the contrary, is sloooooooow.

The most successful gov't funding efforts I've witnessed employ lobbyists. By that I don't mean fat-cat wine and dine, under the table, free opera ticket lobbying. I mean that somebody got on a plane to the funding agency, multiple times, and got to know people. They spent some time, sometimes a couple of years, getting to know what the agency wanted, and then helped influence the "want" process, while at the same time tuning the proposal(s) to better suit the pick list. Even this approach is far from 100% effective, but the odds improve significantly.

VCs fund in herds, and they fund by target market. If you are outside their market they won't fund you, no matter how cool your technology is. You can beat them up all day about lost opportunities or how great your stuff is. That doesn't matter.

Makani put together a great team to attack a technology that is near and dear to all of us, Loyd's vision for crosswind kite power. Be nice to them, please. Some of them are surely listening, though not participating. Their experience will benefit all of us.

Cheers,

David

--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, "DavidC" <david@... years, getting to know what the agency wanted, and then helped influence the "want" process, while at the same time tuning the proposal(s) to better suit the pick list. Even this approach is far from 100% effective, but the odds improve significantly.
=====================
That describes the steps of the JoeBen flow and also the SWP team pathing.
JoeF

daveS,

Good points all, except for the paid agent part. Overfinancing and hubris seem to go hand-in-hand. History is paved with the bodies of companies who were well-financed and then blew it on art and furniture. Your insight has value as a cautionary tale.

I've weathered six startups in my decades as a design engineer. A lot of the skin you see on the pavement is mine, though not in wind energy until recently. As a windy newbie, I give the entrepreneur the benefit of the doubt. Maybe after a bit longer I'll feel the same way you guys feel about Makani.

More important, as we all know, is getting this AWE baby launched. I am very interested in your comment about "flygen." But that awaits another, more appropriate thread.

Cheers,

DavidC

In a precedent post I pointed the excessive tip speed of blades aloft for Makani M1 according to a configuration for 1 MW with wind speed is 9 m/s.It is not a critic towards Makani which researches are on a good field,but only a trial to see on what basis (wind speed) M1 can work with efficiency.

It is difficult to say an AWECS is better than another (as ground wind turbines are now on a single standard) because uses and parameters are quite different and various at least in regard to the worked altitude.So different AWECS can exist for production.

My idea is a commercial development of a low cost crosswind energy kite with manual control like FlygenKite (model airplane) can help launching AWE industries.Furthering automatic flygens under 500 ft like FlygenKite .For higher altitudes flygens are perhaps less adapted and one can prefer reel-out/in like KiteGen Stem if  solutions for smooth electrical production are found.For massive production farms of reel-out/in or KiteGen carousel or perhaps OrthokiteBunch .For jet stream Sky WindPower (flygen autogiro),or Sky Mill Energy (reel-out autogiro) or RotoKite (reel-out opposite kites working a little like a soft autogiro):indeed high wind speeds do not allow crosswind kites,and at stronger reason crosswind flygens.

PierreB

http://flygenkite.com

  

 

Hey David:
No I don't suffer from any "inventor's disease".
But maybe if you do suffer from I.D. you should try Viagra.

Hey, nice, another excuse for the agencies which is their stock in trade. "Inventors' Disease!" I've never heard of it!
But for excuse-makers, you've reached the pinnacle. When all else fails, "It's a disease".
"Why didn't you fund SuperTurbine(R)?" "Oh the inventor had inventor's disease"...
We learned in elementary school that the best excuse of all is a note from the nurse.

I'm inventing, patenting, building and testing prototypes.
That's not a disease, that's what these agencies say they will do.
They say it, while people like me DO it.

The ones with the disease are the ones who don't do what they say.
Again, I'm just trying to warn people of many simple facts in wind energy and thinking the agencies and their grants are your way out of "sitting in a chair doing nothing" disease.

They are not. Most likely they will keep you in that chair wasting say a half year's worth of otherwise productive energy. Do you run to the welfare office, or the unemployment office when you're looking for a job? No most people bypass the bureaucracy because they see it as a dead end.
But in something like this that sounds so sexy, like a moth being tricked to think a light bulb is the light of day, futilely banging into that light bulb, you will bang into the bureacratic grant process never knowing you are being enticed by a source that will not bear fruit for you but instead sap all your strength til you fall exhausted to the floor.

