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- Scalable Kite Networks and possible DOE's input of work package to IEA's Wind proposed AWE branch of focus.
- According to the misson statement, AWE will one day be a
focused concern of DOE, if things in the US go to best futures.
Assuring security and prosperity will involve effective use of
distributed wind conversion by way of tether systems.
~ JpF
- https://arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/projects/airborne-wind-turbine ARPA-E MakaniPowerarARPAenergyGOV.pdf
$5,584,267 in 2009 Award Project Term: 09/01/2010 - 10/16/2013
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- USAWE
- 2020 October 8 : ____________________________ conversation.
- "Current US AWE Technology Assessment" discussions are underway in September-October of 2020, particulary with US DOE."
- Advanced Research Projects Agency ARPA
- ARPA-E, or Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy wiki | FactSheet
- ARPA-E was created as part of the America COMPETES Act or
America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in
Technology, Education, and Science Act of 2007
- Pub. L. 111-358 America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010
- AEO Arctic Energy Office
- October 8, 2020, an online meeting with DOE , NREL, kPower, EnergyKiteSystems, IEA Wind TEM#102 attendee, Distributed Wind representative and others was held for one hour examining US AWE. Time: 7:00 a.m to 8:00 a.m. PDT. Will Congress open the US-AWE era?
- Exascale Computing Project for AWE ECP
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AWE notes and topic replies to editor@upperwindpower.com
Nov. 6, 2020, post by Dave Santos
The other AWEurope Issue- AWES Classification Restriction
Jochem,
The other AWEurope Issue- AWES Classification Restriction
Jochem,
As you are aware, AWEurope is pushing IEA Wind TEM#102 AWES classification to only match tired
controlling-member down-selects of single-line single unit-kite topology, that is desperately unscalable
and dangerous by the data, but hundreds of millions have been raised over two decades.
There are several brilliant EU players with multi-line multi-unit lattice network topologies, with safe scaling potential.
In fact, Wubbo Ockels, the EU AWE pioneer, championed multi-line multi-unit concepts from the start, to premature death.
Rod Read has been the top EU developer-advocate of Kite Networks since Wubbo.
TUKaiserslautern is a formidable kite network group. Stig Neilsen is very talented in multiline (arch) AWES..
Rod can speak to AWEurope's ontological omission of Kite Networks. He has already done so in social media. His is
caught in the middle between AWEurope dead-enders and kite network potential. Roland can answer to why
topological AWES classification is not being done by AWEurope.
The
TEM Task Proposal with your name on it not only favors AWEurope
politically, but also presents a disastrously restricted
AWES classification. AWEurope is exploiting your relative lack of AWE background to unduly promote its investments
Once again, DOE must decide: whether to bake-in AWEurope insider interests, or broaden its AWE research-design
scope to the objective engineering-science opportunity.
WaveBob and EERE- US AWE R&D Context
Note to DOE/EERE/NREL-
Joe
and I don't do hidden process, under open-knowledge principles, but
include all parties as we research AWE. We understand this is not how
most folks in Gov or Biz operate, but helps keep us best-informed.
The
context here is historic DOE/EERE/NREL neglect of US AWE R&D
Community, which dates back 40yrs, after Loyd published his classic AWE
paper from DOE Livermore Lab in 1980, but nothing effective ever
happened since. Five years into DOE Wind Roadmap calling for "revolutionary" AWE R&D, nothing again.
It seems culturally accepted if EERE
favors EU ventures in speculative prematurely down-selected and
over-scaled energy engineering science. WaveBob of Ireland is just one
past case (see below). AWEurope is a new multi-case firing up.
WaveBob's CTO has been put in charge of "representing" US AWE Community
to IEA, under AWEurope's undue lead. Our AWE Community already starts
disadvantaged, by decades of official neglect. While
EERE was supporting WindBob, WindLift (USMC) and eWind (USDA) have been
comparable multi-million US Gov AWE R&D failure cases.
