Thanks for noticing what's been going in here, Chris
Harrell. And fair enough, Joe. I'll try to be more tactful in my
choice of words if it will make you happy. I still think, as a former math
major in university, you might consider all those years of working
around an "equals sign": = that people should be treated equally by a
moderator.
It's
interesting that a "more privileged" person posting can call the most
pivotal and well-respected wind energy theoretician in history
"stupid", declare his contribution unoriginal and invalid, and call him some other really
nasty names, even ascribing questionable politics to him, while throwing in the towel on having any
meaningful input to the topic of "double betz", without any admonishment from you.
In
all my years of wind energy I've never seen such an abusive dismissal
of Betz, keeping in mind that Betz-bashing is the first and most
well-known warning sign of a crackpot in wind energy. Of course,
it is true that Betz doesn't apply to people who don't practice wind
energy. I can only agree that the Betz coefficient does not apply
to daveS. How could it? Interesting how a diversion into
alleging the politics of Betz does not receive an "off-topic" warning
from you, Joe. Also interesting how easily you two attempt to
angrily discard or invalidate facts, while happily promoting
fantasy. It's almost like a battle of good versus evil.
So
Betz didn't come up with his own theory, according to daveS, and
patents in general, let alone mine, are invalid when issued, according
to you (Joe), as though examiners don't check prior art, while it never
seems to occur to either one of you that smarter people than you -
actual experts - have vetted all this factual matter, over many years,
as valid and true. You two have no problem making such
declarations and even worse ones, all day long, while you endlessly
scold others for their mere choice of words, being "off-topic", etc.
I
think in some ways you've done an excellent job founding this AWE
forum, and am grateful for it, but I also think you both stray way too
far into thinking you know everything, when in reality, your knowledge
is very incomplete.
Way back ten years ago, I
got excited at what you two were doing to promote airborne wind energy,
but noticed you two exhibited many of what I had slowly realized, over
ten previous years, were symptoms of wind energy crackpotism, but
assumed that with a little proper information, you could be coaxed into
coming around, nudged gently into the reality of how wind energy really
works, by describing these known pitfalls, so as to enable you two to
avoid those pitfalls.
However, though I had
been designing and manufacturing wind energy systems for years, with
one of the only working AWE systems in the world, based on research
funded by The California Energy Commission,
instead of being warmly received as a helpful provider of knowledge, I
was ridiculed and told I did not know what I was talking about, and
that the typical, well-known disproven crackpot notions were in fact
valid and the basis for improved working systems. I'm a hopeful,
positive person, so I tend to never want to give up on anyone, but you
two often seem, well, hopelessly hopeless, with regard to ever making
any sense, from my perspective.
Once again,
you've trivially attacked my choice of words, because I mentioned
noticing Rod Read wasting a lot of effort listening to the wrong
people. You say it was wrong for me to use the word
"wrong". Well Joe, I respectfully disagree, and please allow me
to explain:
I saw hope in young Roddy, when I
saw that, as opposed to the 50 or more previous failing or
destined-to-fail teams and projects, Roddy in many ways "got it".
He reminded me of me starting out, because I had also started out using
3-D rendering to begin communicating my ideas more effectively. I
saw that Roddy understood the general idea that an effective AWE device
could logically resemble a tornado, in some sense.
Now
daveS had taken the position of negating and even ridiculing hard wings
for energy extraction, instead promoting single-skin cloth working
surfaces, whereas I, with years of experience extracting said energy,
knew that even hard blades quickly wear out, and that single-surface
cloth blades were rendered obsolete by permanently-shaped airfoils over
a thousands years ago, based on performance.
daveS
also promoted "worship" of "kite-Gods" insisting that these kite-Gods
would solve the riddle of how to get all that energy down to the ground
where we could use it. When I read that Roddy had traveled to New
Zealand to meet Peter Lynn (if I have that right?), my only thought was
that he was taking daveS way too seriously. Say what you want,
but that's what I thought. I imagined how many pilot-lifters
Roddy could have bought online for the money such a trip must have
cost. You don't have to know everything about every person
designing every component to do engineering, you just need to know
where to get them and how they can be combined.