I was out last night flying a new kind of rotor. Took a few hours to make. Today it's windy and I'll try it again and adjust a few things. Just imagine if I were convinced I could not just do this with my hands, and instead had to construct an elaborate program and then get it approved by the government? Instead of just making blades in a few minutes, why I might hire an aerodynmicist to design them and some contractor to make them, and a year later I might be ready to learn what I can learn here in a day! Instead of taking them outside in our great wind resource, I might be convinced I needed to book time in a wind tunnel! I could be spending $1 million instead of $10 to learn the same thing.

By the way, the disease you may be referring to is officially called C.S.I.S. : (Can't Stop Inventing Shit). And the term C.S.I.S. is one more thing I invented!
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.flyingwindturbine.com
P.S. Thanks for the compliment on having inventors disease. But the proper term is CSIS, not I.D.

Beware of using gearboxes where high amounts of power (over 1MW) is concerned .  .  .  . gearboxes involve weight and expense
 
 
 
Harry
 

---

To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: santos137@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 14 May 2011 06:15:13 -0700
Subject: [AWECS] Curious Ultra-High RPM Rotary Tether Finding

 

C.S.I.S., an invention by Doug Selsam       "Can't Stop Inventing Stuff" or something.

In AWE there is also:
CSIKES  (cannot stop inventing kite-energy systems, invented by JpF, following Doug's lead.)

Consider the very shroud of a rotary cable or tube
as a stator with the cable as rotor
to have the tether itself as an electric generator.      JpF        May14, 2011    

Joe,
 
           You continue to amaze me as you constantly turn turn darkness into light.
 
                                                                                             Dan'l

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: joefaust333@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 14 May 2011 15:32:18 +0000
Subject: [AWECS] Re: ARPA-E Inquiry

 

C.S.I.S.! I got it, duly credited.

It is nice to be able to flaunt my ignorance in this forum without getting shot down too badly.

Cheers,

DavidC

Actually the electrical production in KiteGen Stem suffers of two types of intermittence: one when the kite change the transverse direction, and the other when the cables have to be reeled in.
However, an efficient solution has been found, and is based on a supercapacitor buffer. It is also to be said that if you install several KiteGen Stem, the electrical production will be smoothed by combining the output of the plants. Finally, is it so important that the electrical production is smooth?

Nearly all schemes (except KiteGen Carousel and some schemes with autogyro) comprising crosswind flygens suffer of at least one type of intermittence:"one when the kite change the transverse direction...".For the other type of intermittence "when the cables have to be reeled in" effectively with "several KiteGen Stem,the electrical production will be smoothed by combining the output of the plants",so supercapacitor buffer can be reduced.

PierreB  

The big problem with all wind energy systems is that sometimes it blows
too fast and often it blows too slowly. This is the major issue, even at
high altitude. To overcome this problem we need systems to store in the
order of a week's average energy supply. Compared to this requirement,
the few minutes needed to rewind a winch are trivial. I have an idea
that could deliver this level of energy storage for a realistic price so
I am not at all concerned whether our AWE systems deliver smooth or
intermittent power.

Even without the new battery I am working on intermittent power delivery
is still not a problem. If your wind generator is connected to the grid,
the grid can supply the rewind power. If you are off-grid you need a
battery anyway - because it is not always blowing when you need the
power.

Robert.

Temporary storage (some minutes) is not a big problem but is an element of global cost.An interesting advice from Stephan Wrage and Stephan Brabeck Wind energy plant with a steerable kite - Patent 7504741:
"The device according to the invention, in particular the two particularly advantageous embodiments described in the foregoing, can be further developed in the form of a device for converting into constant energy the cyclical energy produced by the energy converter, the device being one or more of the following: a flywheel, a pressure reservoir, a hoisting device for temporary storage of energy in a hoisted mass, at least one capacitor and/or at least one battery. In many applications, the energy provided by the device according to the invention and which is characterized by cyclical variation, on the one hand, due the cyclical alternation between veering out and hauling in the load cable, and on the other hand by variations in the tensile force or veering speed of the load cable, will not be suitable for feeding it directly into a local or public power grid, or suitable in some other way for being passed on or consumed in this varying form. For this reason, an important development of the device according to the invention is to convert the cyclical energy supply to a constant energy supply by various means. The different means for making the energy constant must be appropriately selected according to the specific application, form of energy and investment volume."

For bigger storage (a week),see also +++++ Des éoliennes marines ancrées sur une base en béton ... (first part in French language,video and comments on schema in English language) on underwater pumped storage.

AWE can become a major component of energy mix coupled with a good storage device:off shore AWECS with pumped storage could be studied.

