Christoff,   Its totally amazing- the ancient kite is in fact a very capable autonomous UAV with a grand future. The pilot-lifter is fully open-source prior-art going back to Pocock. Royalties only apply to narrow designs. Gaylord is our friend & developing his excellent patent concept would surely be on fair & friendly terms.   A note on-topic- The pilot lifter can fly at a nice high angle & be pulled down in a cycle by a hard-working power element suspended underneath. This is far more robust than autonomous aerobatics with a kiteplane at low altitude. A tiny bit of advanced control would make it even more robust & keep it at the forefront of AWE solutions indefinitely.   We have a "low-complexity" movement in AWE to field the earliest practical systems years before hard-automation dependent concepts ever meet airworthiness standards. Please join us to develop this design space,   daveS

Hey all.
Remember that "Shocking Sky Serpent" that flew outside in the rain for 2 days at the first-ever World High Altitude Wind Power Conference at Chico/Oroville? With the green balloons and the 20 propellers?
The one that won Popular Science Invention of the Year 2008 (June p. 58-59 centerfold)?
Well guess what?
I JUST ENTERED "Shocking Sky Serpent - Flying Wind Turbine" in the GE Ecomagination Challenge.
(For a REAL shock, try grabbing the wires while it's running! :))

Anyway, I NEED you guys to vote for "Shocking Sky Serpent - Flying Wind Turbine", if your conscience will permit you to do so. :)

Superturbine(R): a stone-age futuristic technology.

You gotta join to vote. So join up and vote "Shocking Sky Serpent - Flying Wind Turbine", K?
Link:
http://challenge.ecomagination.com/ct/ct_list.bix?c=ideas

Thanks in advance for your vote.

Also, I just posted a newspaper front page photo captioned "Shocking Sky Serpent", from the Chico Enterprise Record, Friday, November 6, 2009 on my website http://www.selsam.com

I've also added several YouTube videos,
AND
a picture of me and my girlfriend smiling with BILL GATES a few weeks ago at Techonomy 2010 in Lake Tahoe.
Link:
http://www.Selsam.com

Thanks
:)
Doug Selsam

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitepatents/message/353

Application for a patent  filed:  Jun 13, 2007

===============================

Feel free to give patent numbers that would be appropriate for
the serial of seeds in the group KitePatents. Send note to me or post.

Each seeded post could be follwed with pointed discussion on claims,
furtherings, arragements, findings, safety-critical matters, prior art, etc.

JoeF

 

 

Fellow AWE developers,

Could you use some help for the next six months?

The last of our 2010 irons-in-the-fire for funding was just quenched so our development is on hold until next Spring when our next funding opportunities pop. Our lack of success with funding opens up an opportunity for you. I'm offering my professional services to other AWE developers for the next six months. As so many of us in the AWE community believe, the success of any of us will only increase the chances of success for all of us. Let me help you be successful.

My professional expertise is in bridging the gap between inventors/engineers and real paying customers. I speak geek but I also know why businesses buy expensive products. I will help you find the particular market niche your product can fit best within, then hone all your communications about your product to appeal to the targeted buyers within that niche.

Perhaps more importantly at this stage of the AWE game, I will help you understand what features, functions, and differentiations your targeted buyers will require in your product before it's ready for purchase. Nothing's worse than coming out of three years of development only to find you're missing the one little feature required by your buyers before they'll write the check. I've brought ten product across "the chasm" and can help ensure yours doesn't fall into it.

Similarly, if you're way too early to even consider potential buyers, my two years of efforts and 59 flight-tested revisions of proof-of-concept AWE systems may help you avoid some costly mistakes. When you're ready to consider buyers, I will help you develop the ideal go-to-market strategy and distribution channel for your product. Even the best products don't sell themselves.

I've been successful doing this type of product management/marketing over the past 28 years for sixteen expensive, high-tech products for companies ranging from software startups to IBM.

I'm also very creative as an out-of-the-ordinary mechanical and aeronautical engineering designer and builder. Pretty good at TIG welding too. I also have a Kevlar helmet and am not afraid to use it.

