My short answer would be that conventional WE is just too successful (based on thousands of years of experience and optimization), so although you can do something in AWE that works, it is very hard to outperform mainstream solutions. This is why niche solutions in remote places may be relevant to get things started on a commercially relevant scale. E.g. in regions with hurricanes: you may pull down the AWE system and store it away it in a safe place during extreme conditions, while you cannot do that with towers and blades. That might be one justification for an approach that is more complex and less mature. Another use case would be disaster recovery scenarios where you could bring in the AWE systems temporarily until the damage to the normal infrastructure is repaired. But you guys know all that already. Iâll share an update of what I hear from SkySails before the end of the month, so letâs hope there will be good news soon.
Thatâs what they always say: Altaeros in remote Alaska, Makani in Hawaii, Skysails in Mauritius. I have a different reason they always deploy in remote places: so nobody can find out how bad they are working. I remember finally calling the newspaper in Alaska that had broken the story, to find out how the Altaeros was indeed doing in their famous grid-tie deployment to help power a remote community, where it was expensive to get diesel. Sound familiar yet? Yes because they all sound the same. Someone like me, with JUST A LITTLE experience with wind energy (knowing how you need to be careful what direction you park your car in a windfarm, lest the doors be blown off, and to keep your mouth closed lest you get gravel and sand in your teeth) could plainly see the âflying donutâ was ânot ready for prime timeâ - flimsy and frail, I could see it would not withstand even a decent wind, let alone a strong wind. Anyway, while we on the AWE internet were congratulating ourselves on the âfactâ that Alaska now had a working AWE system, the actual newspaper in the actual town where it was supposedly happening did not even remember publishing the story and had no idea what I was talking about when I asked about it. Make a call or two to Mauritius and you will probably find the same result.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, every new person to wind energy, when confronted with the need for overspeed protection, has the same answer: âWeâll just shut it down if strong winds are forecast!â The problems with that approach are:
- If that worked, windfarms would already be doing it. And in a sense they are because they can pitch the blades and even park the blades, and turn the machine sideways, if needed, but normally they just pitch the blades appropriately to keep the turbine properly loaded.
- Strong winds are when you make the most power, so you donât want the system shut down unless it really is a hurricane. The problem is, when strong winds are forecast, if the winds get just a little stronger than forecast, a system with no overspeed protection will be damaged or destroyed.
But that is just common sense in wind energy. AWE people donât know anything about common sense in wind energy. They just know they âhave the answerâ and someday the world will see that, maybe ânext yearâ, just not "this week.
You know I think Iâve reached my saturation point with these typical newbie talking points. You all sound exactly the same. All the âbigâ (destined to fail) AWE people with their delusional group-selfies and bankruptcies use that same talking point. Iâve just never heard anything so ridiculous. As though you have a system that is completely useless in normal life, and you are then going to burden a disaster relief effort to try to inject your worthless contraption in the middle of a disaster instead of just shipping in a diesel generator with enough fuel to last a few days. Sure, you really want to be waiting for some wind to pick up in a place that has no wind anyway, while disaster victims wait for medical attention and freezing people try to get warm - sure.
It is just one more variation on global warming derangement syndrome, where everything must fall into some politically-correct scenario, nevermind if it is the least bit realistic. Imagine a big mudslide in, say, Guatemala. You have a kite energy system that nobody has any use for, until the mudslide. "Hey this is great - those people are so desperate they will accept anything! They have no choice! Forget sending a shipping container with a MegaWatt diesel genset that can reliably operate 24/7, weâll send our â100 kWâ kite energy system and then watch the news converage lamenting how many people died because there was no wind in Guatemala, or the kite crashed, or the trees were in the way of launching it, or the crew didn;t know how to operate it, or⊠whatever.
This is the reason why AWE has had no success. Honestly, it is just becuase the people are so stupid. Tired of sugar-coating it. I can;t spend any more of my time trying to talk any sense into wannabe AWE newbies. I am done. Gotta stop participating in these forums. More than a decade later, and people are still saying the same stupid shit. We are not one step closer to developing AWE than we were on day-1 when the original overenthusiastic crop of newbie delusional wannabe-âexpertsâ (now retired with zero results) were making the same errors at the first High Altitude Wind Energy conference in Chico, California in, what was it, 2009?
