And Tallak said:
“I didn’t think Doug included aerostats as a possibility.”
OK HERE is what I thought as the AWE sector and all of these “even-more-crazy-than-usual” wannabe wind energy “inventors” emerged:
- These people know NOTHING about wind energy
- These people know nothing about inventing
- Inventing doesn’t mean you have to re-invent every component (such as Dabiri re-re-inventing the vertical-axis turbine to place below real turbines, Altaeros trying to re-invent the aerostat, Minesto, Magenn, and the “million flies” trying to re-invent the rotor (or its supposed equivalent), etc. Inventing means standing on the shoulders of the giants that have come before you - use proven components in new combinations, and it doesn;t have to be that complicated! Why not use the best type of turbine Dabiri??? Why use a proven crappy design? Why not use a proven Aerostat Altaeros? What the heck is the matter with these people? Has “Professor Crackpot” taken over their brains???
- The first, simplest, most obvious things to try would be simply lofting a turbine using a kite OR an aerostat. Nobody could be bothered!!! After all these years, pretty-much nobody has made a decent effort of trying the two simplest ideas for AWE!!!
Wind Energy is a magnet for Crackpots. Airborne Wind Energy is a neodymium supermagnet. At least the old style of wind energy crackpots, however misguided (usually chasing vertical-axis designs) knew something about wind turbines…
Their problem was not realizing how bad the math is on vertical-axis turbines, thinking the real reason nobody uses V_A machines was because it just needed their “special” input, normally throwing away the first stated advantage of not having to aim, in order to provide pitch control.
Today, ANY crazy idea is taken seriously! Like flying airplanes between turbines to mix up the air or whatever that one was - people have lost their minds. There is no requirement for anything to even pretend to make any sense! It;s just “land of the lost” or maybe “crackpot city!”
Having said all that, like any wind energy inventor, I do have some vertical-axis ideas myself… 