Now I know you guys are sometimes resistant to them, but I'm going to mention a few facts here, OK?
fact 1: daveS promoted cloth "kite" blades for energy extraction to produce electricity;
fact 2: I love kites, but advised hard blades for energy extraction to produce electricity;
fact 3: Using cloth blades, with 3 rotors, Roddy's "Daisy" AWE device generated about 300 Watts
fact 4: Using hard blades with only 1 rotor, Roddy's "Daisy" AWE device generated over 1000 Watts
fact 5: Therefore, the hard blades worked nearly 1000% better.
fact 6: Based on that, I expressed the valid opinion that Roddy had listened to the wrong people.
See?
Not that complicated. Nothing mysterious. Just Roddy's
choice whose advice to listen to, and he made the wrong choice.
Then he realized he had made the wrong choice, expressing excitement at
how much power he expected to make, as he prepared to transition to
hard blades.
What you two seem to endlessly
want to do, in my opinion, is hide in a world of fantasy, while
avoiding reality. You're happy to assist entrants to the field in
promoting promises of how many hundred houses, or whatever the number
might be, in given locations, by given dates, but actively resist any
followup when the given dates roll by.
Going
back to that equals-sign = from the world of mathematics, your major in
university (Joe), why would we not express an equal amount of curiosity
regarding the actual results of such programs, as is directed toward
their almost universally-false initial statements? Did you
realize real wind energy people give zero (0) credibility to empty
promises of improved wind energy devices? That power produced is
the only thing that matters. not false forward-looking statements of
fantasy? That we've seen hundreds of "on-paper breakthroughs"
come and go with no result?
I have to say,
given the amounts of power I've read were produced from various AWE
prototypes, I'm increasingly perplexed that out of something like 50 or
100 companies, none seem to be
bearing fruit. A few years ago, I was believing these power
production figures, but lately I'm starting to wonder where these
numbers came from, and why we don't see several systems in daily
operation, proudly publicizing their output on a daily basis.
But, while hopes may be dashed, you have to pay attention to the
trend. While nobody would expect all
the projects to succeed, few of us expected all of them to fail.
Are they? Sudden "radio-silence": We can't be sure. So all
we can do is guess. Unless someone was curious enough to bother
to find out any real information. Anyone?
You
know the difference between this forum and a previous wind energy Yahoo
forum? In the previous forum, the participants knew something
about the facts of wind energy, and people who came in and bashed Betz,
etc, were not only far outnumbered (as opposed to running the forum)
but seen for what they were: people without the requisite
knowledge. We'd tend to sometimes just label them as "idiots",
etc. at some point, if they became obnoxious enough - please excuse the
French. Not that there's anything wrong with not knowing
something, but not knowing something while saying you know better, when
you don't, gets into that special zone that calls for special
descriptive terminology. The majority of people on the group
practiced wind energy, so they actually knew what they were talking
about. The moderators were actual, well-known,
recognized-by-peers, experts in wind energy, though they never felt the
need to call themselves
experts, since it did not need to be said. Their expertise was
obvious, and spoke for itself: They regularly designed and built wind
energy systems that powered peoples' homes. Facts speak louder
than words.
OK thanks for reading this and
now I'd like to get back to taking a break from this forum for
awhile. So please overcome the urge to "have the last
word". Maybe take a while to think over what I've expressed here
and see if, possibly, you guys would like to become devoted to facts
versus fantasy, and spend as much attention on results, after the fact,
as on the empty promises bereft of facts, we tend to hear every day
from this venue. Allow yourself to feel, then fulfill, the need
to "follow up" on the stories you repeat and publish. Try to be a
little more humble when describing your own supposed level of
experience, understanding, and ability. Consider your results,
compared to the results of others, when assessing your own level of
expertise. Remember, facts are your friends, even if at first you
don't want to hear them. In wind energy, to ignore known facts is
the quickest way to failure.
---In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, <joefaust333@...
