Of course, that will happen.  I hope that anything important gets copied to the listservs, though, or I won't see it.  I like to know who I'm addressing, and if the message will be delivered.  An email client keeps my files neat and handy, while posting to a website means I can't easily search even my own work.

Nice Robert,

On Wed, 2012-09-12 at 12:58 +0000, roderickjosephread wrote:
Did you read the link I posted? No one listens to people at the bottom
of the scale.

I read it, and re-posted it.  I grew up on the notion that the builders of better mousetraps were in demand.  Now, I learn that the people who should be hiring special talents can't even recognize them without the trappings of "success" in their own field, where nobody has brains to spare for technology.  If I could afford a Rolex, I'd buy hardware instead, and avoid the craziness. That's why all my heroes advised getting a partner for business, but they also happened to be working in a field favoured by capital at the time, and it never will promote efficiency or independence.

P.S. -  The old adage says that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.  It does not mention that the world has near zero interest in dealing fairly with you when it arrives.

Steve Davis
Principal Scientist
Near Zero

Dear Steve,

A written question was submitted today to Near Zero at the AWEC2012 conference, regarding whether its staff fact-checks "expert" statements collected. The issue arises due to statements* Near Zero features in its- "Energy High in the Sky- Expert Perspectives on Airborne Wind Energy Systems"

But the question somehow went unanswered, so here it is again- 

Does Near Zero carefully fact-check opinions before publishing its results intended to guide US Energy R&D?

Here's another-

Will Near Zero correct errors and omissions as they emerge?

There are other technical questions for you, if you are open to them.  Thanks for providing answers on the record, in keeping with Near Zero's stated goal of transparency,

dave santos
KiteLab Group

PS Please note i have answered questions of yours freely, and will continue to do so.


* An example to start- RobertC was quoted by NZ outside his core expertise- "Fabric wings will not scale well...". The largest wing ever flown was a 17,000 ft2 parafoil soft kite by Harry Osborne. 

No rigid wing design in aerospace has ever been seriously considered feasible at such a scale, due to scaling laws. My expertise on this subject includes a stint at KiteShip, where giant soft kites were developed to pull ships. KiteLab Austin recently validated (by public flights) a 300m2 power wing for AWE R&D, which is some thirty times bigger than any rigid AWE wing in current testing.

Skysails of Germany is the first-to-market with large AWES and intends massive grid-tied farms. These are, of course, fabric wings. 

Watch Makani Power's slick promotional videos. Read its vast adoring press.  The world obviously imagines Makani has a real working prototype in Wing7, that is, a system at least minimally capable of "Integrated End-to-End All Flight-Mode Sessions". But has it?

At the AWEC2012 conference today, PJ kindly forwarded my question in this regard from the chat stream. Corwin was compelled to awkwardly answer: Indeed, the famous Makani AWES has yet to perform this basic milestone.

What a stunning confirmation of KitLab Group's conviction on this point. The new certainty helps all other contending architectures better attract growing investor interest (including DOE). Until now it has been very hard to get noticed under the "Google" PR shadow. Makani carefully hid basic weaknesses. KiteLab seems to be the only AWE player who spotted the precise deceptions used, and brought them to light, although many others had similar suspicions.

Tens of millions were spent on Makani Power (with Joby) over six years. The fatally high-risk choice of AWES architecture Makani/Joby "bought" is so daunting that its wildly improbable they can ever scale as claimed, given the current team and funding, and for many specific technical barriers covered on the Forum. There have been many fine engineers in the Joby/Makani sphere. Lets look forward to working together in whatever major enterprise configuration emerges.

What does it mean: "Integrated End-to-End All Flight-Mode Session" for any AWES?

You can't expect such bureaucratic facilitators to know anything about an art. They are just fitting in, trying to make a buck. They can only take their cues from the people who hired them. The people who hired them admit the don't know how to do AWE - the whole idea of the conference is, supposedly, nobody really knows how to do AWE, because supposedly there is something mysterious or difficult about it. Sure, lets pretend it's hard...

In my mind it is straightforward to do AWE by any of several methods, none of which is being explored or even suggested or touched on peripherally.

Anyway I can tell you, some things never change. You can't expect a dog to grow hands and be able to open a door. You're lucky if he can "sit", "come" etc. So don't expect some routine screening process to be able to identify meaningful breakthroughs. If they could, they'd be filing patents themselves - these are just people who needed a job offering a generic service, in over their heads.