PierreB 

If you have an economical method of electric energy storage, you don't need to associate it with unknown technologies like AWE.
You are an instant billionaire.

You can find a ready market for your advanced energy storage system in UPS installations, then storing cheap night-time power for resale during the day. you'll be powering everything from flashlights to cel phones to computers to the entire grid!

I would contact EverReady in South Africa and see if they are interested. They also produce a working wind turbine.

The demand for such an energy storage system worldwide is HUGE. And in fact if you DID have such an effective energy storage system, it would make AWE that much LESS relevant since we would have so much more power from existing sources with all that night-time power that is now "thrown away" being available during the day.

This statement that "all we need" is a new energy storage system to simply "store a week's worth of power" (trivial of course!) and then AWE will be facilitated (we solved the only problem!) is just the reason why this nascent art will remain forever in the all-talk format as long as this mindset remains.

No Robert, you probably don't have such a means to store that much energy economically. That sounds like a fantasy. "Oh sure, I can easily sovle this intractable problem as soon as I reveal my enabling solution to this OTHER intractable problem!"

And if you do, congratulations as your invention will revolutionize the world, making electric vehicles suddenly affordable and economical, with the electricity produced at night by nukes that do not like to be powered down during times of less demand but are better left running at a single high output level that does not change.

In my "Tutorial for NASA" I warned against exactly this misplaced idea, that somehow one might "change the subject" of AWE, substituting "advanced power storage" for "producing wind energy", leaving the real work in developing the AWE system as suddenly trivial, and refocusing attention on a search for a better battery.

Well guess what? After you're done developing your better battery, the challenges of AWE will not have changed: you need something that works, and not only works, but works economically and reliably.

Again, this misguided diversion from the stated challenge of AWE to peripherally-related issues such as power storage is rife in the world of newbie wind energy "innovators". In fact I think I've heard it 1000 times in the world of regular wind turbines. "All the problems will just disappear as soon as my revolutionary power storage system is developed!" Yup at least 1000 times. The last one was a "urine battery". they get all excited about their breakthrough then when you check back in 10 years they are still at the same place - hypothesizing about their simple new battery and 100 other half-thought-through would-be solutions.

The issues with retraction cycles have to do with causing an even further reduced capacity factor, which is already a dealbreaker issue with any wind energy system, wear from reversing forces, unprecedented longevity for nonstop 24/7/365 reeling in and out, and complexity in general.

Just as in regular wind energy, these "solutions" and claims of solutions are predictable and repetitive. Gotta at least rise above the "history repeats itself" mode...
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com

On Mon, 2011-05-16 at 14:46 +0000, Doug wrote:
Come on Doug, you KNOW that is not true. Your own super twin turbine is
a good idea yet you have struggled to achieve anything near its full
market potential. Most inventions are ignored with good reason. Most of
the rest are ignored even though they deserve attention. Most of the
remaining ones are stolen. Most of those still remaining are
undervalued. That leaves very very few inventors getting fair value for
their ideas. Most of those were already powerful businessmen when they
had their idea.

Thanks for that lead. I will definitely follow it up.

There is not that much thrown away and AWE has the potential to cost
less than any other primary generator technology. AWE will have an
important roll to play, as will storage, and grid extension, and the
smart grid etc.

I am putting some of my ideas about AWE into the public domain because
it seems to be the best way to proceed. However, it is not yet clear how
to proceed with the battery technology. You can believe what you like
but I am not saying any more until I have a plan.

You use a lead acid battery to start your car, a lithium one in your
mobile phone and alkalines in your remote controls. My idea is not
suitable for cars, only grid storage and UPS.

AWE and storage each on their own will deliver benefits. Together they
could deliver a revolution. Their is plenty of work for everyone to do
and I hope the spoils of success will be fairly distributed.


Yes, that was fun.

We are waiting to see your alternative. If the kite is retracted fast
enough the tether is under tension the whole time. The rapid retraction
also minimizes the time when power is being consumed rather than
generated. It IS complicated but there is no reason it cannot be done
and why the system should not be durable.

Robert.

Yes a driveshaft carries more power at less torque at higher RPM, and a series of small rotors naturally spin the tether fast without a gearbox. The many small blades are the aerodynamic equivalent of many gear teeth. We've simplified it by making the turbine itself act as its own gearbox. That way the whole Superturbine(R) has only a single moving part. Steady-state rotation - who knew? :)
I'd share some characteristics of these long, fast driveshafts, but it would take all day of explaining.