------------ WaveBob EERE AWE case-base item --------------
Jochem Weber, former WaveBob "Head of Research", current "chief engineer of NREL's Water Power Program" (NREL webpage), assigned to lead AWE R&D at NREL, and as US DOE IEA Wind TEM#102 AWE lead.
2.4M total invested by EERE in WaveBob, as it sank.
Nobody even knew linear-generators were no-go, as DOE millions began flowing. All EEs should know linear generators stink.
Wave Power and AWE should be perfected at small-scale first, by a large inclusive academic and domain-expert community.
Lobbying, VCs, and Grantsmanship should not be favored in early-stage R&D.
---------------------
Compare with DOE Zoi, Felker, and Hartney AWE cases.
Nov. 3, 2020
Publicly Documenting Unrepresented US and World AWE Perspectives in IEA Wind TEM#102
Dear Jochem, Nicolas, Kristian,
Publicly Documenting Unrepresented US and World AWE Perspectives in IEA Wind TEM#102
Dear Jochem, Nicolas, Kristian,
For
the AWE Open Record, for JoeF to publicly archive, where is the hidden
"discussion" Nicolas refers to below, and who were the "US IEA Wind representatives" cited?
"I have brought your name (Santos) to the attention of the US IEA Wind representatives in order to discuss accommodating you as a last minute participant. After discussion, they agreed that there will be a sufficient number of US experts"
Both Joe and I applied early to TEM#102, but both of us were shuffled-out, in separate actions by different pretexts. Its
crazy if the US "agreed" there was "a sufficient number of US experts",
given how AWEurope packed inclusion (eg. more Netherlands than US
participation). Nor are the "US experts" broadly representative.*
As everyone should know, most US and World AWE players and perspectives are currently excluded from TEM#102*.
Its unclear whether AWEurope is controlling NREL to suppress equitable
US representation, and if secret IEA Wind TEM#102 process is to be the
Norm. These are legitimate DOE/EERE/NREL. US AWE, and World AWE
Community concerns to put behind us, or continue to dispute.
Sincerely,
Santos
*
Established AWEurope Tokens in TEM#102- Makani (dead), Altaeros (dead,
ChrisV), and WIndLift (doomed, Makani WIng7 clone) are all losing US
players, by premature down-select. Such parties are not "sufficient" US
AWE representation. kPower has been boycotting AWEurope conference
monopoly for several years. Joe and I started AWE conferences (with PJ
and CA) in US in 2009, and embraced EU conference rotation (2011).
Nov. 3, 2020, post by Dave Santos
Email trails particularly for Jochem's (DOE/NREL) records, in the context of skewed and shriveled US/World participation in IEA Wind TEM#102, in favor of AWEurope's VC biases.
Email trails particularly for Jochem's (DOE/NREL) records, in the context of skewed and shriveled US/World participation in IEA Wind TEM#102, in favor of AWEurope's VC biases.
The
TEM#102 Task Proposal now reflects AWEurope-imposed technical and
political imbalance, with official NREL complicity. Please correct the
off-course direction of TEM#102.
MAKANI ENERGY LOST ITS GREEN
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Richard Bangert
“The accident underscored a feature of Makani’s technology that has led experts to question why [Makani founders] Brin and Page had so much faith in the concept,” stated Deign. “Out of all the possible ways to make an airborne wind engine, Makani’s was perhaps among the most complicated.”
dave santos
10:20 AM of Oct 29, 2020
to Joe, Weber, Smith
Joe,
NREL AWE Workshop is news. It may not be approved, or could just be a fizzle (trivial content by non-experts).
If NREL was bold, they would host an AWEC, but they are timid so far. There are also DOE anti-foreigner-barriers.
An ideal AWE agenda is a historic visionary engineering-science outline, with highly technical debate encouraged.
To be true AWE Workshop, there should be actual hands-on programming, from benchtop to outdoor-scale demos.
Jochem, Brian,
Hoping for far more than AWEurope-Marketing level of discourse from NREL, without any undue compromise.
