Hi Doug, I remember that you appreciated one of my experiences. Yet it was a concentration of solutions which generally fail: Magnus bottle(s) to turn a VAWT. And I would be presumptuous to think otherwise, although higher pressure inflatable blades and balloons could maybe improve the situation.
Now let’s get this straight: in your opinion, does AWE for electricity production people fall into the category of “The La Brea Tar Pits of wind energy”? Please reply “yes” or “no”.
If your answer is “no”, you can take a look at the following questions.
Do serious wind turbine people think about making wind turbines fly? Are the superior resources of high altitude winds worth trying again, although one can be almost certain that it would not be possible to achieve the efficiency of HAWT with equal swept area, unless you have a huge and expensive flying lifter, not to mention space and security problems (air traffic, ground activities, etc.)?
My idea is AWE can be a possibility if relatively simple and reliable machines are implemented, capable of sweeping large areas of wind, the lower efficiency (power coefficient Cp) being compensated by the higher resource and frontal swept area.
When I no longer think so, I will stop posting.