Please where is my use of your post?
Dave: Let’s just remember how AWE musing can easily turn into a shell-game of trying to confuse the audience through distraction. And remember there are “a million” (unlimited) ways to extract some power from moving fluids (wind), but very few being worth the effort (economically viable). If your idea is bad enough, saying it would be a good idea for Mars is just a diversion where the psychological impact of “Mars!” distracts from whether the idea is indeed viable. Since the air is so much thicker here on Earth, and the gravity so much greater, Earth would be the place to prove the viability of your idea, not Mars. Meanwhile it sounds like ideas that were discussed long ago on the old forum. Kites or sails on cables or rails, dragging mass uphill for later energy retrieval. Obviously the first question is, what happens if the system were designed to just produce power without storage. Bottom line is brainstorming is nice, but gets redundant after a while. Reminds me of all the talk of colonizing Mars. Colder than Antarctica, no natural protection from cosmic rays, no air to breathe in the almost 100% vacuum there, and yet we talk of growing food and living there. I always wonder if they were serious, why not demonstrate how you could land a spacecraft on some very high altiplano plateau in the Andes, Himalayas, or Antarctica, and show the world how well you can survive in space-suits to grow your own food while sheltering underground from radiation. Why no realistic earth-based, pressure-suit, high-altitude, self-sustaining, land your ship then do underground-farming demo? Why? Well because it would be too difficult on Earth. So why talk about doing it on Mars at this point of they are not willing to do a realistic demo on Earth where they could be rescued or brought supplies when things don’t work out? Maybe they have not thought it through, but the “Mars!” factor makes people take leave of their senses.
Kind of like the “underwater!” and “kite!” factors make Minesto seem so tantalizing while it is never explained why they don’t just place turbines underwater. Whacky energy “news” - always in the future, or on another planet, etc…
Pierre,
My constantly restricted account stops me from continuing to edit older posts. This is the standard of moderation you so strongly approve of.
Doug,
You are welcome to speculate “all roads lead to the ST”, even if its a futuristic idea. The modern power kite is a TRL9 COTS basis for AWE, for anyone skilled enough to apply it.
Look closer at the Grav-Energy/AWE-hybrid concept- it has an inherent storage basis by the tremendous mass reserved at altitude.
g is in fact closer to 4m/s2, but I was in a hurry, and anyway did not round the total energy down to 10kWhr, TUDelft’s hourly target.
Replying to Doug below: He seems to overlook that most of the available Mars energy is the mass already elevated as giant mountains, and the kite aspect is secondary and very intermittent. There is also the potential to mine Sulphur for Martian Concrete and other mass transport, plus pick-and-place sky-crane work.
Let Doug come up with a better Mars energy scheme if he can. On Earth, kites are better, these are hardly the same sort of place.
Replying to Pierre below: Doug’s idea of using concrete blocks on Mars for gravity-storage is not worthwhile. The concept shown would use high-altitude in-situ regolith as the primary energy reserve.
The potential energy of gravity is long proven useful as hydropower. Norway is almost completely powered by falling water. There are many gravity-based mechanisms in engineering. Regenerative braking of electric vehicles is a significant example.
Again, let anyone knowledgeable of the challenge identify more in-situ energy on Mars.
If you plan on eventually producing some electricity with the masses going downhill, why not just produce the electricity in the first place with your kites, and save dragging a ton of rocks 7 miles uphill to generate a paltry 10 kWh? The 10 kW system here is a 22-foot prop on a 120-foot tower. Nice idea Dave, but hasn’t this been mentioned many years ago on the old forum? Using kites to drag weights uphill then getting the energy back by letting the mass go back downhill? Why do you need the mass at all? Isn’t the mass, and the Mars factor, just distractions to recycle old bad ideas as a wannabe new idea? Isn’t this just the old ground-based rope-drive laddermill idea? Anyway, talk is cheap. Build a scale model in the orders-of-magnitude more favorable operating environment right here on Earth, and show the world what a breakthrough it is. What about the cranes that are going to pile up concrete blocks to build a tower then disassemble the tower and lower the blocks to get the power back? More genius. The blocks will never wear out or break, and the crane will never miss its mark. I have people contact me with this kind of stuff all the time - PhD level people and when I run a few preliminary numbers for them they go “Oh I never considered that.” Wonder how that one is going right now… Maybe you could use kites to lift the blocks, and the crane to lower them. Still more genius. Hope nobody drops one on their toe. Doh! 