So,,,,do you have funding and could benefit from as many as six months of professional help moving your AWE project forward? I'll be in Palo Alto at the AWE conference from the 27th to the 30th, ready to start on your project in October. I'm prepared to relocate to your location for the duration of the engagement - anywhere on the planet.

Let's make some real progress together!

Please reply privately to dimitri.cherny@yahoo.com

Confidentiality assured. NDAs will be signed.

Sincerely,
Dimitri Cherny
Founder, CEO
Highest Wind LLC
843-376-5709

Attachments :

Pierre,   Five lines is plenty to lay out the big picture-

Hey Thanks for the vote, Joe.
The first category is "Create Energy".

This contest is already over 2 months old, with some entries already enjoying upwards of 1800 votes. I'm at 36 votes presently, one of thousands of entries, most WAY more established.
So it's a REAL uphill battle.
While "Shocking Sky Serpent" is climbing in the ranks quickly,
soon my entry will be buried in the pile - one more unseen, mostly ignored entry. Experience tells me this sort of activity is tempting, but really another waste of precious time. +:O

Luckily I've got a compelling picture and video, and some good prospects in the form of at least a few friends who will support this effort and "get out the vote". And it seems that, out of all the designs I have, I picked the most "shocking" aspect (flying) and borrowed that term "shocking" from the front page of the Oroville Enterprise Record.

I normally try to avoid such contests, grant proposals etc., since the chances of winning are so slim and the effort dilutes real efforts toward real products.
I would have posted more entries but quickly realized that diluting one's presence by having more than one entry would LOWER my chances of winning. (everyone gets only one (1) vote!)

So anyway, I'm not really asking anyone here to submit ideas to a contest that is already months old and about to expire soon, so much as to get behind the one of us who HAS submitted an idea: me. It takes days to do a good job on even a single submission. I think if any AWE entry has a SLIM chance at this point, to make even a dent, it is this entry, so I would humbly request your support.

http://challenge.ecomagination.com/ct/ct_a_view_idea.bix?c=ideas&idea_id=A884332F-F2CC-4979-BB3F-C332169581D5

Thanks
:)
Doug Selsam

DaveS,

Its OK.

Can you give the link now? (During one week I will be at WEC)
After return I will try to not forget the vote towards AWEIA's submission before september 30.
Note:there are three categories for GE:"create power" (the appropriate category),and two others.

PierreB

Hmmm....is GE conducting a "popularity contest", or a "technical evaluation"?

DaveL

Hmmm....is GE conducting a "popularity contest", or a "technical evaluation"? DaveL   Its both. We should ignore the popular vote track, which unfairly favors early submittal, but does "popularize" the event.   The bulk of R & D opportunity is reserved for GE's technical jury to select. Location near the end of the vast general wasteland of entries then favors sound ideas.   daveS

Attachments :

Optimization of a manual flygen.pdf

Hi Y'all.
I just wanted to let you in on a largely unknown aspect of wind energy involving the harnessing of the incredible power of flatulence, already identified as a major influencer of climate. Anyway, yes small turbines are indeed inserted near the anal area of, well, first it was livestock, but now humans are looking like the next, er, target.
Anyway, Anal Wind Energy has the proven potential to greatly lessen global warming and also could be combined with greenhouse gas removal technology.
If you don't like that, how 'bout this?

Vote for my CRAZY, WRITHING, SNAKING, Balloon-supported insanity on VIDEO at the GE Ecomagination Challenge. C'mon you guys, let's pull together and vote for me - already up to a rank of 118 out of 1800 submissions and I joined yesterday. The contest is months old. Only you can win it for me, and if I win, we all win.
VOTE:
http://challenge.ecomagination.com/ct/ct_a_view_idea.bix?c=ideas&idea_id=A884332F-F2CC-4979-BB3F-C332169581D5

c'mon Dave just vote for me! Let's not over ANALyze this. (AWE)

http://challenge.ecomagination.com/ct/ct_a_view_idea.bix?c=ideas&idea_id=A884332F-F2CC-4979-BB3F-C332169581D5

*******************************************************************

Timely?