If NASA can't understand how to do AWE, how could you expect a random bureaucratic screening outfit to know anything at all? Throwing spaghetti at the wall would be nice - they are throwing maybe a noodle or two in the dark.
:)
Doug S.

Thanks to PJ and Christina for keeping us on the map for one more year.
I enjoyed viewing the proceedings on the web through the streaming video - thanks for that.
My take on this year's event:
1) We note that the herd has thinned - fewer participants
2) Some of the early big-talkers like Magenn have thrown in the towel
3) The Europeans are still pulling on kite strings to make their power
4) Makani seems in about the same spot they've been
5) SkyWindPower is at least in the air making some power.

In many cases, we're still seeing the same types of would-be innovations we see from the newbies of regular wind energy: drag-based operation, reciprocating cycles, cloth surfaces, flapping surfaces, inability to consistently perform unattended, lack of longevity, talk of shutting down systems when it gets too windy in lieu of overspeed protection, non-steady-state operation, and heavy, inordinately complex and expensive apparatus to extract paltry amounts of power compared to long-proven systems that minimize material used per Watt generated.

I believe the future of wind energy is IN THE AIR
and
I'm GLAD IT'S STILL A WIDE OPEN FIELD!

To most of the teams trying AWE I have to say:
Thanks for doing nothing or wasting all your resources in the wrong direction - I guess you wanted to save all the progress for people like me - thank you so much. I am very grateful. No really!
:)))
Doug S.

(thanks, DaveS.  This post repeats your two links, but adds a comment. This is a glossary entry.)

Nice - looks like it jumped out of the pages of US 6616402. Thanks. Add a few more levels to multiply the output, and you're fully into SuperTurbine(R) territory.
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.selsam.com

Of course, Doug Selsam's tease that the best is yet to come is part of the reason I look for another rock to roll aside. 

http://www.energykitesystems.net/images/GigaArchAWES.jpg

On Wed, 2012-09-12 at 08:49 -0600, Bob Stuart wrote:
There is an excellent book by Graham Barker and Peter Bissell called "A
better Mousetrap; the business of invention". They go to great lengths
to point out the old adage is totally false.

People only come to you when they see you making buckets of money.
Getting rich is about the best status boost there is.

As inventors, there is a huge barrier to get over. Until one invention
has made serious money it is very difficult to get funding to develop
anything.

Like Doug, I have dozens of wind energy ideas in my head. All were too
expensive to pursue until I came up with the idea behind Visventis.
Despite it being freely available and simple and easy to implement, no
one has bothered copying it (to my knowledge). I do not expect anyone to
do so until the system is developed well enough to make pots of money.

Robert.

Dave S,

The important thing about status is perception. If we 'perceive' someone
we are talking with to have a higher or lower status the evidence
suggests we shut down a part of our brain. We shoot ourselves in the
foot. The answer is to perceive everyone else as equals. It is not
something they have to do - it is something we each have to do for
ourselves.

The livestream on the conference was a classic example. Makani had
already answered the question you asked.

We can learn faster if we treat others as equals but when we step into
the teaching role it is more difficult to get our students to perceive
their teacher as an equal. Thinking about it, it is a major factor
delaying my completion of the AWE Master Plan. Would anyone bother
reading it, no matter how well written? Books have more status than web
pages. Maybe a book is the way to go.

Robert.

Actually, in another field, I got scads of publicity for a prototype, and hundreds of queries from potential customers who had to work to find me.  However, business partners didn't show up.  Doing interesting things in a public place was far more effective than sending out press releases.  

Robert and Bob,

Regarding the "better mousetrap".

In this case we are scrutinizing a Stanford/Carnegie Institution affiliated academic team, Near Zero, attempting to soundly inform US policy-makers of AWES R&D opportunities. The factor of "making buckets of (AWE) money" applies here only in the sense that Near Zero's methodology in its rigid-wing-scales-best finding (and non-censorship of any pro rigid wing input) reflect a friendly bias for the best-funded Bay Area VC player (Makani/Joby). Raised capital is not a scientific factor here.

The better mousetrap will be Megascale AWE. Near Zero failed to allow any of the well-documented leading architectures in that concept space. Joe and i need everyone's help in fully preparing the case for belated inclusion of such key ideas in Near Zero's amended findings. We need Near Zero to create living-documents that improve with time, rather than set myths in stone.

Lets start a fresh "MegaScale AWES Concepts" review, which perhaps needed the NZ debacle as a wake-up call to motivate the exercise,

daveS

I think the kite or balloon pulling up at the centre spoils an otherwise
promising idea. The Kitelab videos already show the arc is easy to
launch by lifting the centre with a pole.

