Slow Chat II

Iā€™ve noticed a sudden shift to promoting nuclear energy plants as low-carbon solutions, and power purchase agreements for wind energy being cancelled as impossibly cheap to pencil out as economically-viable.

Warren Bufffet famously said when interest rates rise, you can see who is swimming naked. In other words, higher interest rates are like the tide goes out, and with the ā€œwater levelā€ (cheap money available) lowers, projects that were neck-deep in cheap money are now at an ankle-slapping level of financial instability, having trouble staying ā€œafloatā€.

Over the past several years, noticing how much more expensive offshore wind is, especially floating, for deep-water, Iā€™ve wondered if the extensive and elaborate plans for floating offshore wind energy might never be realized.

Just the idea of running networks of power cables through salt-water sounds challenging, as a start.

:slight_smile:

Offshore wind is done dt politics, not due to economical or technical reasons. Who knows, this kind of thinking put us on the moon. But maybe offshore wind done in a profitable manner is harder?

Hi Tallak:
When you say ā€œis doneā€, do you mean ā€œis finishedā€, ā€œis stoppedā€, or do you mean ā€œis performedā€?

Once again, Iā€™m not clear on your meaning. What do you mean by ā€œthis type of thinkingā€ - what does ā€œthisā€ refer to?

also: Iā€™ve made the point in the past, we had a man on the moon before we had the first windfarm. :slight_smile:

So AWE still has a chanceā€¦

I mean is performed and the reference to the moon landing is mostly spot on

In the AWES field, for new entrants, the value of their contribution must be clear and significant. Still, success is uncertain.

Weā€™re mainly engineers, but to effectively sell, we need strong marketing skills too.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Lackadaisically and Intermittently Throwing Darts at a Surprisingly Resilient and Long-Lived Bubble, With the Bubble Fighting Back | An experiential experience on the lasting effects of US media global warming misinformation in the minds of its recipients

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/16074uz/how_much_better_are_offshore_windturbines_vs_land/


wing foiling


Re: kite networks, this is an alternative; virtual spring systems, in controlling robotic swarms: Controlling Robotic Swarms - Brian Douglas - Youtube I imagine you can apply the same logic to how aggressively you want to return to your optimal flight path if youā€™re flying a single kite.

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The cited video, at 11:17, seems to represent a network of planes (that could perhaps be a kite network).

The YouTube subtitles indicate from 11:09:

ā€¦ this video is just the beginning of robotic swarm research as you the dynamics of the swarm research, as you can imagine there are a lot of problems that need to be solved in this field and are being solved by the researchersā€¦

[11:17]:

for example one downside of cooperative robotic control is that the dynamics of the swarm are now coupled so that if a wind gust perturbs a single vehicle the disturbance will propagate through the whole swarmā€¦

Although that looks like a very good introduction to the topic to me, it is also very short and by now ancient. Iā€™d first try to find something more recent and in depth.

Maybe this is a good start, which is about control theory and autonomous navigation and so on: Videos ā€” Engineering Media

Should Airships Make a Comeback? - Veritasium

One option looked at is to transport wind turbine blades too large to go over roads.

Stig Anton Nielsen did some projects relevant to the subject of this forum. A tethered underwater kite, a simple and working airborne wind energy system, linked earlier on this forum by PierreB, and a Cascading PID on Test Rig.

He also made a boat propelled by a rotor sail, on which he comments, among other things:

And regarding power usage the papers on the topic says about 15 % of total power is to drive the rotor, the other 85% is the wind - so well invested energyā€¦

The cantilevered rotor design looks so frail, Iā€™m surprised it is able to support itself without breaking off at the base. Nice proof of concept, but probably insufficient for general use. Still, it seems to work pretty well. I wonder how it would compare to an inflated Michelin sail. Or a regular cloth sail. Or a kite for that matter?

Really cool. It demonstrates the feasibility of a kite powered boat that could park at any coordinate and stay there forever (assuming periods of no wind are not greater than battery capacity)

I just came across the following headline:
" Around the world with no emissions with Solar Airship One
Solar Airship One embarks on a 24,854-mile zero-emissions world tour powered by the Sun and hydrogen. A game-changer in sustainable aviation."

The level of dishonesty in these publications never ceases to amaze me. This article pretends this airship actually exists, calling it ā€œhistoricā€, naming the three pilots, saying it ā€œembarksā€ on a ā€œworld tourā€, calling it ā€œa game-changerā€, whereas long experience with such ā€œpress-release breakthroughsā€ tells me it does not even exist!
More ā€œnews of the futureā€, in this case, pretending itā€™s already happened/happening.

They canā€™t even be bothered to say it is a ā€œproposed projectā€ or that some group is ā€œplanningā€ to build this nonexistent solar-powered airship. Will it ever be built? Well, those who pay attention will realize this is not the first phantom airship I have debunked. As it stands now, it looks to me like just one more rendering masquerading as a finished project flying around the globe. What do you think? Is there any end of this sort of misleading ā€œnewsā€?

