Previous topic here: Slow Chat II
If you click in toward the end of this video, it is amazing how long and far this guy flies.
They had to build this extra-long jump specifically for this stunt.
Could there be the kernel of an AWE idea here?
In this episode of “Undecided with Matt Ferrell” we check out the “Darwin turbine”.
Are Shrouded Rooftop Wind Turbines the Future of Energy? (youtube.com)
They either have a lot of these installed, or more likely it is all renderings.
Funny how this guy can go on for a whole episode about a wind turbine design, and never state the power output in any way, except to suggest it is less powerful than a regular wind turbine, but that less output is OK for this application. I guess this company is Norwegian, so you might expect they at least halfway know what they’re doing, but… What do you think? Anyway, even bad ideas might suggest a better way of doing the same thing!
Are Shrouded Rooftop Wind Turbines the Future of Energy? (youtube.com)
A shrouded wind turbine in AWE version: you put a wind turbine (Altaeros style) inside the big hole of an annular parachute like this:
I look at this particular talking point as having put me to sleep over a decade ago. Like, “Hey, did you know sometimes wind speeds can sometimes deviate from averages at certain heights?” “No, really?” The hypnotic catalyst here seems to be the word “jets”. Sounds pretty serious, right? “Hey, look out, there are JETS up there! You better duck before one hits you in the head!”
It rationalized bringing in someone who studied weather, like a ribbon on a gift-wrapped package that was mostly empty, but the ribbon kept the newbies excited because it made the package look nice. It seemed to lend “credibility” to longwinded presentations about AWE accomplishments that mysteriously always seemed to be perpetually relegated to “the future”. Lately we even see such a nice person being giddily called “the mother of AWE” by the perpetual newbies. OMG. Reminds me of having a den-mother in cub scouts as a little kid. “Adult supervision”…
It was basically one more distraction from the simple reality that nobody had anything workable or working on a regular basis. That still seems to be the case. This is typical behavior for wannabe or pretend wind energy innovators, reminiscent of a group prosecuted years ago for fraudulently promoting rotating rooftop beehive ventilators as a wind energy breakthrough.
Never even connected to a generator (typical vertical-axis “development”). Rather than selling a product, they were selling “territories”. Their sales pitch would start by lecturing the audience of the vastness of the wind resource, how much energy was contained in the wind, how wind contained X hundred or thousand times more energy than we could ever consume, etc.
These well-known scientific facts were then substituted for any slight indication that the rooftop ventilators were providing, or even could provide, ANY of this energy. They relied on an audience who did not have the background to make logical connections about the difference between citing a source of energy, versus demonstrating the ability to harness it. Very typical sales presentation for vertical-axis machines, etc. Some people got arrested for some sort of financial fraud over it.
The guys running the last forum spent quite a lot of “hot air” over LLJ’s, so many years ago. It served to keep an otherwise empty conversation going, like coming up with lyrics for one more verse of a tired song, which at this point is more like a dead bug laying on its back, still wiggling its legs. 
Breaking news; CNN discloses powering homes to MW numbers
https://edition.cnn.com/world/middleeast/dubai-worlds-biggest-waste-to-energy-facility/index.html
135.000 homes at 2 MW, means 1.481 kW per home. These are homes in Dubai meaning probably some portion of these homes ise AC, and probably they have a decent living standard.
I think this is kind of a breakthrough. We now have homes to kW defined accurately
One of the most common wind energy “inventions” by people without a background in wind energy is to somehow move the generator to the ground. Dare I mention the sacred name “Professor Crackpot”?
Whether it is a long, rotating driveshaft (whether coincident with the tower, or inside the tower, etc.), or a hydraulic pump at the tower top and a hydraulic motor at the bottom driving a generator, long looping belts, or… a kite pulling a string on a reel, they are all similar in their basic intent to “get that heavy generator on the ground where it belongs, dang it!”.
It’s a lot of “all-ya-gotta-do-is…” thinking (or lack of thinking).
I’m almost surprised someone hasn’t suggested using the tower-top generator to drive a motor at ground level, that then spins a second generator! I mean, why do things the easy way when you can make it way more complicated and expensive?
And of course there are the vertical-axis turbines with their supposed “advantage” of a ground-based generator - and the other reason is the vertical-axis people are usually too ignorant to even try to elevate their turbine in the first place - but if you know anything about motors and bearings, generators like to run sideways (laying down), not standing on end, because it is better for the bearings.