“Honey, why did our electric bill just increase by ten times?” “To save the world from global whatever-it-is-this-week by wasting as much money as possible to make the power in the most indirect, roundabout way possible!”
Gravity is lower on Mars. So lifting the concrete blocks could be easier. 
Note to Doug below- Roland was sent this letter “directly”, as noted, and also has received many past messages regarding the concerns. Many of the technical critiques apply to ST scaling and promotional claims. The difference is my support for a scaled-up ST, to settle any doubts, which TUDelft is unlikely to support.
Also, New Forum censorship to me is an interesting challenge, rather than an emotional problem. The regret is only that the public reader is cheated, not me. In your case, you will never produce any post that was ever wrongly censored by JoeF. This Forum has hundreds of unseen posts that can be shown suppressed.
Original Post-
Here is a letter to Roland, referencing the Kite Towing topic, but more about the moral and technical challenges in EU AWE R&D, that New Forum Moderation Complaints are at the center of, by wrongful practice of anonymous censorship.
This letter serves as an sample of messages going out directly to EU players, in lieu of technical free-speech suppressed on this Forum-
Roland,
Earlier today, you wrote- “Thanks, @tallakt, for pointing (km/hr v. m/s typo) out”
Its a stark contrast to never show any gratitude nor interest for years of freely shared kPower corrections. As for for minor TUDelft typos of the sort Tallak found, a copy of the 1st Springer Textbook is marked-up extensively, placed in the print collection of the American Windpower Museum in Lubbock. If the book ever goes into 2nd edition, those corrections stand ready.
There is never any reply from you on more substantial technical corrections and suggestions. For example, the interesting missing aerodynamic parameter in Gonzalo’s data, that no one else seemed able to answer, Delta Vortex Lift, remains un-responded. Marginal kite schemes, like 50m2 tensairity SLKs on Mars, or Saraceno’s giant Bell stick-kite, are seemingly not worth questioning.
These are still minor corrections compared to the massive TUD experimental design failures long identified. TUD has not at all explored topological kite network spaces Wubbo himself saw as promising (his SpiderMill intuition). TUD has completely failed to anticipate obvious fatal flaws in Makani and Ampyx architectures. TUD has not identified most basic AWE scaling laws, critical safety factors, and still not even found power-to-mass as the primary figure of merit in AWES design (not specific-power by wing-area). TUD has embraced shabby venture capital values over deep engineering-science. Ongoing AWEC/AWEurope takeover of conferences continues to deeply undermine you all.
This single biggest TUD error can be summed up as total lack of highly original and significant discovery since Wubbo passed. Can you name even just one new breakthrough idea? Instead there is tired rehash of Makani trivia that still does not offer core critical insight into their failure. The latest kite-towing paper offers no new insight. TUD is “looking for the car keys only under the lamppost, and they are not there”. AWE is far more than limited GIGO cut-and-paste calculations have encompassed. True kite expertise, applied heuristically, has leaped far ahead conceptually. Wubbo represented this sort of creativity.
Instead of expressing gratitude for so much generous acute critique by kPower, you are silent. What an absurd parody of EU correctitude. Who else but kPower can you depend on for such valuable kite-tech critiques? Will you ever reply conscientiously? TUD must break free of dependence on petty venture capitalism and its conference monopoly, break dependence on single-line topology, on com-link control-pods, on downwind-upwind reeling and bad launching methods, on every wing type but true SS, on e-VTOL and brittle control, and especially break dependence on suppressed crash detail and statistical cover-ups.