Hi Dad,                                                                                                   September 10, 2010
http://www.paperairplanemovie.com/
Outside the Box
 
Lift,
Love,

 Joeson 
 
Joseph Faust
LifeCoachingWorks

I provide private clients with
sustainable success strategies
for extraordinary personal, business,
and relationship success.

Ummm I was just asking for your vote, not for you all to try and make a competing submission. The contest is almost over now. Somehow I've managed to rank 117 with 67 votes. The winner has almost 2000 votes. Too many submissions on one topic dilutes the votes - that's why I only submitted the AWE version of Superturbine, which is in your favor.

If you all had wanted to make a competing submission, why didn't you enter a couple months ago when it first started? Now that you ignored it for a couple months, and it's almost over anyway, now that I've asked for your support, how 'bout just giving me the backup of voting for my already-submitted proposal.

Dave this is what I don't understand: you keep talking about cooperation, but it seems that you only want everyone to cooperate on your ideas. Is it OK to cooperate with anyone else? What's so hard about just going along with one of us asking the rest of us to support him? Is that so bad? Could you just break down and give me your vote, now that I brought it up?
Thanks:)
Doug Selsam
LINK:
http://challenge.ecomagination.com/ct/ct_a_view_idea.bix?c=ideas&idea_id=A884332F-F2CC-4979-BB3F-C332169581D5

Fortunately, voters are not restricted to only one vote. I have just voted for both Pierre and Doug's submissions. Let's get in as many entries as possible and let's all vote for ALL praying at least one of ours (possibly more) get funded eventually.

Doug,   You have our support & best wishes.   Perhaps you missed the many earlier messages about the contest from before your later entry. The "AWE Super-Entry" is not a competition with you, but was inspired by notice from Cristina Archer & Jong Chul Kim.  The Super-Entry will tie together the scattered AWE entries & competes for the GE jury picks rather than popular vote, so we got your back. daveS

As the song goes:
                          "Happy days are here again ..."

     Airbine announces new site is now open!

                             Airbine 

 

==

Each year the periodical Desktop Engineering holds a contest on "Ideas that can change the world." 
 Lynn Potter, President of Airbine Renewable Energy System
placed third in 2009 with his innovative patent
for an Aerostat Wind Turbine (AWT).

Blimp-based Power Plant Modeled in SolidWorks

• Patent Approved for AIRBINE   US Patent 7,786,610 
  Approved: August 31, 2010
  Was filed in May of 2007.

Many of those 1,800 entries must be  from folks who think this is a lottery.  I've heard of half-baked ideas, but a lot of these are not even in the pan yet, and others are obviously just claims on old concepts, both popular and not.  Doug was listed right next to a Perpetual Motion Machine earlier today.  At least it was described enough to be recognized.  Many entrants can't form a sentence, let alone a working model.   It seems that the public has as many votes as they want, so the biggest 'bot may win, but the comments are mostly from entrants hustling each other.  I hope Chris Anderson doesn't have to read through the whole mess, but he deserves it for the clunky website.  It would take all day just to find a dozen other entries that deserve a vote on that site.  I'm not putting any up, just because it is such poor company.

http://arpa-e.energy.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=-TYeQr0IVvg=&tabid=83&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailmarketingsoftware&utm_content=510623913&utm_campaign=September2010Newsletter&utm_term=technicaldescriptions

Can't wait to hear Dave's rant about this. ;-)

- Dimitri

The text in target document

"These projects have been selected for negotiation of awards;
final award amounts may vary."

"ARPA©\E Project Selections ¨C TECHNICAL DESCRIPTIONS
September 10, 2010
Makani Power, Inc. $3,000,000 Alameda, CA

Airborne Wind Turbine The Makani Airborne Wind Turbine (AWT) converts
wind energy into grid©\quality, utility scale electricity using
tethered, high©\performance wings outfitted with turbines. Power is
extracted from this motion by the wing©\mounted turbines and
transmitted to the ground through an electrically©\conductive tether.
However, because the wing is not constrained to rotate about a hub, it
can sweep a much larger section of the sky than a conventional wind
turbine and fly at a higher altitude where the wind is both stronger and
more consistent. These advantages result in a system that can deliver a
capacity factor of 60% and with lower overall mass. Makani will develop
a prototype that will be used to validate the design of the full scale
system, which will reduce the cost of electricity compared to
conventional horizontal axis wind turbines."