Colorado Winter, plus Pandemic, not great Workshop timing...
ds
Dear US Gov,
Given
kPower is excluded in TEM#102, under AWEurope's venture-insider
politics, and given DOE/EE/NREL/NWTC are only now undertaking
due-diligence to achieve AWE domain expertise, TEM#102 participation is
an ideal second track for kPower to make a timely expert contribution to IEA Wind.
kPower
has always had the deepest Aerospace background in US AWE, with
longstanding working relations to the US FAA, Boeing, AOPA, ALPA, EAA,
USHPA, AKA, AMA, etc; essentially every relevant aviation community.
kPower's
2012 Tethered Aviation ConOps, authored by JoeF and me, remains the
most authoritative and comprehensive document of of AWE-Aviation
integration. AWE itself is a new branch of aviation, and TEM#100 is an
obvious forum for the US AWE to play a leadership role. JoeF and I are
also well versed in conventional wind aviation issues as possible
airspace hazards, radar-clutter, and so on.
kPower
will continue to advocate for a broader AWE classification for TEM#102
(many-connected many-unit AWES network topologies), for renewed US AWEC
conferences, and for a Grand Challenge Fly-off; all of which AWEurope
opposes, now with probable NREL acquiescence.
Thanks for considering kPower as a US participant in TEM#100.
Best,
Dave Santos
Joe Faust
kPower
AWEIA
KiteLabs Group
NREL AWE Due Diligence
Dear Jochem,
It is going to take much convincing that Google/AWEurope's high-complexity "Energy Drone" paradigm was known unworkable (unscalable, dangerous, weak, expensive, crash-prone, noisy, etc.) by the US aerospace community as early as 2009. You seem to be the in-house NREL scientist ready to judge Energy Drone data by TRL/TPL data now publicly available. AWE is not really like wind turbines bolted to a pole.
"Rag and String" power kites driving groundgens is the competing AWE paradigm. There is ample data and similarity cases, and a lot of TRL9 COTS examples to study. There is a large "hidden" AWE R&D community that does not play the venture-capitalism game like the major-funded players. Ampyx is the next major high-complexity player predicted doomed, even as AWEurope marketing puts them first.
As you may understand, DOE upper managers will struggle to see past Energy Drone hype and the weird illusion that US AWE hardly even exists. Note TUK DE, SkySails, and other fine EU players have quietly worked for years with their US counterparts on the low-complexity concept side. You will soon see extensive listings of these overlooked players and compended documentation, from classics to prepublication.
Below are selected slides of the overlooked "Cinderella" AWE paradigm. Review the dozens sent earlier. if you missed them. kPower is preparing a full slide show for DOE and other decision makers. Its going to be very exciting to undergo a rigorous scoring matrix and fly-off process that compares Energy Drones with Rag and String. Please particularly note predictive power-to-mass, and emerging mega-scale AWES topologies.
Best,
Santos
October 9, 2020, post by Dave Santos
US DOE News, Lattice-Cell Unit-Kite Motions, String-Net Condensates, Comb-Jellies, Bulk Traveling Wave
Very good progress with US DOE by many emails, phone-calls, and a videoconference yesterday. Ironically, AWEurope's IEA TEM#102 initiative has finally woken up US gov. The multi-r "Rag and String" paradigm is looking very very good after the shock of GoogleX's "Energy Drone" failure. There will be two EU-US collaboration tracks based on these two paradigms, which will ultimately sim-off and fly-off competitively.
US DOE News, Lattice-Cell Unit-Kite Motions, String-Net Condensates, Comb-Jellies, Bulk Traveling Wave
Very good progress with US DOE by many emails, phone-calls, and a videoconference yesterday. Ironically, AWEurope's IEA TEM#102 initiative has finally woken up US gov. The multi-r "Rag and String" paradigm is looking very very good after the shock of GoogleX's "Energy Drone" failure. There will be two EU-US collaboration tracks based on these two paradigms, which will ultimately sim-off and fly-off competitively.
Next Post more detail.
