Do you have experience on the price/effort difference between a tower that can pivot down vs not?
Theoretically, most any guyed tower could be lowered by one or more winches and/or vehicles. At 120 feet height, however, almost everyone would use a crane to tilt down the entire tower assembly. These steel lattice towers are extremely heavy. Even just the steel guy cables are very, very heavy. Even then, an installer using a crane placed a belt wrong and buckled my tower one time, dropping the turbine 100 feet. It was replaced. Yes there are almost 100% windidiots outside the industry, but occasional engineering idiots installing turbines. 
Dream on. Oh, we need 20 characters to post. No more words are needed.
In this case, not posting anything does the trick.
Smaller towers are usually dedicated tilt-down using a winch or truck.
Bigger one can usually be tilted down, but the bigger they get, the more likely a crane would be called in to avoid mishaps. And of course there are still occasional mishaps.
You have written hundreds of posts of the same kind, or rather hundreds of times the same one.
If you think that AWE and more generally anything that is not yet realized or used is a field for Crackpots, say it once and for all. No need to repeat this endless.
If you think you are the only real expert in actual wind energy, why donāt you focus on it instead of lingering on an AWE forum?
You are stuck between two chairs: not Crackpot enough for AWE, but too Crackpot for real wind energy.
Hi Pierre:
The history of these forums would indicate that I am nearly alone in any semblance of accurate diagnosis of the many crackpot ideas presented and sometimes pursued. I say ahead of time the ideas cannot work out. it is obvious when one has experience in wind energy. the very fact of no experience in wind energy as the main āqualificationā of AWE people is the first major clue. The fact of hundreds of supposed wind energy people who do not even know the difference between a lift machine and a drag machine, following a āleaderā who also did not know that lift and drag were already the two major categories of wind energy, with established definitions ;omg-recognized was the First joke in this comedy, but unfortunately the AWE people didnāt get the joke. So silly! The other thing is AWE wannabes had to even be convinced that AWE was a subset of wind energy, that there were standards to meet and experience to gain from. None of it mattered. All that mattered was the lies some people were willing to tell, the naive people who unquestionably believe them, the typical beginner/newbie mistaken analysis of every aspect of the challenge that was greedily attacked in words, while actual attempts to carry through with the empty talk quickly revealed that nobody knew what the heck they were doing. The level of ignorance is too deep to bother to completely document. Iāve been argued with the whole time, but in the end everything Iāve said has been true, and next to nothing anyone else has said has turned out to be true. No promise has been kept. if you, by this time, cannot see another crackpot idea for what isnāt, well, iāve tried to help, but if people can;t understand this stuff themselves, and can;t listen to someone who does, all I can say is I tried to tell people. From the very beginning, as the perpetual newbies declared their battle to end the existence of the dreaded tower, to this day, when the conversation is about using taller towers, there is no focus, no sense of reality, only idle dreams from people more interested in tippity-tapping on the internet than doing anything useful. Yes it has apparently been a waste of time trying to help 1000 ignorant people understand what they have no interest in truly understanding. oh well. The really silly thing is the āProfessor Crackpot Syndromeā was already the main feature of wannabe wind energy inventors, long before AWE came along. This is the really stupid thing. That AWE people did not even know all the previous mistakes, and just repeat then. To explain it requires āThe La Brea Tar Pitsā but it doesn;t matter. Nothing helps. Nobody has a clue even after all these years. Allergic to facts, like Dave Santos. Idle brainstorming over goofy non-engineering ideas won;t help.
Hi Doug,
Why donāt you go more directly by clearly saying: āAWE is a dead endā?
Just saw this article. Looks like it was written by Professor Crackpot himself. Maybe A.I. (Artificial Idiocy) wrote it. An utterly empty and worthless article, with all the standard crackpot talking points, touting concepts championed by even certain AWE wannabes (Iāll let you guess which one).
This radical wind turbine design could quietly change the entire world
Now, an AWE version?
Hi Doug,
What annoys you are the limitless claims of the kind: this will revolutionize the energy world, the new discovery that will replace existing wind turbines, etc. etc.
Now I find all these inventions (we also and especially see them in the field of AWE) amusing and even instructive, as long as they are not associated with those pretensions that ultimately ruin them.
European startupās turbine powers sailboats using wind, cutting engine and dock reliance
Ah, those Europeans - so smart!
A vertical-axis Savonius turbine, designed to surround the mast of a sailboat.
That would mean large diameter bearings, that would need to split, along with the rest of the turbine, to be attached around the mast, or the mast would have to be removed or disassembled so the turbine could be slid over the mast from either the bottom or the top. Or it would have to be a custom-built mast with the turbine integrally built around it. The bearings would be very large diameter. Sealed, to protect against rust, they would have a lot of drag. The turbine would produce very little energy. It would be more expense and trouble than the value of any paltry production, get in the way of deck access and safety, plus probably be blown apart in a storm. This is one more āpress-release breakthroughā that will go nowhere, and never catch on. Why look at this endless series of obvious (to real wind people) failures destined for The La Brea Tar Pits? Debunking has to be the first skill necessary to not be the next bad example!
