Interesting you picked the wheel as an example.
I was thinking the same thing, except in reverse:
Imagine someone comes along with a square wheel for better traction offroad (probably already tried).
Now let’s say it turns out the ride is too bumpy.
After a few cars are ripped apart and a few people have lost their teeth to vibration, the idea is bypassed.
Darn, back to the good ole’ round wheel!
As far as the viability of ANY reeling AWE system, I’ve mentioned the following proposal for a project:
Create the best, most economical reeling system you can possibly come up with. No kite, no sausage, JUST the reeling system itself.
Engineer and build a powered pulling system for the cable (tether), without regard to cost, that can operate the reeling system either on the ground or, preferably on a tower or slope to get a realistic angle of the tether
Demonstrate economical power production from this reeling system for a few years, without regard to the cost of the pulling apparatus, nor the power provided to operate it, just show that the reeling system itself could provide reliable, economical, long-term power generation.
The above is a project that will never be done. Why? because dreamers would rather remain with one foot in fantasy-land, and would never want to risk disproving something that is generating so much fun (and bankruptcy) for so many people.
I have also mentioned a thought experiment of using a standard wind turbine rotor for reeling:
Mount a standard wind turbine rotor (no generator), on a standard tower, on rails, downwind of a reeling system.
Use pitch control to control the rotor, while the turbine on a tower, rolling on rails, is allowed to first pull downwind for a few hundred feet, then reverse for “a recovery phase” where the turbine is pulled back upwind, using power.
Show this generates power more efficiently and economically than a standard wind turbine.
Another experiment that will never be done!
Why? Because it would take people out of fantasy-land!
This would be the ground-based version of “kite-reeling”, except perhaps more efficient.
Even so, it appears absurd on its face. Why?
Too “Rube Goldberg” (inappropriately complicated).
Too much space used,
too much matwerial,
intermittent generation
Once again you find yourself forced to compare a supposed improvement in wind energy, with the standard wind turbine.
People new to wind energy (or in some cases, perpetual newbies) ALWAYS try to avoid a comparison with real wind energy. But that is itself absurd, since we know real wind energy works well.
Take a vertical-axis machine, maybe an H-rotor.
At a glance you can prove any of the 3 blades uses enough material to build a regular wind turbine rotor.
At another glance you can show
less swept area, and
a lower TSR, and
reversing forces twice with every rotation, guaranteed to rip the machine apart
for the vertical-axis turbine
The developer won’t listen, they just cover their ears and go “la la la I can’t hear you!”
But, all you have to do is directly compare it to a regular wind turbine.
I often use a peanut can as an exaple.
The can itself represents the swept area of the blade of an H-rotor vertical-axis turbine
The plastic lid of the can represents the swept area of of a regular wind turbine of about the same diameter and power.
It is easy to see that the vertical-axis turbine must “sweep” 3.14 times its intercepted area!
The regular wind turbine sweeps 1 times its intercepted area.
So the V-A machine is less than one third as efficient of a use of blade material, as a start.
But no matter how obvious this is, people still go on building vertical-axis wind turbines that then fail!
NEXT
Develpopers cite the ability to harness wind from any direction (the old “urban turbine” myth).
BUT
The first “improvement” is to make the blades react with variable pitch in response to the wind direction!
You can’t make this stuff up!
The field of “improved” wind turbines is just full of dreamers, schemers, and people who can;t think their way out of a paper bag! Always has been, always will!
Doug, in my previous comment I described your way or thinking, replacing the Magnus effect (no propeller, so it is bad) with the rocket (no wheels, so it is bad).
Concerning your answer just now, this is a series of sophisms, starting with square wheels, continuing with “just the reeling system itself”, still continuing with the example 1000 times repeated of a standard wind turbine in reeling mode…
By inventing absurd premises, you are virtually guaranteed to end up with something absurd, allowing you to call AWE conceptors “idiots, idiots, idiots”.
Aren’t you tired of repeating such nonsense? If not, I’ll tell you that I’m tired of reading it.
You’re entitled to think that AWE isn’t viable, but in that case you should play it straight, like Mike Barnard who is unambiguous about it, and stick to 3-bladed HAWT.
Hi Pierre:
My way of thinking is I know wind energy as a simple and effective working concept, and so I recognize overly-complicated garbage masquerading as wind energy solutions when I see it.
I realize it is hard for some people to accept.
That’s OK.
Newbie wannnabes can’t stand knowledgeable veterans in wind energy.
Mike Barnard has his opinions - to me, he is a newcomer, he makes sense in general, but I don’t agree with his hopeless absolutism. I’m pretty sure I was debunking whacky wind ideas long before it ever occurred to him. But unlike Mike, I also keep an open mind. I have wind energy ideas far beyond anything anyone has ever contemplated, completely new ways of doing it, but i will refrain from yakking about it til I get some proof.
I’m also far past the point of getting upset over comments on the internet over the general AWE garbage pile floating around out there, pretending it is an economically viable wind energy solution.
I have a life beyond comments about peoples’ wind energy fantasies on the web, where anyone can say anything, whether it makes any sense or not.
Hi Doug, then you must be very unhappy that in an AWE forum (whatever it may be), we only discuss projects or sketches, including mine, which have only a tiny (or zero) chance of leading to viable energy solutions.
Do you know any people from the traditional wind energy sector (three-bladed HAWT), the one that works, who are interested in AWES? There may have been some fifteen years ago, but I challenge you to name any, and you’re not one of them, even when your knowledge about wind turbines can be far higher than those of traditional (!) AWE people. I have never seen any post about AWES, on any AWE forum, from a wind energy veteran.
Well, maybe zero is a good number for some stuff floating on this forum, even most of my own stuff maybe. But the main point in this forum is not stating a single truth but rather exchange opinions. In this way, if the chance of eventually succeeding is non zero, I believe taking part in these discussions is progressing AWE. Maybe just a little, but still.
I think also in the way @dougselsam says he is tired of reading about «idiots» of wind, you @PierreB are tired of endless arguments which are not to the point, and lack general desire to actually understand what is being said and give constructive feedback. But @dougselsam actually has a good answer for this, dont care so much. This is the internet. In a forum you make many connections, and maybe the ones you sometimes make are not the ones you are looking for. I think thats ok
I’m not sure I ever said I was “tired of” it. More of a neverending challenge…
I don’t agree that my comments are not to the point, but rather that they are exactly to the point, but people don’t want to hear the voice of experience and common sense. Once you’ve had equipment out there being destroyed over and over until you find a way to prevent the destruction by adjustments and unplanned modifications, IF you EVER get to that point, you BEGIN to understand how wind energy works. It comes down to whether you have useful, productive,strong winds or not. If so, your shit will be blown to smithereens many times before you get it right, if not, you will be dabbling in light winds and never make good power, never realizing how delicate your apparatus is until you realize you have to put it away if it gets windy.
What is your solution: sustaining a conventional wind turbine with a kite (something like Kiwee)? Other? Or rather using the same 3-bladed wind turbine by on a tower as usually made?
Reeling, flygen, lifting a wind turbine or a Kiwee-like…
What would be a less bad AWE solution that would not be debunked in the first place? Perhaps The Pyramid?