Advanced permanent magnets would affect AWECS:

Clip from announcement at   document :

"ARPA©\E Project Selections ¨C TECHNICAL DESCRIPTIONS
September 10, 2010

These projects have been selected for negotiation of awards; final award amounts may vary.
GE Global Research    $2,249,980    Niskayuna, NY

Transformational Nanostructured Permanent Magnets In this project, General Electric Global Research (GE) will develop cost competitive next©\generation permanent magnets with magnetic energy product of at least 80 MGOe and 80% less rare©\earth mineral content. To increase the magnet¡¯s energy product, GE will develop bulk proprietary nanostructured consolidated and fully dense microstructures and will demonstrate for the first time a bulk exchange©\spring nanocomposite permanent magnet. This transformational permanent magnet performance result will exceed the maximum theoretical energy product of the state©\of©\the©\art Nd2Fe14B at 64 MGOe. The impact of these new magnets is to increase the efficiency and power density of electric machines while reducing raw material cost. These magnets will enable further market penetration of hybrid vehicles and wind turbine generators, while enhancing US competitiveness in rare©\earth mineral based products."

Oh I thought you only get one vote - sorry. :)

OK yeah I remember now. It WAS mentioned, you're right.
Just nobody ever DID anything about it I guess.
There are too many contests, conferences etc.
If we entered them all we'd get no working systems up and running.

I just saw a press release that McConney has millions in ARPA-E money.
I think it's time a watchdog group was formed to monitor these grants - how much is squandered for how little result? What are we being told now, and what is the result later? EVeryone forgets to follow up. As it is, I've seen that NREL etc., though they have good people, and lots of money, have not built nor tested ANY new wind energy device in decades.
We have to watch the president, like several past presidents, talk the happy talk about research into alternative energy, but deep down they don't believe in it, nor do the big labs believe they can FIND a new energy source, so they refuse to look, and waste all the money flying around the world using fossil fuels to sit in large groups in buildings built by fossil fuels and heated and cooled by fossil fuels, congratulating each other for "being aware of global warming", and when you ask them what new types of turbine they are studying, building, testing, whatever, they have NOTHING to show you.
How is that even possible?
The lies never end.
I'd like to see someone archive their statements and compare the statements to the eventual results, especially if someone without the funding leapfrogs them. Which is probably not that hard since when you get government funding they suck you into pushing paperwork full time like they do. The attempt is to wrestle innovators to the ground and bind them with paperwork into the same paralysis enjoyed by the bureaucrats themselves. Their paperwork is almost never about the technology, but all about money. They demand that you concoct elaborate financial fairy-tales in order for them to become interested. The next step is they try and convert you, the independently thinking innovator, into a government cash extraction machine. How come they never identify some innovator, contact them and say: "We've built a lab where you can experiment - no strings, no paperwork"? How's that for a fantasy? As though they actually wanted to try something new. Obviously that's the last thing they want. I can guarantee that anything new tried will cost millions and be watered down, when workable prototypes can be built for a few hundred bucks in peoples' garages.
The good side of it all? They can't solve the problem so that is job security for actual innovators!
:)
Doug Selsam

Yeah and how 'bout where they show a pic of the person rather than the idea itself, for each entry as you scroll thru them?
Yes I noticed all the top entrants have very mundane designs and are just working the heck out of other entrants to get many votes.
This contest was hard to enter - didn't work on my computers. definitely needs some adjustment.