A further advantage is that the small rotors sweep more area per unit mass than larger rotors.
Dave S. you have come a long way from declaring that a torque tube cannot possibly work. After a couple of years it looks like you are starting to see the Superturbine(R) as the potential AWE solution that it is, and has been, just waiting to solve the greatest challenge facing mankind today.

Then again didn't we just discover a lot of new oil and natural gas back where I grew up in New York State and also in Dakota?

Hey we got fresh snow in the mountains of Southern California yesterday, with more in the forecast, Undoubtedly due to "global warming" I have never froze my ass off like I have since I moved up here, even growing up near Buffalo, NY. Must be the dryness here. The locals say the climate has shifted back to the way it was 30 years ago.

Gosh darn I CANNOT BELIEVE how FREAKIN' WINDY it is here almost ALL THE TIME! Living in the sky! Looking down on clouds! No wonder every other house has a wind turbine!
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.Selsam.com

Hi Dave S.:
"Latest finding"?
You finally are penciling numbers for my concept, in the form of some ridiculous scenarios regarding a 100,000 RPM wind turbine, and it constitutes a "new finding"? New finding for whom? Dave please, whatever form of crack you are smoking, share with the rest of us!

Using the ground in compression for a cross-axis turbine was first introduced by Baily for his elongated turbine, and then by me for my cross-canyon Superturbine(R).

But let's be fair, a tower with guy wires also puts the earth in compression. A tower with guy wires - hey they are "tethers"! Tethers in wind energy - old news. Standard. As generic and common as it gets. In fact good luck putting up any turbine without using tethers, unless you want to pay way more for a freestanding tower.

Numerically, worldwide, perhaps most wind energy installations are anchored by tethers today! Wow and they didn't even clear it with our little AWE group, didn't claim a step toward AWE, but maybe it is... maybe we are almost practicing AWE today and don't even realize it! Regular wind energy people call it "flying" a turbine, as in "what are you flying?" (translation: what brand and model of wind turbine is held in its lofty position by your tethers? (guy wires).

My 10 kW wind turbine outside has been furling all day, when it's not hitting 11 and 12 kW. It's very windy here in the sky at 3600 feet today. It's hard to walk outside right now in fact and my tower seems to be leaning downwind (optical illusion I can only hope!).

A regular wind turbine on a guyed tower is VERY close to AWE.
Just not quite. But it is in the sky, producing power, held in place against the wind by tethers in tension with the ground in compression.
What you are talking about is fairly close to a guyed tower, without the tower, but the multiple tethers in a pyramidal configuration, using the "ground in compression" is the same. Old news from the known world of wind energy, as currently practiced.

Seeya!
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.Maboomba.com

P.S. global warming: Today 98% of the U.S. has colder than average temps. I have frozen my butt off for months now. We have fresh snow in Los Angeles County in late May with more on the way. Yes the trend for 10,000 years has been warmer and warmer, with glaciers receding from 1 mile thick over NY, to a few isolated outposts in mountain tops. It should be no surprise that we can see some of this trend when comparing yearly data, but the pace of that receding is slower now than it must have been in the past for us to go from 1 mile thick to having green/brow Christmases half the time.

A look at the long term data will most ubambiguously show that the time for a return to the next ice age is... just... about... NOW!
So any continued warming is in our favor, and we should hope for as much warming as possible, since if it starts getting cooler, that is when civilizations start disappearing.

Warm "interglacials last on average for something like 10,000 - 12,000 years, and that is now about how old this interglacial is, so the math is not hard. It is time! Why would anyone look at that and be worried about global warming? I predict within our lifetimes they will be doing anything they can to promote warming!

Well all I'm saying is that claiming to have the workable energy storage solution that the world so craves is quite a spectacular announcement to make.
I mean, lots of people SAY that.
If it is for real, can you build a working prototype at any scale?
If Superturbine(R) is lagging in development speed, it is my own fault, but the concept has been proven and independently tested.
You make a good point that just because an idea is good doesn't mean it magically develops itself without help, or that it's easy.
BUT such a breakthrough deserves whatever you can do to develop it.
:)
D.S.

Hey Dave S.:
Look I've really had about enough of this nonsense.
The Superturbine(R) concept indeed sweeps the most area at the highest native RPM of any workable wind energy concept. Spin fast - yes that is what Superturbine DOES., That is the reason for its existence.
We've built hundreds of them, funded by the government, by ourselves, even had them in magazines and TV shows.