======== ongoing unit-cell and meta-kite analysis ========
A
Short-Lined Kite's Power Zone is highly-curved, and the Kite is
proportionally very large in relation to its window. The associated
Loop or Lemiscate is very tight, more of a waggle-motion than a figure.
The Kite turns nearly in place to Loop and the Lemiscate is reduced to
a Dutch Roll motion, with the center-of-area inscribing the eight; the
kite only turning small angles.
The
key insight is to work out the motion state-space in all six dimensions
in relation to AoA in apparent wind (wind velocity + kite velocity).
Already there is a critical torsional mode long overlooked that needs
to be accounted for geometrically and at least passive elastically.
Next Post more detail.
===== Supportive Reference Note =====
(Kite
Networks of Rotary or Reciprocating units have many identical and
similar properties. Reciprocation is Rotation in Phase-Space. This
reference for Rotary Unit Networks cites key advantages applicable to
Reciprocation as well)
Tensile rotary power transmission model development for airborne wind energy systems
[Tulloch et al, 2020]
Redacted for generality-
"AWE
systems (that) use multiple wings...networked together...under
development as they have numerous advantages...Networking wings
together constrains an individual wing’s flight path. This simplifies
the control requirements for each wing and for the system as a whole.
There are...AWE systems that have reliably generated power with no
active control in place. The networked wings provide the system with a
level of redundancy...fewer single points of failure making them safer
and more robust to environmental uncertainties, combined with less
requirements for active control...systems being more inherently
stable..."
====== Interdisciplinary Mathematical Physics ======
String-Net
Condensed Matter Physics applies to kitematter, as the engineered
metamaterial scale-limit. Lots of useful concepts and math-
=============
Another
rich Biomimetic Similarity Case- semi-passive synchrony of
Comb-Jellyfish Locomotion. A special Ligand Protein regulates lattice
waves by topological-ordering.
CTENO64 Is Required for Coordinated Paddling of Ciliary Comb Plate in Ctenophores
Cybernetical physics
=============
Same concept space as Embodied Logic or Computation, same AWES paradigm as Passive or Dynamic Stability.
=============
Traveling Wave Mode- wave acquires energy as it travels downwind. Passive oscillation. One of many possible modes for Multi-r.
Flag of Thailand slow motion
----- Network Theory Note ------
WP: "The
scale-free (network) property strongly correlates with the network's
robustness to failure. It turns out that the major hubs are closely
followed by smaller ones. These smaller hubs, in turn, are followed by
other nodes with an even smaller degree and so on. This hierarchy
allows for a fault tolerant behavior.
If failures occur at random and the vast majority of nodes are those
with small degree, the likelihood that a hub would be affected is
almost negligible."
-----------
G. K. Chesterton- “We perish for want of wonder, not want of wonders.”
Airborne Wind Energy in CIP mix?
Hi Ian, Kyndall, Oct. 9, 2020
Hi Ian, Kyndall, Oct. 9, 2020
JimA,
BrianS, Jochem, BretB, MikeD, and a few others have discussed how NREL
might fire up some AWE R&D. The CIP program was cited as an early opportunity.
The
scope of NREL AWE work starts at pre-prototype/prototype stage, with
Optimal Research Design as the planning challenge, rather than premature productization. Distributed Wind AWE is an early deliverable
for research ultimately aimed at utility scale. In particular, there
are poor remote under-employed diesel-dependent communities in Polar
and Trade-Wind Latitudes, that would be eager Beta adopter communities.
The
highest TRL/TPL AWE paradigm is to harness COTS power-kites to drive
generators. Its feasible to prototype kite-diesel hybrid plants at
small scale. The scaling path points to large
arrays of ship-kite power-kite derivatives to someday soon hybridize
legacy fossil plants. All essential components are COTS. Its a
topological optimal-rigging and kite operational challenge more than
anything.
In 2007, kPower emerged from KiteShip, the world's first AWE venture. We incubated at UTexas and SwRI, and won early grant
support by Austin Energy. There is decades of research to activate. Our
engineering network includes all the top players in the power-kite AWE
space. The competing "Energy Drone" paradigm is far behind in every
TRL/TPL metric. We look forward to talking soon by phone and sharing
more details online.