Dimitri,   Makani Power will test whether first-generation aerobatic autonomous flygens, even with an overwhelming early investment advantage, can seriously rival the key inherent advantages & raw bootstrapping potential of the low-complexity groundgen solutions. It won't take many million-dollar crashes during endurance validation trials to settle the question.   The trend in current AWE, lead by the most credible engineering teams, is strongly anti-flygen, just look at Europe,   daveS

That's it? That's all you got?
Dave, you've disappointed me.
;-)

- Dimitri

"That's it? That's all you got? Dave, you've disappointed me."   Dimitri,   One must be magnanimous in victory. When Makani first publicly disclosed its core concept i immediately proclaimed it "high-risk" to the known AWE community. This was a rare instance Makani condescended to argue a point. Now ARPA-E confirms my judgment, as the agency "focuses exclusively on high risk" energy technologies.   Most investors prefer low-risk. Poor Makani must now bear its official high-risk determination like an albatross around its neck. Three million dollars is not enough to make this sort of aviation risk go away.   Low-risk AWE will do just fine without the high-risk investment pools Makani must depend on,   dave

The grant process is all about how much time you spend on bureaucratic paperwork. The granting agencies accept no responsibility to survey the field in question and respond, but instead restrict themselves to a 100% passive stance, responding only to submissions, but never pro-actively targeting specific innovatrors nor any specific technology. The decisions are farmed outr to VC-types. The true innovators are therefore passed over in favor of those with impressive-sounding "business plans" - that is really what they want to see is the business end. They don't really believe any solutions will emerge - they are playing defense, tryong to make sure that they'll have a good excuse for all their failures. So they attempt to wrestle the innovators to the ground and stop them from innovating so they can spend all their time filling out forms and telling technological and financial lies, to get government money, just like the bureaucrtas themselves have learned to do. Since they don;t believe any solution will emerge, they just want to try and not look TOO dumb when it all comes out.
The fact that there are working solutions that work NOW escapes them entirely. That's because they can;t see if they refuse to look!
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.Selsam.com
PS
I need your vote for a WORKING flying wind turbine design!
No issues to work out concerning whether it could actually WORK.
:)
http://challenge.ecomagination.com/ct/ct_a_view_idea.bix?c=ideas&idea_id=A884332F-F2CC-4979-BB3F-C332169581D5

Procedure:
1) register - input your e-mail
2) they send you a link by e-mail to register
3) You register then sign in
4) find my entry "Shocking Sky Serpent"
5) click on the VOTE button.

Thanks
Doug Selsam
714-992-5594

• FairIP 

• CoopIP

• KitePatents  of special interest. You may specify numbers for our special attention.

Articles are invited to the scene!

Also, subscription support is invited. 
Passkeys for the AWE Sector will work even before one decides to complete Step 2.

Access: AWE Sector

New or renew: here

 

Semi-annual subscription drive.

And recall that founding members of AWEIA occur when notice is made prior to December 31, 2010; thereafter new members will be beyond the founding stage of our industry.

Attachments :

Well guys I guess I am quite embarrassed.
It looks like the big turbine makers have finally started to get religion regarding the best way to utilize the power of a rotating propeller in the wind: They're all going over to moving, sliding mounts for wind turbines. The feeble attempts to extract useful energy from the mere and coincidental "rotation" of the rotors have been identified as engineering folly, with the superior method revealed to harness the overarching THRUST force of the turbines. It's about time they woke up.
Future big turbines will be mounted on RAILS, with a wheeled chassis.
The rotor will be allowed to spin freely, and then be PUSHED downwind by the THRUST of the rotor.
A system of winches and cables at ground level drives the gearbox and generator in an intermittent fashion.

Professor Phineas Q. Crackpot, PhD. was queried:
Q. "Do you have any concerns regarding the periods of reel-in where you make no power?"
A. "Wind energy is so intermittent anyway - it already gives up 70% of a machine's potential due to nature's own intermittency, so we're just imitating Mother Nature herself, adding in our own factor of intermittency - shouldn't matter that much."

Q. "The amount of power seems dismally abyssmal compared to the previous output harnessed from rotation - do you miss having all that power?"
A. "Not really - today wind energy - especially cutting-edge wind energy, has become more about feeling good and sounding good as opposed to making actual power. We far prefer elaborate lies to simple truths. Here's a simple truth for you though: we only get 1% of our electricity from the wind anyway, so who is really going to notice if we make no power? The important thing is we have a LOT of money invested and we've gotten the government to match these funds. Follow the money!"