I have got to stop posting and respondi9ng to posts. It leads nowhere. AWE is the future of wind energy âand always will beâ. As long as these discussions are all it has. OK gotta go. Skiing. Seeya! 
I call BS on this. The wind power plant must be in close proximity to the developers, until it is at a stage where it runs smoothly. If you go niche too soon, how will you afford to keep it running? Travel expenses will dwarf power output value in no time.
This also means that someone must pay to keep a plant running at a loss for a while. Many investors would do this, if they found the plant likely to become profitable a few generations ahead. So far I think noone in AWE got that far. Eventually maybe we will.
I agree @dougselsam - dont spend time on stuff you are not interested in. But please stay for the nuggets of good discussions that occur from time to time. Maybe right now the signal to noise ratio is a bit low. I think this is due to the «oldtimers» having basically said what there is to say. But new stuff will emerge piece by piece, that is of real interest and real value. I believe I am working on a variation on the SuperTurbine right now that may be of some interest, to be shared at the next AWEC conference⊠[not saying I expect to sway you in any way, just tickle your curiosity maybe]
Indeed if they were working properly, the Power to space use ratio would be better: for a dreamed AWES in an ideal world, no problem of takeoff and landing, no crash risk with computerized system, no wear kite in spite of reel-in and out phases, and so onâŠ
Crosswind AWES can fly slower or even in stationary flight, removing overspeed issue.
On a general point, AWES will never be able to compete with HAWT on a same market segment, for reasons that have been explained a thousand times: lower reliability, efficiency, power to space use ratioâŠ
On the other hand, its only chance remains to try to exploit the high altitude winds and sweeping much more space. But for that other designs are required.
Yep itâs been hard to demonstrate progress on AWES since W&I moved to Shetland. Not having my croft to test fly, outside the back door, means Iâm more motivated to spend more time preparing for larger more complex tests which need a whole load more preparation and funding.
Funding is something I did remarkably well without previously. A lot got tested. But funding is essential now to ensure this is done well. Fundraising and suit wearing are not my forte.
Progress and engagement is way slower than I reckoned it would be 10 years ago. What disappoints me most is the near total lack of initiative shown from the leading AWES academic bases in to rotary AWES systems.
Still buoyant and learning how to swim through the tar pit but itâs slow like syrup
The same causes produce the same effects.
California Admits Its Reckless Renewable Energy Dream Is Failing
Californiaâs push for renewable energy has faced significant challenges, leading to a reevaluation of its energy policies.
The decision to extend the lifespan of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant by five years reflects a shift in approach, with Governor Gavin Newsom advocating for its extension despite previous opposition.[âŠ]
âNewsom went from campaigning to shut down the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility to pushing for it to be expanded. Natural gas comprised about 47% of the stateâs energy in 2022, compared to just over 26% for wind and solar combined.â
This is where we have to be careful about the subtle misrepresentations often found in articles.
They use the term âenergyâ when it appears that they really mean âelectricity generationâ.
Or do they even really know what they mean? (âjournalistsâ - hahâŠ)
You see this misrepresentation, disregarding industrial and automotive fuels in âenergyâ, all the time.
âEnergyâ would include diesel and heating oil, gasoline and jet fuel, fuel for heating industrial processes including making concrete, asphalt, etc.
Ah yes. The La Brea Tar Pits analogy to wannabe wind energy inventing.
As we all know, the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles represent how abundant natural oil deposits actually are, here in the state of California. When we go to the beach, we have to scrape tar from natural offshore oil seeps off our feet.
During the last ice age and beyond, the La Brea tar pits trapped thousands of unsuspecting animals, giving us a window into what species were abundant here at that time.
Imagine yourself watching the tar pits in action, taking the lives of mystified animals who thought they could break the rules that other animals had not succeeded in breaking. Iâm thinking, during dry times, the tar pits may have been covered with dust, giving the illusion of a solid, walkable surface. Iâm imagining you have a prey animal, some sort of grass-eating forager, that tries to walk across that âsolid groundâ, but finds its feet getting mired in a sticky glue from which it cannot escape. The foraging animal struggles, but to no avail. Then a predator, say, a saber-tooth tiger, sees the struggle of the foraging animal, and even though it can see that the forager got itself stuck in the tar, it nonetheless also thinks it sees solid ground it can walk on, and goes in for what looks like an easy kill. But soon, the saber-tooth tiger is also struggling, stuck in the stickiness of the tar, into which it slowly sinks.