You must eliminate all frivolous failure mode dependencies, and meet all kite basics, to ever win survival-to-payback. The MSc regarding SS scaling seems a definite sign you are now aware of the technical trap the EU venture players have fallen in. The Kitepower cover-up of its crash details, not yet rectified; and remains a moral and technical sword-of Damocles over TUD and AWEurope. We will all soon enough find out if you are to pivot or stay on the same course, as AWE R&D surges forward on definite merits.
Still waiting to see what you decide regarding AWEC2021SeaTac. Wubbo would be bringing everyone together for that; ever responsive to essential critique. He lives,
dave
Dave it is indeed sad that these kids trying to run this forum are so hampered by their religious cult mentality, which of course they likely do not even recognize, and a lack of AWE creativity leading to wasting their energy recategorizing messages into new “topics”, while not contributing any real progress. I’m trying to think of any new progress in AWE since this new forum began - can’t really think of any except many of the most highly-funded and highly-publicized efforts are falling by the wayside.
Please recognize you are now experiencing and complaining about the exact sort of unwarranted, chicken-shit censorship you and Joe together practiced in the “you hold him and I’ll hit him” “tag-team” silencing of any true statements in your old forum. How fitting that you should experience this same sort of treatment you two dished out for well over a decade. The reason was the same as it is in all online forums: The people running the forum, rather than having any technical advances to offer, try to instigate a conversation, but are unable to handle the fact that other people DO have accurate technical contributions to make, but the facts offered compete with their indoctrination. In the end, you can see that they, like you and Joe, suffer from an emotion-based approach to technical issues, directed by others who are adept at subtly influencing technical questions with false facts and emotion-based ratioale for these false facts. The truth-teller is relegated to a similar situation to the movie “Idiocracy” where the most basic common-sense facts such as “water the crops with water instead of Gatorade to stop the starvation” fall on deaf ears due to a pervasive atmosphere of indoctrination of “single-issue-analysis” driven by cashflows to special interests. You’ve always been a happy promoter of such falsehood-indoctrination, but now you ironically find yourself a victim. Too bad you will probably never recognize it.
The problem I see here is, due to this being a “hidden topic” is that Roland is not likely to SEE your “letter to Roland” due to the fact that these kids are unable/unwilling to offer a true open forum that facilitates open communication, but, like you and Joe, are limited in their outlook by the false facts programmed into their minds by the power structure, afraid to allow the truth to be spoken, just as the public in “Idiocracy” could not see to use water form crops, or the inhabitants of a planet ruled by “the oracle” in a Star Trek episode were afraid to let anyone speak the truth on their entire planet. These screenplays clearly teach us, and warn us, to allow free speech and overcome authoritative censorship or perish, but we have trouble accepting the lesson.
Meanwhile I think you ought to spend some time developing power-kites pulling a chairlift cable or something rather than wasting your time trying to get the teeming throngs to ever make any sense.
I posted recently on Kyushu University towing tests - #4 by rschmehl topic:
Hi @rschmehl ,
This is impressive. Many equations, figures, curves, for a single publication. And now there are hundreds of AWE articles with lots of equations, figures, curves as well. What does it lead to?
With luck, the airborne wind energy space will sink back into academic research efforts involving kitesurfing kites at University of Delft. It’s useful to continue to play with things in academia, and it’s a domain with a lot of engineering complexity that’s a good proving ground for engineers who can go on to do useful things as a result. But commercially it’s never going to be viable.
Is it true?
Why not broaden the field of investigation beyond M. Loyd’s model?
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@Tom, @tallakt, @Windy_Skies, @kitefreak, @dougselsam, @Rodread, I would know your advice: it would be interesting in a technical point of view concerning the area of moderation.