Dave S,

When Corwin's lecture becomes available again watch it again without the
distraction of livestream. You will see he answered your question before
PJ asked it. I am not downgrading your achievement of spotting the issue
in advance, but Corwin was aware of the need to address it too. Perceive
him in your own mind as an equal and you will learn more from him in
less time.

Robert.

Bob,

Good point. We will have to put the Visventis rig on public display once
it is ready. Seeing is believing which is why television is such an
effective advertising medium.

Robert.

Robert, 

Yeah vertical blinds - another jr. high school idea I had once...
Just make laddermill made a bit wider?

agreed! look at the evidence! --- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, Robert Copcutt <r@...

kitelab, Chat on first day had asked the question. Moderator took the question and said he would forward the question. The Makani talk was then delayed to the second day. And the Moderator of Chat had to be reminded of the question to be asked again.
Then finally, when the second day Makani presentation was given, one primed for the question would have to be quick to spot some answering to the question. But without the priming, one might not have been receptive to an unasked question when seeing what may have been an answer ... The pieces of the puzzle may have been in the delivery and found by one skilled in the arts of looking for answers of unasked questions. Dave S. has pointedly been asking the question direct to Corwin for a long time ... without direct answer.
Then the delivery in the second day ... just might have scratched ... an answer. Then PJ finally openly asked the question in the 11th hour of the matter; then a direct succinct answer was given.

I hope to see Makani obtain their objectives and milestones.
The flow of Corwin's delivery was smooth. Pleasure, quality.

I will refrain developing any theory over the timing of the first day and lost question that had to be reminded to the Chat moderator in the second day.

Doug,  not quite. Wayne's is a fully cross-winding vertical blinds. Though your laddermil may use high-lift airfoil wings to climb, Wayne has lateral-going wings as vertical blind blades that fly cross-wind; and in HAWP 2009  conference ... his short drawing in front of us featured slats or wing blades 1000 ft or m (I forget his units)  tall each; he would have a family of those flying in an integrated system.    Arch such family and drive huge generator. 

Robert,

Corwin was given my question by the moderator The Day Before. Yes, i did catch his vague attempt at plausible-honesty, but this only belatedly came after i had raised this question relentlessly since March, before ARPA-E, the Forum, etc..

Makani needs a fan-apologist like you on this Forum. Brian did a great service attempting rebutals to Makani critiques. Of course we can't expect Makani to appear on this Forum (except if apologizing to Dave Lang). What a good example of your status-topic at play.

I do accept Corwin as an equal human, but so what. Its harder to imagine him as an equal peer in AWE, given his poor AE experience, and weak knowledge of other vital aspects. This quest is about ideas, not soap-opera.

Thanks for credit you give me for "achievement" in technical critique of Makani, but many other AE folks could have done the same, had they been funded by Google,

daveS

Doug,

You did not bother to explain why the "Vertical Blind" idea is bad (its a "sideways ladder-mill").

Show its a "High School Idea" with evidence, and explain why that is bad. Wayne has never ridiculed you as you do him, even on AWEC2012's chat stream, nor would he resort to unfair argumentation, since that's a fool's boomerang,

daveS

Near Zero is doubling-down on censorship of unwanted AWE sector expert views. The following opinion was just taken down from Near Zero's comment section on the "Energy High in the Sky" report webpage-

Dave S,

Your clarification of the issue is appreciated but your putting words
into my mouth is not. I have said before I think groundgen will be more
economical than flygen so I am not a Makani fan. I am a fan of science,
truth, honesty and mutual respect.

Robert.

I see that your comment was taken down. 

" Common simulation tools are going to be necessary, 

OK fair enough.
Many people have repeatedly "invented" the idea -
any thinking person realizes one can move airfoils across an area in such a general way, using cables and reels. There was a huge prototype at Oak Creek windfarm in Tehachapi about 20 years ago that was tested, but broke. I like to call it the clothesline concept, (as opposed to the endlessly-revolving door of revolving-door concepts).

As usual, the biggest problem was probably starting too big before working the bugs out, but who knows. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the idea, just that anyone who can understand an automatic pizza oven conveyor belt can come up with the idea, and many have.

I get to hear lots of peoples' ideas for wind turbines and certain ones you tend to hear a lot - the venetian blinds idea is one of those. I'd place it in the midrange - "Hey Doug, have you ever tghought of this one?..." "No is it Groundhog Day again?" Not the most popular one, but right up there.

