What I remember originally reading was Nigeria would become the world leader in AWE because John is going to lead the development of laddermill-style parachute loops, supposedly ideal for Nigerian weather, with abundant storms, that would be placed under thunderstorms and generate power from the updraft, while the parachutes would return to Earth by placement in an adjoining downdraft. I don’t see what daveS shaking a self-winding watch has to do with it.
I will say this: The ONLY people I’ve ever known to advocate wind energy systems targeting storms, whether tornadoes. hurricanes, or just thunderstorms, are people who have no background in wind energy, and are just floating ideas that they really haven’t fully thought through.
Tallak’s question about what capacity factor one might expect from such a storm-chasing wind energy system is exactly on target: The key question would be what is the capacity factor. The reason is simple: Storms have very large amounts of energy, so you would need a VERY robust and heavy system capable of extracting high amounts of energy from a violent and unpredictable weather event, which would necessarily be overbuilt and overpowered for everyday weather. Example: Say a system is developed to harness hurricane winds, as wind energy newbies often suggest: Well, in any given location, you might get one chance per year (one hurricane) to run your system. Or maybe your location does not receive ANY hurricanes one year (more likely). So you can quickly see that, no matter how well such a system worked, it would be useless 99.9% of the time. Low capacity factor. Another question specifically relating to the parachute loop idea is how you are going to place it in just the right location to enjoy that updraft/downdraft situation, when storms typically occur in various locations, and usually travel along a path that can only be discerned after the fact, so how would such a powerful wind energy system even enjoy effective placement, even assuming it were effective as a wind energy device? Besides that, with the parachutes, you are talking about a drag device, which is the least efficient type of wind energy system commonly pursued. Not sure if there are currently any wind energy systems in the world targeting storm updrafts, but it’s not because nobody ever thought of it. More that they thought better of it.
So as usual, what we hear from this general direction of what this week we’re calling “The AWEIA” (Which seems to be just 3 individuals, with zero AWE systems) as far as ideas and demonstration of AWE systems, is lacking in planning, realization, execution, and significant output.
I think I’ve mentioned the AWEIA reminds me of clubs we kids would start at maybe age 8 or so.
John’s claims of leading the world of AWE (in the future of course) remind me of when we were a little older, on a sleep-out in a tent in the backyard, talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up, and one of us (named Dave) declared he was going to be “Emperor of the World”! He was serious. Well, what the heck, somebody;s gotta do it - after all, it worked for Genghis Khan, right? We laughed about that one for years! Well, except Dave, the guy who said it. I don;t think he was in on the jokes.
Anyway, if we’re still seriously discussing (?) the self-winding watch demo, it seems like maybe a good demonstration of how LITTLE energy a wind energy system, or ANY kind can produce, and I’m not even sure if the system was airborne, or just suspended by ropes from hard points, or what.
My take is such a project would not even qualify for a clean energy merit badge from The Boy Scouts, but be more suited for the younger “Cub Scouts”, for which I would agree, it should earn a merit badge for an 8-year-old. 
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