At this point, an observer might say the initial forager was unlucky, but the saber-tooth tiger was âan idiotâ, because he could already see what had happened to the last animal that thought the dusty surface of the tar pits was solid, level, walkable ground. At some point, no matter how obvious it becomes that trying to walk on the surface of the tar is a really bad idea, more still try it. As more and more animals got stuck in the same tar pit, a detached observer might describe ALL of these struggling animals as âidiots, idiots, idiotsââŠ
Are your following me so far?
This is SO VERY similar to AWE specifically, and wannabe wind energy âimproversâ in general. SO similar that the affected people could never be coaxed into believing it, due to âcognitive dissonanceâ, and a fixation on believing their uneducated first impressions, and minor perceived details, while not seeing the bigger picture.
Just as the animals think the already disproven flat, dusty surface âlooks likeâ it will support their weight, wannabe wind energy âimproversâ think already disproven wind energy devices will financially support them by generating electricity more efficiently and at lower cost than proven wind energy concepts.
Just as the animals âthinkâ the dusty surface of a tar pit âlooks likeâ solid, flat ground, the wannabe wind energy innovator âthinksâ that, say, a drag-based vertical-axis wind turbine âlooks likeâ it âshould beâ better at capturing the energy in the wind than what âlooks likeâ a leaky, low-solidity, see-through, (but proven), propeller-style rotor.
With AWE, the would-be âinnovatorâ may even recognize the âtarâ for the danger that it is, but thinks they can use a kite to fly in and capture some easy, struggling prey, without walking on the tar (tower), but when the wind doesnât quite cooperate, finds themselves similarly stuck in the sticky muck, unable to escape, like all the rest. Then, like Skysails (as one example, not to single them out), they might even chew off their own leg (sell off their original ship-towing âlegâ) to escape, but at that point, the game has changed from attacking, to merely escaping certain death themselves.
In the case of both the tar pits and wannabe wind energy improvement schemes, thousands of examples should serve as a warning sign to further casualties, but as old whatâs-his-name (P.T. Barnum?) said âThereâs a sucker born every minuteâ.
In both cases, the pursuer of an easy kill chooses to ignore all that has happened ahead of them, thinking none of the rules that have resulted in thousands of previous casualties will apply to them. So on it goes, a thousand previous, failed âpress-release breakthroughsâ do not deter further people from thinking âwell it looks like thisâ rooftop wind energy device, or flying wind energy device, or what have you, should work better, and be way, way cheaper, than those darned wind-tower-turbine monstrosities that kill birds and make noise and cause seizures in children!
The similarity is too great to ignore - but that wonât stop people from trying. Just as the tar pits reliably captured one ignorant animal after another, for thousands of years, so it goes in wind energy, with no end in sight!
OK this interesting article on The La Brea Tar Pits just came in to my email box this morning.
How Ice Age Fossils At La Brea Tar Pits Help Us Understand Our Climate Future | LAist
One thing I had not been aware of was the oil resource just 1000 feet below Los Angeles is the largest in the world! (But of course nobody is allowed to drill it, as usual) (Remember, the reason we were told to get off fossil fuels 50 years ago was they had run out.)
excerpt from the article:
About 1,000 feet beneath the metropolis of L.A. sits the Salt Lake Oil Field.
(The Los Angeles Basin is the richest in terms of oil by unit volume on earth). That, paired with the abundance of earthquakes in the region, which create cracks and chasms in the earth, paves the way for the tar pits.
Anyway, it reminds me of an idea for a museum of wannabe wind energy ideas that got stuck in the tar. It might be entertaining, and could actually serve a purpose. Newbies might think twice when they realize the last thing they want is to end up in the âImpossible Wind Energy Ideas Museumâ!
I like this idea. It could be online to reach as many as possible.
I was thinking about a book about AWE. Id probably spend most pages saying why something would be a bad idea⊠[as is probably writing a book]
As is probably endlessly chatting on the internet!
An early vertical-axis wind research intern from 10,000 years ago was found stuck in the tar pits!