As I visually scanned the “2 decades” article, I stopped at the second sentence of the abstract:
“Replacing the tower and foundation of conventional wind turbines can substantially reduce the material use and, consequently, the cost of energy, while providing access to wind at higher altitudes.”
OK, now this is on “Science Direct”, but is it actually science, or just one more deceptive fluff article, biased toward a mythical AWES situation that does not actually even exist?
Is it true, after 2 decades, thousands of people involved, and perhaps $ billions spent, that any AWE system has demonstrated less material used for the energy generated, let alone a lower cost of energy? Not that I know of. If you add up the weight of the typical AWE half-shipping container and its contents, and maybe a tower for launching and landing, compared to the energy output over the system lifetime, the results show perhaps a thousand times the material used, and hence cost, for the energy generated.
I’ll bet the standard 10 kW turbine here has generated far more energy than all the AWE systems in the world combined, in those same two decades. After those two decades, there is still no AWE system in regular operation, anywhere in the world. Larger systems would require stronger mounting, which would probably involve a heavy concrete base, and launching and landing seem to often require adding an actual tower! And let’s remember, compared to fabric and carbon fiber, concrete and steel are very cheap. The need to maintain or routinely replace the kites and tethers adds to the ongoing cost. What we see here is a mere “wish”, presented as scientific fact, from the very first words. Typical wind-wannabe behavior.
The next deceptive passage I observe was the following about existing supposed wind energy capacity: “an established technology delivering more than 590 GW worldwide, which equates to 5% of the global energy portfolio (Wind technologies market report, 2018)” - The deceptive aspect here is mentioning “gigaWatts” (referring to peak, nameplate, full output of all the turbines on the world, combined, but as we know, the average output of all wind energy systems is only about 30-35% of max (nameplate) output, due to the intermittent nature of the wind. This “mistake” of comparing the peak potential output of intermittent sources that operate at less than half of their full capacity, against reliable sources that operate at near full capacity as needed, is just one more deception in the world of energy, a deception that takes place because the statements, while technically true, are incomplete, and therefore deceptive by omission of the most important fact of the story: That supposed energy output is overstated by 300%!
There would be no time at which all wind energy systems in the world are producing full power simultaneously. But even the most astute people might not happen to think of this simple fact when reading such deceptive passages. Realistically, “5% of the global energy portfolio” equates to less than 2% of global energy production. the keyword in that deception is “portfolio”, rather than what matters: production.
The next passage that jumped out at me was “Although soft kites were arguably the leading design considered in the earlier years of AWE system development, there has been some gravitation away from soft kite designs in recent years”.
This illustrates the cranial density of some of the early and most insistent voices of AWE wannabes, who remain to this day, incapable of comprehending the simple elements that make wind energy actually work. Soft kites are far less aerodynamic than hard blades, and incapable of surviving the strong winds involved without repeated replacement. It’s one of many examples of how new, wannabe entrants to wind energy always say the same dumb things and make the same newbie mistakes, no matter how “smart” they think they are. Their extreme self-described “smartness” actually equates to negative intelligence, since most everything they say, no matter how eloquently stated, turns out to be wrong. What they don’t realize is wind energy amounts to one giant real-world IQ test, and so far, they have flunked!
The next wrong statement that jumps out at me is “the Altaeros system is presently being repurposed for telecommunications”. It’s interesting that I was alone in flagging every statement from Altaeros as simply not true, despite being endlessly repeated in so many articles etc.
First, anyone with any experience in high wind environments could easily see that the Altaeros inflated donut craft was way too frail to withstand anything but a light-to-moderate wind at best. Typical wishful wind-newbie behavior.
Second, Altaeros claimed they “would be” (all AWE “accomplishments” are set in the future) powering the grid in a remote location (its almost always a remote location) in this case, a remote village in Alaska. How silly to test prototypes in remote locations? But it makes sure nobody can easily get there to report the poor performance, and the fact that the system lasted perhaps a few hours before catastrophic failure, and maybe that it simply is not in fact running at all. Seeing how frail the Altaeros craft was, just from seeing the photos, I ruled this out in the previous AWE forum, then finally called the newspaper in that same remote village to confirm that, no, there had been no such grid-feed taking place in that village. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for sure if it was even attempted, all I can tell you is what they told me. What we never did see, as far as I recall, was any footage of it actually powering a remote village with residents remarking how well it worked and how much power it was contributing. And then where was it? If it worked, wouldn’t it still be running for some time? If it had ever generated any significant amount of energy, wouldn’t we have heard about that? One thing about supposed AWE energy production, is that what is NOT said is often more telling that what IS said.
Third, apparently Altaeros immediately gave up on wind energy and, realizing the only skill they had learned is where to buy a blimp and how to fill it with helium, they took the typical “AWE” step of “pivoting” to some related project, in Alraeos’ case, providing wifi from an off-the-shelf blimp. This is contrary to the statement in the article that should have simply said they had failed and given up. Instead it said “the Altaeros system is presently being repurposed for telecommunications”. No, the Altaeros system was abandoned, not “repurposed”. And there is no indication that they ever provided wifi to anyone, anywhere. It seems like it was just one more failed project that never went anywhere. Did they imagine that nobody had ever thought of using a blimp instead of a radio tower? That people had just been to dumb to realize how much better it would be to maintain a blimp for decades on end, rather than erecting a tower that could simply stay in place for decades without undue attention?
And again, who announced that this pivot to airborne wifi was just one more deceptive statement from more AWE wannabes? Me, that’s who. Nobody else had the slightest question that Altaeros had “in fact” powered a remote village in Alaska, yet were now, strangely, abandoning that supposedly-successful project to “pivot” to helium-lofted wifi antennae. And here’s the funniest part: I never need any evidence to debunk these repeated wrong statements from Altaeros, or most other supposed “AWE” “companies”. All I needed was my long experience debunking wind-wannabes: Virtually everything wind wannabes ever say is wrong, whether an outright lie, or naive wishful thinking stated as factual “in the future” accomplishments, it’s all the same, and never seems to change.
The next announcement from Altaeros was a supposed collaboration with the country of Oman. In that case I could say I had also received such a kind offer from Oman years ago. The Sultanate of Oman was nice enough to send a couple of emissaries to California to offer me to relocate to Oman. All I had to decide was how many wives I wanted! But I thought, how many people in Oman would love to live on a ranch in Southern California, an hour from Hollywood? Anyway, I expressed my skepticism over that announcement from Altaeros, just on the basis that before that, all of their previous statements of “in the future” “progress” had been false. This is just very typical wind-wannabe behavior. They are all the same. They start out with overly optimistic projections of future success, and that quickly transitions to just endless lies.
I have to stop here before I wear out another keyboard trying to warn people about lying wind-wannabes. I have stuff to do, and can’t write another encyclopedia about the wishful thinking of the endless parade of “really smart” wind wannabes who can never get a single system on regular operation no matter HOW many decades pass. 
