Nice, Rod, .... yet a bit late in the game. Consider the plasma winds just after Big Bang and the first eddies interacting with main flows; first tornado-like threads interacting with other-sized vortices within the main expanding flows.

Groundgen hybrid, small-scale AWES using Yo-yo method with pilot power giving production during reel-in phase; have reel-out phase producing also.  Produce going out and produce reeling in, but use pilot's calories in the cost reel-in phase to generate electricity. 

"Doug opposes lexicography supporting multiple definitions that evolve over time." - No I oppose you trying to do a 180 on every wrong statement by endless redefining attempts.

Most wind turbines in the world are still for pumping water.  Here, our water table is 700 - 900 feet below ground.  Some people say there's no point in having a well since the electricity to pump the water costs as much as your water bill would cost.  I'm still hoping maybe someone with a humping idea would find a way to get it to do some pumping.  It seems like, if you have a reciprocating application, that would the best place to employ a reciprocating working surface, since you could then bypass Rube Goldberg/Dr.Seuss and just connect the load and go for it.
Think about it:  eliminate the cranks, flywheels, generator, possible inverter, possible batteries, electric lines, switches, and pump motor, and just tie a knot or tighten a cable-clamp instead.  Seems like there should be existing farm wells available that need pumping.

Thanks, DougS, for the topic title. This thread could grow robustly over time.  Use AWES to pump water.  I am wondering if non-pumping moving of water is a different topic; I am guessing the title "pumping"  is calling for just that ... and not other means of moving water by AWES.    Even in deep wells, pumping of water is not the only way to get the water from down hole to surface for use; perhaps those other ways could be a different topic. 

I am moved to collect scenarios of "pumping for water" as part of the preamble to bringing kite systems to the service: 

Add to list of service targets: 

DougS, siding with your topic direction: 

This topic is aside from the other topic of "pumping of water" which see and join. 

Joe: Yes wind-powered water-pumping today is often done by a generator and electric pump.  There's the possibility of using a 3-phase generator to directly drive a 3-phase pump.  And of course many would just have a grid-tied electric pump and offset the power usage with a grid-tie turbine. 

But taking a step back, even farm windmills start with rotation, and convert that to an up-and-down motion to drive a sucker rod (if I have that term right) pump, that PUSHES water up from below (a vacuum pump is limited to 32 feet depth or less depending on your altitude). 

My thought is that there must be many such sucker-rod pumps where the windmill is no longer there, or no longer working. Maybe even a tower is still on site and could be used.  This would be an application where reciprocating motions would have a natural fit, eliminating components rather than multiplying components. 

Having said that, I would point out that it seems probable that early water-pumping attempts DID have reciprocating working wind surfaces, and they broke down while the rotating ones hung in there and hence dominated the market - typical, but I do not know the entire history of wind pumping water for sure.  Of course we've also seen rotating blades drive Archimedean screws a la Holland, tulips, and wooden shoes.  

Maybe for areas like here, with a very low water table (OK the water table is high, but we are higher) an airborne pumping wind energy device might find a natural home, and perhaps do better at lifting water long distances by brute force.(?)  This might be a good use for kites as working surfaces in AWE.  Someone please develop it - I need one!
:)
Doug S.

[Add to this at any time ...  anyone?] pump water to get a drink - gulp - ahhhh.... :)

Yes pumping water up to a reservoir for energy storage is old news, actually considered the most viable method of energy storage, generally.  Pumping water uphill for energy storage is already in use, at many hydroelectric facilities around the world, and if kites were able to power such a system, so much the better for kites.  My thrust here is to find a ready and direct use for reciprocating kites, to drive a reciprocating pump.  The wells are already drilled all over the world, the reciprocating pumps are already in place.  The interface could literally be as simple as tying a knot, rather than a Rube-Goldberg industrial-scale cluster-bleep.  No need to list 100 other possibilities and get off track (Use kites to pump garbage into landfills, make sandwiches, shine your shoes, etc.)  This is an existing simple opportunity to make reciprocating kites into useful AWE devices.  It could be a ready opportunity for economically useful application of kites for energy.

Hey Dave S., why don't you give it a rest?  As usual, you misrepresent my meaning due to not comprehending anything that can't fit on a bumper sticker.  Someone doing a 180 on what they said yesterday can be an honorable thing, nothing wrong with it at all, happens all the time.  What I'm talking about is the way you attempt to endlessly redefine the definition of every word so as to pretend, whatever may happen, that "you said it all along", even when you actually said the exact opposite.  A similar dynamic is first claiming that global warming will kill us all, then redefining it as "climate change", then further mischaracterizing anyone who disagreed with the original warming statement as a "climate denier", (a term that actually doesn't even make sense), so as to pretend to position oneself for a future "See I told you so" when the climate cools instead of warms!  Liars know no bounds.  Guess what?  Everyone is onto your charade with redefining words - lame!  We don't need your further characterizations of "emotional-this" and "off-topic-that".  One day you are going to have the FBI profile anyone who disagrees with you, the next you threaten to arrest them in the future, (after you become tinplate dictator-king of the world, with that beard, no doubt) - a real whack-job you are, and many people know it and many more comment on it off-list and refuse to have anything to do with your nonsense.  And stop being a copy-cat: Someone just the other day mentioned that this is really a "Dave S. forum" since you always insist on having the last word.  Keep the title and don't try to push it on me.  So just accept your role as endless troublemaker and stop bothering people who are trying to do the right thing.  I just gave you a great project for your looping kite - pumping water for , oh, I don't know, maybe an alpha-alpha (alfalfa) farm, sod farm - what crop is it you are trampling again?  You have a reciprocating kite, Why not get busy making it do something useful, when someone is trying to give you good advice, and stop the offbeat, empty, meaningless, and annoying personal attacks.  I don't know of anyone yet who appreciates them.  It is getting rather old.