Anyway, I’m a big proponent of ground-based generators, but not aware of any major success stories - yet! :)))
“a kite pulling a string on a reel” : do you mean other AWE methods are better, such as flygens or torque transmitting rotors? Old discussion as you know. Reeling is very far from the way conventional wind turbines operate. On the other hand, it is what has shown the most efficiency so far (SkySails), thanks in particular to a good power/mass in flight ratio.
Hi Pierre!
Yes the incredible output figures for Skysails are legendary, and by now, ancient history.
So the question became, long ago, with such incredible numbers, and the “news” several years ago of a factory producing them, and “sales around the world”, where is even just one, operating on a regular basis, today?
Hmmmm…
Hi Doug, indeed SuperTurbine ™ is nice and stimulated AWE research. I’m afraid I won’t find your post on the original thread anymore, just like the excellent debunking of VAWT.
Something didn’t look right about Tallak’s calculation, above…
So, I just got out my trusty calculator, bought from the 99-Cents Only store 10 years ago. (They just went bankrupt, closing all stores, due to inflation, by the way.) Let’s call it a “Supercomputer”
I divided 2,000,000 by 135,000, and got 14.8 Watts per household.
Meanwhile, Tallak sees another “breakthrough”.
Like Skysails taking 20 years to have someone else measure the same basic power curve they had years ago was “a breakthrough”.
This is the kind of non-thinking, emotion-based (lack of) “reasoning” that drives utter nonsense endlessly forward!
Oh shucks. 
Caught with my pants down.
I should also mention the other breakthrough in the article, they are saving us from global warming by burning thrash, and then emitting less CO2 than an unknown alternative.
Lets see in 20 years how that plan went…
Game-Changing Research Unlocks New Wind Energy Potential | OilPrice.com
OK just one more exercise in identifying utter nonsense in wind energy.
First clue: “Game-Changing”
Nothing in this article even makes any sense, and don’t they say something about doubling the efficiency? Yeah, sure…
Every “fact” in this article is misstated, completely wrong, and/or utter nonsense.
Another attempted “rescue” of vertical-axis turbines
And this article in “OilPrice.com” is linked to in a mass email from “Interesting Engineering” “Blueprint”
They say:
ENERGY
Researchers have used a genetic learning algorithm to identify optimal pitch profiles for the blades of vertical-axis wind turbines, which have a much higher energy potential than conventional turbines.
Major Lie Alert: If vertical-axis turbines had “a much higher energy potential than conventional turbines” then they would BE “conventional” by now. Instead, they are abandoned, dismantled, failed, etc.
What you are seeing is one more “press-release breakthrough”, based on total lies.
In this case, I chalk it up to “global warming derangement syndrome” combined with "“A.I. derangement syndrome”…
Since this story has both, combined, it can be full of lies, and yet pass through whatever “editor” process may exist at “Interesting Engineering” without the slightest scrutiny or verification of factuality. Obviously. nobody with any knowledge of wind energy was consulted.
Once you read the article you realize the whole thing has never even been built. It’s NOTHING but a bunch of empty talk that is guaranteed to go nowhere. But people just don’t know any of this because unless someone KNOWS wind energy, they know NOTHING really, about it. SO when Professor Crackpot gets to the cocktail party, after reading this article, he can let everyone know all about the impending (always in the future) ascent of vertical-axis turbines, due to a learning algorithm, and everyone there will then “know” how vertical-axis turbines are actually superior, and about to take over the wind energy industry! Sound familiar?
Genetic algorithms are so meh this year. Give me LLMs!
Teams of MoE LLMs with RAG and localised long context
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I was just watching this random business video, and it ended up explaining why funding for AWE might be a bit harder to come by at time + 00:58 seconds in:
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How to train an edge microcontroller with the phrase
Is my kite flying where I want it
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A simple rule: if HAWT can do everything AWES do, HAWT will do it better.
For example a small AWES to power a single home is unlikely (at best) to be as practical and efficient as a HAWT.
Where AWE still has some chances over HAWT is in sweeping large wind areas at high altitude, where the height would impose a huge mass for HAWT.
Not every small use case is a single fixed home
Really slow chat for those following ai
Looks like LSTM may yet make a comeback over transformer architectures.
