https://www.innovatorsmag.com/filling-up-on-water-from-the-air/ 

This uses microfibers plus expanded carbon as the water repellant.   

Hi Pierre,

          There is a basic variable worth mentioning which has a large impact on intermittency and the capacity factor: seasonal variations in the wind speed. Also important to consider is that the most wind available is on the open seas, especially in the trade winds and in the winds that sweep around Antarctica.

          For that reason, I consider a good solution to be “Turboships”, which are double-ended catamarans which support a wall of Sharp Cycloturbines to windward and fly energy kites from the leeward hull. They sail slowly back and forth across the wind to hold position using a very large, steerable keel, and reversible, electric motor pods at both ends. They desalinize seawater and produce hydrogen, and then liquefy it or pressurize it. They operate in fleets of about a thousand vessels and operate under computer control, with a maintenance crew that manages the fleet. Cargo delivery vessels download hydrogen and/or fresh water to be delivered to coastal cities. For coastal cities, Turboships could solve the energy storage problem and the growing shortage of water problem. Most Turboship fleets switch hemispheres twice each year so as to follow the strongest winds, which occur during the winter. HVDC lines from the coastal cities can supply most inland cities.

PeterS

Heat waves and kite-flying wind speeds seldom occur together. So kites over cities to provide shade might need to be able to stay aloft using thermals, like gliders. Balloons might be more useful for supporting large sheets of reflective material which could provide shade.

Hi DougS,

          Thanks for that excellent chart comparing hydrogen and batteries as a way to store energy for automobile propulsion. What the chart doesn’t include is the cost of the stored energy, which would be most helpful. When hydrogen is liquefied, the stored “coolth” is a form of stored energy also that can be converted into multiple uses in port cities, so the efficiency percentage would be higher.

Hydrogen is not the only option. There are various types of batteries, and large-volume flow-batteries might prove to be the cheapest way to store energy for Turboships. Or perhaps extracting C02 from sea water could be used to make liquid fuels from hydrogen for use by aircraft. There are lots of options to consider and new ones are being developed.

What Turboships illustrates is an integrated system that addresses a number of problems simultaneously. For example, for desalination, the movement of the Turboships would insure that the concentrated brine would be dispersed over a very large area to safely dilute it, thus minimizing the impact on sea creatures. That’s a big problem for stationary desalination plants.

Also, Tuboships challenges the conventional wisdom. Current wind turbine designs take for granted that they must be stationary and suffer the large loss of energy due to seasonal variation in the wind speed. Most stationary places on land or off-shore show large seasonal variations in the wind speed which cause very large variations in the available wind energy. Turboships show that is not necessary because it is a way to follow the strongest seasonal winds. Would it cost something to change hemispheres twice each year? Of course. But the gains in energy capture should far outweigh that cost and result in cheaper energy.

Many locations receive double the wind energy in the winter as compared to the summer. (California is the reverse.) So shifting hemispheres at sea should provide roughly a 33% increase in annual energy capture on that basis alone. Plus, at sea, the winds tend to be stronger and more constant, especially at certain latitudes, and that increases the capacity factor.

          Strangely, you seem to be recommending not thinking about integrated systems until all of the component parts have been proven. If so, I think that is the wrong way to go. The parts of most systems can be continually upgraded to improve the system as a whole, such as using flow batteries instead of producing hydrogen. Similarly, if Sharp Cycloturbines prove to be flawed for some reason, active pitching cycloturbines could be used in their place. Furthermore, we still don’t have any proven electrical energy kites, but it would be counterproductive to delay thinking about how to integrate them into larger systems, such as Turboships. For energy kites, Turboships solve the excessive-area problem, the change-in-wind-direction problem, and the safety problem of falling kites. Plus, water could reduce damage to kites when they fell. In some cases, rigid kites could be temporarily submerged to protect them from high winds.

The need for a massive increase in clean energy is urgent and overdue, but you seem to be recommending an approach that goes slow, thinks small, and focuses on only one component at time.

          As far as I can tell, the reason for that is that you are combining two kinds of advice: 1) How to be a commercially successful inventor, and 2) How to solve our energy problems. Your advice focuses mostly on 1) since you advise me to limit my inventing to one thing at a time, to complete one project before thinking about another. For you, that may be realistic advice, and perhaps you are following your own advice. Having developed and sold many products, I appreciate your recommended strategy for commercial success -- because product development requires rapid completion leading to sales, plus continuous product improvements and variations. I did that for about 35 years. But I’m trying to do something different now. I’m focused largely on 2), which requires integrated and complementary concepts.

          I appreciate that you are impatient to see the Sharp Cycloturbine validated. I agree. I’m currently creating a small, indoor workshop so that I can get back to building models. The process is slow because there is a lot to do. But I’m making progress, and my strength continues to improve.

PeterS

Hi Pierre,

          HVDC lines offer a big advantage when it comes to the intermittency of wind. Studies indicate that if far-away places can be connected, the effect is to smooth out the total amount of available wind energy, thus greatly reducing the need for back-up generating plants.

          Eventually, super-conductor electricity storage combined with HVDC should solve the intermittency problem.

PeterS

DaveS,

          The context of my comment was Turboships that would use large-scale energy kites. You ignored the context.

PeterS

DaveS,

          You ignored the context and you also missed the point.

PeterS