What is the point of listing all dubious projects, usually based on VAWT?
If nobody fights crackpots the wind stops blowing, itās over!
Hi Pierre: I think the point is to unveil the fact that we are immersed in a steady stream of disinfomation, on virtually every topic, from every direction. Even science and engineering are not immune. When you look at any article about clean energy breakthroughs, almost 100% of the articles are false. We know that 100% of AWE efforts have stumbled or been abandoned, without a single one ever in daily operation. That extreme level of failure is not found in any field I can think of except maybe religion? And here we are in a group supposedly knowledgeable in AWE, with zero knowledge of exactly why no kitereeling effort is operating on a regular basis anywhere or anytime in the world, in spite of all the positive claims made! How could it be that we have no idea what the problem is with kite=reeling is, in the group dedicated to knowing all about AWE??? And then we get all excited about some favorable article written by some ājournalistā who in actuality knows pretty much nothing about anything, and never seem to notice that none of the articles ever turns out to be true. Itās as though we are asked to either live in a world of complete fantasy, or just keep quiet. Iām just not willing to be so mentally-manipulated. So, whether it;s showing how you would have lost 98% of your money investing in kite-driven Minesto, or the simple fact that no, Skysails was NOT selling working systems worldwide, and no Altaeros was not powering part of Alaska with their feeble attempt at a balloon-supported turbine, I guess I remain the only one here who cares if we understand any actual facts.
Unchanging and pointless chatter.
The final gasp of the perpetually-indoctrinated dreamers: Accusing the accurate analysis and flagging of their own endless misunderstandings and false promises as what they, themselves are promoting, which is, in fact, provably, ānonsenseā. āpointless chatterā or whatever name-calling we wish to apply.
There is a term for this. It is called āprojectingā, where one āprojectsā their own deficits verbally onto another, accusing an opponent of doing exactly what they, themselves are doing, to deflect reality. So if one is constantly spewing nonsense, and someone else identifies it as all complete nonsense, the answer is to accuse that truth-teller of spewing nonsense! Happens all the time. It doesnāt change reality.
Hi Doug,
You produce the same old drivel. Itās not difficult to debunk everything you say, regardless of the comment, since itās always the same thing. So Iām going to do it once and for all.
Does it include the following promise: āall roads lead to SuperTurbineā?
But youāve been discussing about AWE for over 15 years. Is that what experts in real wind energy do?
Drivel.
1 Like
You have refuted nothing. Use of the term ādrivelā describes all the inaccurate crap you see on here every day, including this post of yours. Just as one recent example, I will tell you what is crackpot about your helium-inflated tower 16 miles tall:
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There is not enough helium in the world to build it
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How many trillion dollars would it cost?
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You can find previous articles explaining why we do not currently launch rockets from mountaintops - you are good at looking up facts, so try looking it upā¦
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At the extreme size, with such a huge surface area, it would be blown away in the first strong wind
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I debunk every new article promising the next āheavy-liftā airship too, and the one or two that ever got built immediately crash and are abandoned. This tower would be like a million such airships or moreā¦
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As usual, why donāt they prove how great their idea is at a smaller scale - build a helium-inflated radio tower, for example???
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Oh and let me edit this to add the really stupid part: the helium-inflated tower is going to lift a fully-fueled largest rocket ever built, to 16 miles in the sky, using an internal elevator!!!ā¦ Then the rocket is going to launch without burning up the tower!
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Oh, and to stay upright against a 16-mile tall column of strong winds, , it will use gyroscopesā¦
The difference between you and me is, I bring up the stupid ideas I see to show examples of stupid ideas, so the uneducated people can learn what stupid ideas look like, and why they are stupid, whereas you just bring them up to occasionally debunk them, but I guess more often to defend them??? All you have to do is wait a few years to see them disappear! Get a freakin;ā clue!!! A few weeks ago you had a clue. Suddenly you have adopted the blind, naive, 100% indoctrinated Sunday-school student mentality where, what, you just believe this endless crapola? I donāt think anyoneās brain could degenerate that fast.
Instead of attacking the truth, why donāt you explain to the rest of the 1000+ AWE supposed wind energy pioneers why NOT A SINGLE ONE HAS EVER TALKED ABOUT THEIR OWN TURBINE, THEIR WORK WITH WIND TURBINES, ANY WORKING WIND ENERGY SYSTEM THEY HAVE EVER BUILT OR EVEN BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH - HOW MUCH POWER THEY ARE MAKING, HOW THEY FIXED THEIR TURBINE - none of it? Nothing! A COMPLETE MENTAL VACUUM! And yet they go on talking about their extreme uneducated nonsense??? And you know it very well?
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No answer? Problem with catenary sag effect? But it is not serious, it will eventually give energy (sugar) in The Tea for Brad Pitt.