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How can you expect any sensible response to that drivelling attack?
Roland is sound. He will quite happily address those concerns in personable terms.
I agree. @rschmehl is both a leading and open-minded expert and a fair person. I learn a lot from him. So attacking him and his environment has no sense.
That said my question was: basically what is the objective of so many scientific publications in AWE field? Perhaps AWE will be limited to theoretical researches, perhaps theoretical researches would be a step towards viability, by including if possible different good or bad methods to stimulate the body of research, and perhaps confirm our dear yoyo and flygen modes by solving problems that could not be by limiting oneself from the outset to these methods. It goes far beyond the goals of any particular organization.
@kitefreak, I see I was being soft, and still am for still not permabanning you. I’ll refer back to my chomping metaphor again. You know what to do to avoid getting chomped. You’re getting the special treatment because of your stated position, animosity, and past behavior. I expect from your perspective getting chomped so often must feel unexpected.
Anyway, when you’re ready to get back into the water please remember the posting limits. I also suggest you not comment about the moderation in this forum again. That only attracts the killer whales, just like your talking at me in pm does. Give sources for your claims and lay off the animosity and the likelihood of your getting chomped goes down.
Any reasonable person would have permabanned you long ago. At the moment it seems to me that would probably be for the best.
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I do not know why I have gotten multiple emails about a deleted post - supposedly self-promotion or advertising. I click on whatever links which are supposedly to fix whatever the offending post is but end up getting sent back here. Do not know what the problem is. Do not know what the supposed-self-advertising post even said. I don’t think I advertised anything. Seems like pointless harassment or something. Of course, the longer we go on with no AWE system in regular operation, no homes powered by AWE, etc., after all the years of big talk and false promises, the more it becomes apparent that we’ve been fed a lot of untrue statements by people who either should have known better, or who don’t know any better. Which is worse? I do not know, but luring me here on the premise of an open AWE forum seems just as fraudulent as the last AWE “open forum” - know-nothings trying to make sure it stays that way.
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I could have used off-topic instead perhaps. Isn’t repeated soapboxing spam?
If you want to complain about something start a topic about it, if it’s relevant to AWE and you haven’t said basically the same thing a million times before.
This forum is moderated.
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By do-nothing idiots who will never get anything working.
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Boo
threshold
bit of common courtesy please
Common courtesy would include allowing people to express their insights, opinions, and helpful knowledge, without trying to steamroll well-intended factual input and instead attempt to substitute their own, less insightful, less factual, less helpful opinions, and lack of knowledge. Funny how two (2) forums in a row have the exact same problem. I was disappointed at what I saw and heard at the first High Altitude Wind Power Conference, and said so openly, maintaining that nobody in attendance seemed to have the least bit of familiarity with wind energy, and that, while I was a big fan of the idea of AWE like everyone else, I did not see much likelihood of success from the concepts and personnel introduced at that point. As time went on this did not change and even seemed to get worse. At some point you could take all of the predictions made by everyone involved and see almost none came true except for what I had declared from the start: None of these entities seemed to quite grasp the realities of wind energy. Weird how people that decide to start a forum cannot handle such basic and well-intentioned observations and assessments, especially as they turn out to be true over and over and over again.
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Doug: “Common courtesy would include allowing people to express their insights, opinions, and helpful knowledge, without trying to steamroll well-intended factual input and instead attempt to substitute their own, less insightful, less factual, less helpful opinions, and lack of knowledge.”
I wish Dave Santos (@kitefreak) may publish all technical contents as required, particularly the last version of the multi-anchored system with a complete sketch representing the modus operanti, indicating how “Vortex-Lift and Dynamic-Stall” work for the conversion system.
Problems of behavior should be deal separately (for example by keeping only technical elements of a message, even if they are not quite on-topic or quite complete).
The previous forum was not a good example for this as numerous messages contained personal attacks of word deformations, or also censorship of some technical contents. The new forum can do better.
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