See, real wind energy people already KNOW that the goal is to produce steady-state high RPM rotation. That's why they use gearboxes, generators, ya know, stuff that WORKS. Reliably. For years. So you can have a business selling power.
We use many small rotors and so far have gotten away without gearboxes but will probably use them at some point since they WORK.

You know to listen to you go on and on trying to claim the fact that YOU are grasping a few clues toward real wind energy, that everybody else already knows as a "finding"... I cannot even believe you can go on like this. OK so after talking down Superturbine as an AWE solution for 2 years you are suddenly promoting it, with your new "finding" that it is best carried out at 100,000 RPM.
Dave, have you ever operated anything at 100,000 RPM? Do you understand how fast that is?

Dave, read my patents where they explain how more power can be transmitted through a less-substantial driveshaft by going with higher RPM. Duh.

Do you think this is not well-known driveshaft knowledge? It is the same is raising the voltage to lower the current and use thinner wire.

Other than that, having built hundreds of fast turbines with loong driveshafts, I can say the armchair-genius legend-in-their-own-mind would-be designers like you do not even know the first thing to expect from such a fast spinning driveshaft, having no experience with such. (hint: they (can) (often) tend to fly out of control!) (not as easy as we make it look!)

Still, you have publicly derided the concept here for so long now, "proving" mathematically in so many ways that it's "impossible", I suppose you think it's saving face to talk of some "new finding", but I haven't heard anything new.

The patent system may be a pain in the ass but I guess they had to come up with it because people like you will always come along, first calling new breakthroughs "impossible" until... they finally realize they've seen the answer, they have to frame it in some way to make it seem like instead of being wrong and then convinced they were wrong, that it was them who thought the whole thing up in the first place and the original inventor who "doesn't understand". Sorry Dave, I'm not buying it and I have to say your brand of hot air does get real tedious for me at times.

Dave S. you should have your own comedy channel. You are one of those people whom I like to think are impossible, yet you persist, endlessly making no sense, utterly without logic, just blathering on and on about complete nonsense - every day a new "theory" or "finding" - how do you do it? And why? What the heck could possibly be going on in that cranium? (or not) sheesh!

Wish it would warm up here in Southern California.
We got more snow last night.
I'm cold.

Global-warmingly yours,
Doug Selsam
shivering in SoCal...

AWECS have cousins that kiss the boundaries of AWE
without being AWE.  The WaveStalks and WindStalks
might find KES niche uses as sensors or more within a
large AWECS system or kitefarm.  Boundary sensors?
Windfield data-mapping?  Stalks do not spin, but waft, bend, wiggle,...

Selsam patents seem to feature (besides several other dynamic items) some spinning stalks;
such is not the topic of this thread, but such could form a another thread for spinning stalks.

http://tinyurl.com/WindStalk

http://tinyurl.com/imagesWindstalk

Thanks to SpiralAirfoil    for lead on WindStalk and WaveStalk.

Could you use some active sensitive hairs on your tethered airfoil?
Little stalks?  Could numerous small stalks give data upwind important to
operating a kitefarm?       

JoeF

 

typical bizzle-shizzle:

They can't decide how to collect the power - piezo? pumps?
They make the classic mistake of confusing power storage with wind energy.

I'd take one of their stalks, put airfoils on it and let it spin and outproduce their entire fantasy installation.
Good that people are thinking of alternatives, but I'm in doubt as to the efficiency of both the space used and the amount of materials needed.

As always, if this were a good idea, it would be easy enough to make one and prove it. But that will probably kill the idea, so the way o cash in on this idea is to delay actually making one as long as possible. Millions could probably be raised as long as nobody builds one and proves it to be extremely ineffective...

This general idea has been around for a long, long time, discussed several years ago on a yahoo group dedicated to working wind turbines.
Buy on the rumor, sell on the facts.
:)
Doug Selsam

All,
As your team produces video of AWE moments,
please include UpperWindPower in your notice lists. Thanks.

Right now we just posted the  288th video
as SpiralAirfoil teamed well and sent in notice of a fresh promo that features a kiteplane in reel in-out method:

http://www.energykitesystems.net/AWECommunityIntroVideos.html#DanP
Thanks, Dan.     We did not not have that video in list yet!   Good teaming.

JoeF

Is this a tease for SWP quad rotors to avoid conductive tethers?

Beam up. Then set in jet stream and beam down laser or microwave for grid sharing?

http://inhabitat.com/laser-powered-helicopter-breaks-world-record/quadrocopter-ed01/

Link reference, thanks to SpiralAirfoil.