Supporting folder of this long-term discussion thread: 

Could you do this with a regular parafoil or other kite, to accommodate unattended operation in shifting wind directions?  Winds often change direction.  It's good if a system can respond to that.

"Does a single available partner bug care for monogamy?"
Roddy: Try posting that on a dating site, and see if you get any "bites"! :)

Well I'm sure since someone with a PhD was active in the 1980's, water-pumping by reciprocating kites must be a robust and well-developed art by now.  From what you say, it sounds like you've got it all worked out, and working great.  Could you please point the curious to one or more links that show the results of this progress?  I'd love to see some working systems, maybe some videos, or at least photos, and some numbers showing how much water they are pumping.  Where can we see one today?  Also, are there any water-pumping windmills or wells at the hayfarm, that you convert?

Sorry to post again on this pumping for water topic, but I just want to make sure people realize, this idea for using a kite-derived up-and-down motion of some sort for pumping water from a well, using a typical old-fashioned up-and-down motion pump, is not just one topic of hundreds where it should immediately get lost in a forest of possibilities of anything to do with kites, wind energy, and water, pumped hydro, etc. 

And there is no need to list all the reasons someone might want to use water  (clean your ears, wash your hands, wipe your butt, etc.).  Those are already well-known - watering livestock and crops, for the most part, and sometimes people.  No need to start listing all the uses for water.  Let's stay on topic and figure out how to get the water that the world already has a well-understood need for.  The wells are already there, and they were drilled because the need for water was already well-defined. 

This idea is specifically to take into account:  What can kites do well?  Answer: pull, and pull hard.  What does it take to run an old-fashioned water pumping well?  Pulling.  A deep well?  Pulling hard.  So a water well, especially a deep water well, is an application that seems like a natural match to kites providing the required motion, in type and magnitude. 

I'd say this might be the low-hanging fruit for finding a useful form of kite power.  If they can do this job, the actual efficiency would not be as important as the ability to simply get the job done.  Contrast this with trying to generate electricity which normally requires rotation.  Pumping water is needed around the world, and the motion and amount of force seem like they could be a good match for a kite.

Hey Dave S.: Is it possible for you to post without some personal attack?  Show me a well with a pump, powered by a kite, K?  Where is it?

Just woke up?  Sorry, I don't get it.  I was probably envisioning or even drawing flying wind turbines before you were born.  Go back to sleep.

Another personal attack eh?  Nice.  Can't resist, huh.  I maintain kites are a poor choice for high-speed working surfaces.  Go ahead and prove it wrong.  Nobody has so far.  And flapping is a well-known dead-end for generating electricity.  But kites are good for applying a pulling force.  A perfect use for them may exist.  Seems possible.  Thought I'd mention it.  The question is why nobody bothers to do it.  So far it has received the Dr. Seuss treatment from Joe (in a car, at the bar, in a glass, up yer ***) and the beginning of the Rube-Goldberg treatment from Roddy (start adding extra (rotating?) parts, make sure it can't aim).  Sorry for mentioning it.  Didn't necessarily want to hog all the good ideas, but, oh well, I'll put it on the list of what I must apparently, someday, do myself with two hands and half-a-brain.

Glad my pumping suggestion was helpful.  I suggest you now fill a flat tire on a truck. Multiply ~1/4(?)* of the truck's weight by the distance raised, divide by time, to calculate power.  *Bear in mind, the front with engine weighs more than the rear.

Up for study and appreciation: 

OK you keep saying it's all worked out.  Do you have a link?  Water-pumping windmills have been almost  unchanged since just after the civil war. (150 years).  Water us a greater need than electricity.  There are millions of wells around the world.  Kite energy has been proposed for a century or more.  Show me a well powered by a kite, please, and I will not accept your excuse that it is in the future.  You said it was developed.  Now back up your statement that it is developed, with an example, please.

Oh well, I suggested you try pumping, and the next day you were doing it.  Coincidence?  Now measure your power output filling a tire on a vehicle.
Example:  1 HP = 745.7 Watts = 500 lbs lifted 1 foot per second.  Assume a 1-ton vehicle weight.  Let the air out of 1 tire (~500 lbs. weight).  Use your pump to refill the tire and time how long it takes to lift 4 inches.  If it takes 1/3 of a second, you're making 1 Horsepower =745 Watts.  If it takes 1 second, you're making 250 Watts.  If it takes 1 minute, you're making 4 Watts.  If it takes 4 minutes, you're making 1 Watt.  If it takes 20 minutes, you're making 0.2 Watts.  Let's see the video.  And you can stop the personal attacks.  Very old.

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Yeah well I guess he's old enough to know better then.

OK, so do you have a link to the video?

You have the looping kite and a way to convert that nice rotation back into intermittent pulling(?), and you have it connected to a reciprocating tire pump.  Therefore I suggest you use that tire pump for its intended purpose, take a video, and show us how much power your configuration is capable of.  Show us how long it takes to fill a tire - not that complicated.  That is, unless you really want to AVOID an actual demo and just brag about nothing, as though nothing is something.  Come on, let's see it!  Pump up that tire!  How could you even NOT do it?  Whatsa matter?  Chicken?  he he he :)

OK so you have no link to a video of a kite pumping water then, right?