It may in fact be a good idea. Making the 180 degree corners at the end might be a bit difficult at 120 mph due to centrifugal force, but all such ugly realities need not be addressed as long as one remains in "armchair genius" mode.

The thing about any wind energy device is they tend to get battered to smithereens quickly in a real wind, and otherwise they make little power. Most people just give up because it is so hard to keep picking up pieces and redesigning it, rebuilding, remounting, retesting, and it gets expensive. And that's the ones that even try - most just talk.

The worst thing is the vertical-axis people who start with a super-inefficient type and try to rescue it by adding more vanes to guide the wind in better. The resulting monstrosities weigh several tons and cannot match the output of a regular cheapo turbine weighing 30 lbs.

"infantile industry" - I noticed that too...
Any tool, no matter how sophisticated, will be of no use, if misapplied in the wrong direction. garbage in/garbage out

looks like it jumped ALL OVER the pages of US 6616402 with big muddy boots.

Someone could be a real expert in CAD, simulations, CFD, etc., and yet be "uninitiated" in wind energy, and it would get them nowhere. Misapplied talent is like shooting your gun in the wrong direction.

We each have a super-accurate 3-D modeling environment, starting at our fingertips. In this amazing 3-D world you can see in perfect 3-D using no special glasses, at the highest resolution of your eyes.

You can even step right into this incredible design environment - better than a holodeck! In this amazing 3-D world, one can pick up objects with your own hands, and literally FEEL the weight and stiffness of parts, and tactile sensations convey subtle nuances of materials with unprecedented accuracy.

One can fabricate 3-D blades in a few minutes - looking at the materials and feeling them as one actually imparts whatever airfoil shape one desires, by actual hand pressure and visual feedback. No more spending all day typing in numbers to coax a rough representation of a blade - throw away the math and now it can be done by feel! Wow talk about setting the would-be designer/builder free! Unbelieveable!

Then one can place the resulting blade, and if one desires, "hold" a special stationary pivot (phillips screwdriver) and let the blade react to "wind" and spin, and you can feel the thrust force, while seeing and hearing the spin. Yes even the noise is perfectly simulated. One can adjust the airfoil by mere look and feel, then immediately simulate a spin-up and see and hear the results, without changing to separate software.

Even gravity is perfectly simulated, and you can even feel it throughout your whole body, when immersed in this incredible breakthrough space.

I know this sounds like something out of the 22nd century, but, believe it or not, I have such a futuristic 3-D design environment right out in my garage. The simulation is 100% accurate and the system never crashes. It uses no hardware - it is a 3-D environment that one can enter with ones' whole body, create anything you want, run it in real time with 100% accuracy.

Or, you could spend a few years learning to program a PC (getting "initiated"... to try and simulate a kite, meanwhile the industry gets something going that may have nothing much to do with kites at all. I think we should spend a few million doing a study about what kind of kite simulations we need - how 'bout that? The more removed from reality a project is, the more believable to those without vision, and the more likely to get funded.

Most of what I hear about proposed AWE systems reminds me of people in the 1800's arguing about whether a future air transportation system should best use trains versus horses.

When all else fails, just make up some bullshit!

Hey, I'm a "player" in "AWE" cuz I came up with some off-target typical newbie bullshit that would never even work, and I talk about it endlessly! I use big words and talk about bigtime "simulations", microwave transmission, oscillating arrays of nothingness, so I'm a "player"! wheeeee! Don't ask me about what I said yesterday cuz today I have a whole new unworkable approach that I'm 100% certain about! I'm a player! Wheeee!

Well yes you are. A player.
Oh geez I got a couple blades I'm virtually fabricating out in my 100% accurate walk-in 3-D design environment complete with a wind tunnel a quarter-mile wide! better get out there and participate in this revolutionary incredible design space. One doesn't get an opportunity to leapfrog everyone elses software to this extent more than once in a lifetime. Unless its "Groundhog Day", in which one would get the same chance every day (but maybe never take advantage of it!)

Have a beautiful (Groundhog) day!

Doug S.

Five parts to this reply: 

Hey Roddy:
I already let you know that you're the only real "inventor" mind I see here. No experience in wind energy it would seem, but nonetheless, you seem to have the right equipment above the neck. You might want to wipe off your shoes before treading on my existing IP, since if you were ever to develop anything that worked, my IP, also in effect in the UK, might end up protecting your effort, through whatever agreements ensue.
:)
Doug S.

This patented idea did not originally work due to mechanical shortcomings. It now works because of better simulation tools (read as "control tools").