NREL
and DOE ultimately need to program for AWE R&D in a major way. A
fast-track AWE CIP project may greatly help make that happen.
Best,
Dave Santos
Joe Faust
Ed Sapir
==================
Oct 9, 2020
Dave
Thank you and your colleagues for meeting wih us on Thursday. Our objective was to learn about the state of the airborne wind industry and what the R&D needs are. As was discussed, DOE does not currently have an R&D initiative in airborne wind. Our priorities are for reducing cost and mitigating deployment barriers for conventional wind turbines, although we did cite the Competitiveness Improvement Project as a potential opportunity. Note that DOE priorities are highly driven by the appropriations process and Congressional direction. With regard to airborne wind R&D needs, we will keep you in the loop for the proceedings from the recent IEA expert meeting on the subject.
Jim
==============
Jim,
Nobody
is more aware than the US AWE domain experts that DOE has nothing going
in AWE R&D. DOE priority given to conventional wind is strongly
driven by the Big Wind Lobby. Its agreed that pioneering AWE
engineering science is anything but a DOE priority.
We
interpret DOE Mission Statements as the established will of Congress
and believe DOE could duly address AWE R&D in that context. We see
very little potential for the "IEA expert meeting" to amount to a US
AWE R&D strategy, given the lack of a coherent US AWE R&D
policy.
As Joe suggested
in the videoconference, China is the probable dominant player in AWE,
based on its +2000yr kite heritage and patent explosion. They already
lead in installed conventional wind even, and may undersell DOE's best
conventional wind "competitiveness" intent.
Its
a very dramatic energy race against EU and China players. No one
naively over-estimates DOE. We may not even get ~20k for a US AWE
conference, when DOE has done countless conferences historically. Even
relegating US AWE to NREL's small-turbine CIP track is perhaps too much.
dave
===================
===================
Hi Dave and Jim -
Adding Patrick Gilman from DOE to the thread for his reference..
Specifically relating to CIP, the solicitation that NREL implements for the Wind Office is technology neutral but as its name implies it is focused around improving technology, not conducting research.
Here is the link to the CIP web page at NREL: https://www.nrel.gov/wind/
As you will see the CIP effort is really designed around helping manufactures of distributed wind technology through the development process, from early design through product manufacturing innovation. It also supports companies that want to innovate around a current turbine design. The earliest stage support that was implemented last year was a pre-prototype technology development topical areas, which was targeted to help companies that has a demonstrated technology but need help to get to a prototype design stage. It again is not focused around research, more final prototype design specification and as needed component prototype testing.
Please note that one of the key aspects of CIP is that companies need to show the near term impact on the distributed wind market. We don’t have many requirements around what people can propose but to be successful based on the evaluation criteria the technology needs to be near market ready, within the competitive cost of technology on the market for the target application and be able to document a near term path to certification. Since we don’t have a solicitation open, I would be happy to have a call with you to further discuss how your technology may fit into CIP.
I know this may not be the fit you are looking for, but please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have additional questions.
Best regards,
Ian
=====================
Thanks Ian,
We all agree NREL's small-turbine distributed-wind CIP framework is a bad fit for neglected US AWE R&D.
What
was specifically requested of DOE was ~20k for a US AWE Conference
(AWEC2021SeaTac at Boeing MoF), since EU has for eight long years taken
over AWE conferences the US AWE Community started. AWEC2021SeaTac could
unlock massive BEV funding and lead to an AWE Grand Challenge according
to Optimal Research criteria.
NASA
and NOAA are two other AWE-applicable US Gov Agencies. Maybe 20k for
AWEC2021SeaTac could be cobbled together by all three Agencies. The
funds could go directly to MoF, as a public non-profit venue. The funds
could be repaid from registrations. Given the long US AWE Conference
drought, we think it could be huge.
~ dave
~ dave