Q. "There's a concern that a rotor moving downwind suffers a severe power penalty as opposed to a rotor that stands its ground - any comment?"
A. "Well yeah but how are we supposed to get the power out of the thing using thrust force if we can't let it move downwind? Armed with calculations and experimental evidence that the turbines can indeed move downwind faster than the wind itself, who cares? The mere fact that a turbine can move faster than the wind should tell you that what you thought was common sense has gone out the window! Open your mind and drain your brain!".

Q. "Your colleague, Dr. Dave Santos, has on the one hand, identified the transmission of torque along a driveshaft as folly, citing its clear impossibility, and on the other hand cites a helicopter powered by a torque wire as early evidence that a flying turbine can be powered from the ground through lulls. Do you have any comments on Dr. Santos' analysis of torque trasmission, and the viability of the driveshaft concept?"
A. "Well if Dr. Dave says it, it must be true. Have you ever seen his car? It's powered by a twisting wire. Next question?"

Q. "Yes, one more question: Wind energy as we know it is 3000 years old. Throughout that 3000 years, all turbines have relied on the blades providing useful work in the form of torque combined with rotation, taken from the working surfaces that move in a circular path. Do you have any concerns of retaining the circular path while giving up the collection of energy from those rotating working members in the form of torque?"
A. "Er uhhh can you repeat the question please?"

~<brawk! :)
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com

Doug,    You wrote

AWE Investor Warning-

dave santos schrieb:
Yes. I developed such systems while working for Keith Stewart. The first is
really simple, just a double reel mounted on a control bar. Billy and Cory
Roeseler actually marketed such a control bar with a motorcycle brake on the
reel, for th purpose of self-launching your kite even while swimming.
Unfortunately today's kite-surfing industry doesn't appear to have anything like
this, although I may be mistaken. For AWE you would have a single
motor/generator in the double reel and some mechanical system for moving the
control bar.

The other was a more complicated gearing system, basically a differential
separating the controling and reeling functions. One handle or motor/generator
moves both reels in the same direction, the other moves them in opposite
directions. No control bar required, but more expensive. Keith had one built and
used it. It worked as intended, but had more friction than we would have liked.
For AWE one the one input would have a motor/generator, the other just a motor.

Theo Schmidt

Gosh Dave, take a joke or something. I know yor car is not really powered by a twisting wire.
I like the perpetually-elevated platform driven by flexible driveshaft concept. You can see that to use your fan-belt method, the platform would be fighting against itself, constantly pulling DOWN on a cable to keep the tethered craft UP.
Yes that ultra-fan-belt method has a lot of hidden surprises with regard to energy lost just keeping it aloft.

Anyway yes I promote Superturbine(R) since that's my project.
And yes there is a cubic scaling penalty in wind energy - period. That includes whatever your latest scheme is.
The cubic scaling penalty is why Superturbine(R) was developed:
many small rotors instead of 1 big rotor uses less material and involves less torque (uses higher RPM instead). Superturbine(R) trades the cubic scaling for square scaling -- that IS the reason for it.
Anyway, thanks for using that helicopter analogy, cause your shining example is just a single-rotor version of what I've been saying all along.
By the way:
I DO have a GREAT idea for an AWE that does NOT necessarily involve Superturbine(R) at all, (though it could) and it seems so simple I cannot believe nobody else is trying anything like it. It would run steady-state unattended, not use a torque tube, and be very simple. Why nobody is running one yet I do not know but perhaps I'll get to it soon.

I also have a related PLAN for the progression of AWE using this concept, that does NOT necessarily use Superturbine(R) at all, involving the mastery of one aspect at a time, of several aspects that must be worked out for a single design to work, then combining the developed-aspects into a working machine.
How does that sound?

Geez and you know, there's another great business idea that stems logically from getting even one of these aspects worked out. Not only is this one aspect clearly within the skills of today's kite technology, but it is such an obvious thing that I can't believe I've never seen it. Oh well 100 years ago we were still riding horses.

Oh and I also have another COMPLETELY unexplored method for AWE that NOBODY has ever mentioned or tried in AWE, OR in regular-old wind energy. I'll bet the only one who could guess what it is is Wayne German - maybe. It's a pretty whacked-out sounding idea, but completely valid as far as I know.

OK enough clues for today.
:)
Doug Selsam