Hi Doug, the article presents Solar Airship One as a project from the beginning, not an existing airship:

Euro Airship unveiled its groundbreaking project, Solar Airship One, in a historic move towards sustainable aviation in a press release.

The three envisaged pilots, and in particular Bertrand Piccard, are already well known for their exploits.

Technological features on:

That said, the myth of ā€œbeing ahead of your timeā€, has become a new conformism.

Hi Pierre:
The article uses language that pretends the supposed ā€œprojectā€ is far ahead of the reality. You have to read into the article carefully to realize it is not a real airship at all, but just an idea at this time, nothing flying, or ā€œembarkingā€ on any around the world journey - nope, just an ill-formed idea. How many giant airships have you read about since this whole AWE hype-cycle started? Ten or more? How many are flying today? Zero.
Iā€™m laughing. I can see it now: ā€œWe never expected the airship would turn upside-down immediately after launch - the solar panels made the top heavier than the bottom!ā€
And they say they will use electrolysis to split water to create hydrogen fuel by day, so it can be ā€œburnedā€ in fuel cells to power the craft at night. More ā€œa little knowledge is a dangerous thingā€. In this case they are still stuck in 3rd grade science class. Their ā€œlittle bit of knowledgeā€ that H2O is made from 2 Hā€™s and an O does not include the fact that electrolysis is 50% efficient, and the fuel cell is 50% efficient, so the most they can store is 25% of the energy, NOT including any compression or liquefaction, should it be required. Iā€™d say theyā€™d be better of just floating at night, or using batteries for storage, which might help to counterbalance all those solar panels located above the center of lift. The fact that people have been contemplating this for ten years is about par for the course of giant airships that are never built. Theyā€™re always being contemplated - just seldom or never built. In the rare instance one is built, they quickly crash. Iā€™m pretty sure you have read as many similar ā€œstoriesā€ of future giant airships as I have. I guess the difference is you still believe them? :slight_smile:

These solar panels harness sunlight during the day to power the airshipā€™s electric propulsion systems while storing excess energy in fuel cells. By night, the stored energy is utilized as the fuel cells convert hydrogen produced through water electrolysis into electricity.

PV produce electricity which is used during the day. The surplus is stored overnight. Where is the problem?

Itā€™s stated from the start: see the quote on my previous comment.

Bertrand Piccard accomplished two firsts with two non-stop world tours with a balloon and with Solar Impulse. I would therefore be prudent to avoid making fun for areas in which he is the leader.

Hi Pierre: As I stated before, and many times before that, you get a maximum of maybe 25% of your energy back, as opposed to batteries, which return most of the energy put in - 90% or more? Also, in your quote above, it says the energy is stored in fuel cells. Arenā€™t they mixing up a fuel cell with a storage tank? Either way, they would have further losses in compression or liquefaction. They are glossing over the fact that the hydrogen has to be stored somewhere, and that unless it is stored at ambient pressure, the compression would take energyā€¦ Itā€™s just one more example of the fact that such articles are feel-good fluff, without regard for facts, and just say what they think ā€œsounds goodā€ to an unthinking audience who will just accept nonsense is presented, without truly considering what is being said, or even reading carefully.

The area I am making fun of is the area of ā€œpress-release breakthroughsā€ promising constructing giant airships: people just saying they will construct a giant airship ā€œin the futureā€, especially when presented as though the accomplishment has already taken place. Iā€™ve been reading such articles for 50 years and counting, with no giant airship actually built, except one double-wide blimp that people said looked like someoneā€™s ass, which promptly crashed and was subsequently abandoned. Like you, I used to get excited about these airship announcements. I remember one very convincing future-airship story, with the ā€œinventorā€ based near Los Angeles. I was so excited I actually contacted the company. No more, Iā€™ve been fooled too many times. Itā€™s all BS.
The people promoting these things probably believe what they are saying, but their fantasies never turn out to actually be completed. Even the idea that they have been planning such a thing for ten years or more is just more evidence that it will always remain in the planning stage.

People with bad ideas are drawn to embellishing their bad ideas with further bad ideas, never able to see that the numbers make no sense. So it is not surprising when one more group claiming they ā€œwill buildā€ a giant airship also pretends it will use the 25% efficient hydrogen electrolysis/fuel cell paradigm to store the energy. Who would choose a 25% energy return over 90% energy return? Why?

The people involved may be adventurous, but also might be mathematically-challenged. What WOULD be surprising is if one of these giant airships were ever actually built. When that happens you can scold me for pointing out how such plans never materialize, Until then, Iā€™ll stick with my prediction. You might note Iā€™ve flagged a lot of bad ideas, and have announced they were not actually happeniing many many times so far, even while the idiotic press continues to regurgitate the proven lies of previous years. So my track record, on that at least, is pretty good. Iā€™d love to see it, but after 50 years of reading such stories, I recognize them as fiction. :slight_smile: