Hi Group,

Very nice, indeedy.

Dan'l

Between the courts, filing patents, regulations, conferences, blogging, etc. who has time to build a system? The article says the patent solves certain problems in airborne wind energy. Sounds great in theory, but the fact is there are NO problems to be solved in airborne wind energy, because airborne wind energy does not even exist in the sense that you could go see a working system anywhere in the world at this moment. At this point in time AWE has either NO problems, since there is no working system, or it consists of ALL problems, also since there is no working system up yet. One can use any words they wish to describe NO working systems operating anywhere, as far as we know, right NOW. (millions of "regular" wind turbine ARE operating right now.)

What I've found is that the patents take a lot of time, as do grant proposals, conferences, not to mention blogging and long discussions about regional government regulations. Like trying to invent an airplane that falls under railroad regulations with regard to track size. In the end there's little to no time to get anything done. I seem to remember that even the Wright Bros. found themselves hampered by patents and government paperwork and bureaucracy to the point that their company could have been much larger and more successful if not for getting sidetracked, sucked into "the all-talk format". If anyone wants to really get anything going in this field they'll have to pull out all the stops.

After years of interacions with leading wind energy scientists, and recent discussions with the top VC "players", I'm literally coming to the conclusion that humanity may not even have "intelligence" in the way we like to assume, but are really more just following habits and instinct like ants. It seems like if we really have intelligence, it is usually not applied, even when we think it is.
Doug Selsam
http://www.flyingwindturbine.com

Hi Dave S.:
I recognize your writing now without seeing the name. I thought of you yesterday when I saw a decorative 3-bladed windmill with multi-colored cloth sails using battens. I'm sure you've seen them. Not attached to a generator, and not placed in a very high wind area. Reminded me of you except for the fact that these blades rotated, rather than pulsating. I was driving up to our new high-wind test facility in Oak Hills where we have the world's leading brand of 10 kW wind turbine, with very heavy fiberglass blades, down for serious maintenance, since even thousands of pounds of hard material are no match for what mother nature consistently dishes out over the years.
Doug Selsam

Pull, release, pull, release,...

"cavexor" is the green return spring that helps the concave-convex situation: "cavex" as I use in many instances, including special impact custions; close-open, press-release, change angle of attack and revert, etc. Binary worlds.

Power is generated during pull and during release; short costing terminal instances during alternation. Pumps, generators, can be placed in such systems. Have fun.    On-off, stretch-rebound.   Image does not adequately show stablizing hinges as the diamond flexes.

 

 

JoeF

An Intermittent Wind Powered Generator  
April 2008
Designed by Mr Q Gang
London, UK

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

 

Dr. Hare,
      Delighted about finding your FlutterMill of 2007.
You are invited to join the discussion:
http://www.energykitesystems.net/FlexorEnergy/index.html
 
I would treasure permission to publish in EnergyKiteSystems.net
images and full story of your FlutterMill adventure.   
 
What a fun site you give the world!  
http://www.creative-science.org.uk/sharp_flutter.html
 
Lift,
Joe Faust
Editor

Hi Joe,
 
           I can see a useful application.
 
                                                       Dan'l
 

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: joefaust333@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 06:14:11 +0000
Subject: [AWECS] Mr. Q. Gang

 

Peter R. Payne

  
Patent number: 4024409 
Filed: Jan 7, 1975                   
Issued: May 17, 1977

Click image for full instruction.

 

 

Consider severely tethering this
tech by lifting body.

This seems to me to make public domain many items awaiting strong polished engineering
and effective implementation.

Yeah I guess you're right. Too many rules. OK forget it.
At least we have an excuse. And isn't that what life is all about? having a good excuse?

Paragraphs and notes are invited to advance our common tech on dancing kties.  Here below is our entry so far in the AWE Glossary, open for furthering by anyone interested:

In 1975 Peter R. Payne instructed carefully about two dancing kites from a central point set high on long non-sweeping main tether.

See video:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gN-DJrITp8

dancing kites   [two or more kites flying same circle or other figure from a lofted central point from which main tether begins downward journey; this saves the main long tether from sweeping and subsequent costing drag from such sweep. Rotokite is an instance.   Also, see the record of fighter kites dancing from one main tether (video above).  Think coteries, flowers, branching, bifurcations, trifurcations, quadfurcations.   Also, consider following the kite arches with branches that in each branch could have dancing kite complexes from the arch; see KiteLab for some developments therein.  See Peter R. Payne patent drawings (filed in 1975). Click image for full instruction.
        Also, see Moritz Diehl where he points out that
"absolute line drag is reduced, as only short lines move fast in cross wind direction" and "centrifugal forces "become our friends" and" curve flying does not
generate losses anymore. Kite masses can be higher. Kites can compensate each other during retraction, without lift control. Get 14 kW per square meter wing, 40% better than single kites!" p. 28 of SourceHere.

The AWE Community is invited to advance the "dancing kite" file for all.

Filler:

JoeF
 

Hey what gives, those guys and gals look like they are having fun. hmmm!
 
                                                                                          Dan'l
 

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: joefaust333@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 19:04:59 +0000
Subject: [AWECS] Dancing kites

 

Keep in mind that some use an other name for the Dancing Kites, nl. the "Balanced kites". This term is a little more specific from a scientific point of view.

I would dare to say any kite / wing except for a fighter kite should be considered to be a 'balanced' (daveS) kite, something like 'white snow'...

By the way, balanced kites (Diehl and others) as the two -or more- kites linked to a single tether via shorter tethers, are not limited to looping.
They can also fly controlled trajectories on their own shorter tether, as long as the excerted forces are 'balanced' to the ones of the other kites on the main tether.

Mystery AWECS agent seems solved. This thread of posts is the start.   Call it the Power-Sail ???

Here might be the finish telling agent:

www.kiteforsail.com  which now jumps to PacificPowerSails

and perhaps:

http://www.pacificpowersails.com/partners.htm

Ian Fisher and Dan Tracy

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

JoeF

Attachments :

Energy From the Air: Carbon Nanotubes Could Tether Blimps With Wind Turbines in the Sky

In Mark Moore's world, long nanotubes reach into the clouds, serving at once to tether a turbine-vehicle flying at 2,000 feet, or 10,000 feet, or 30,000 feet (610, 3,050 and 9,150 meters); and also to conduct the power that vehicle can harvest from the wind back to Earth.

NASA aerospace engineer Mark Moore in his office. Moore is part of the first federally-funded research effort to examine airborne wind capturing platforms. He's developing methods the government can use to fairly evaluate competing ideas on how to capture and use wind energy efficiently.

Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

Aloft might be a funnel-shaped blimp with a turbine at its back; or a balloon with vanes that rotate; a truss-braced wing; a parachute; a kite. Any and all of them are ideas being considered by nascent renewable energy industry that is flexing its imagination.

Moore, who works as an aerospace engineer, centering his focus on advance concepts in the Systems Analysis Branch at NASA's Langley Research Center, is using a $100,000 grant from the federal government to research what it will take to judge the value of any of those ideas.

"It's the first federally funded research effort to look at airborne wind capturing platforms," Moore said. "We're trying to create a level playing field of understanding, where all of the concepts and approaches can be compared -- what's similar about them? What's different about them, and how can you compare them?"

He likens the development of wind-borne energy to flight itself, adding that "this is like being back in 1903. Everybody's got a dog to show. Everybody's got a different way of doing it?"

But the Wright Brothers didn't have to deal with a crowded sky and the laws regulating it when they took off at Kitty Hawk. When they invented the airplane, they also created competition for airspace that makes creating air-borne power generation much more difficult.

"Airspace is a commodity," Moore said. "You have to be able to use airspace without disrupting it for other players. Smaller aircraft are still going to need to fly around. Larger airplanes, you can't expect them to fly around every wind turbine that has a two-mile radius as a protected flight zone."

It's another issue in considering air-borne power generation, which Moore hastens to say it not THE answer to clean energy but deserves consideration in a mix that includes solar power, ground-based wind turbines, algae and the other solutions both realistic and exotic that are being worked upon by scientists and engineers.

None have approached the cost of fossil fuel energy for thrift, but Moore argues that cost takes on a new dimension when all of its factors are considered, including the amount of land used in generating that power and its impact upon the atmosphere.

Tethers for airborne wind generation assets don't require a lot of ground space, nor are they labor intensive. And they don't pollute.

"They could stay up a year, then come down for a maintenance check and then go back up," Moore said. "Or they could be reeled in in case of a storm. Or one operator could watch over 100 of these."

Wind power is nothing new. Wind turbine farms have dotted the landscape for more than a generation. So why is this different?

"At 2,000 feet (610 m), there is two to three times the wind velocity compared to ground level," Moore said. "The power goes up with the cube of that wind velocity, so it's eight to 27 times the power production just by getting 2,000 feet (610 m) up, and the wind velocity is more consistent."

Send turbines farther aloft, into the 150 mph (240 kph) jet stream at 30,000 feet (9,150 m), and "instead of 500 watts per meter (for ground-based wind turbines), you're talking about 20,000, 40,000 watts per square meter," Moore said. "That's very high energy density and potentially lower cost wind energy because of the 50-plus fold increase in energy density."

So why isn't it being done? Or at least, why isn't it being researched more expansively?

One answer involves the vehicle to be flown. Another involves where to fly it.

"All you have right now are small companies doing the research, and all you can expect of them is to focus on one little piece," Moore said. "They have enough trouble just analyzing their concept without worrying about geography, about 'where should I mount these so that the wind is optimal?' "

The ultimate answer could be the federal government itself.

"In my mind, it's crazy that there isn't federal investment in this area, because the questions are just too great for small companies to answer," Moore said.

It's one of the reasons he has undertaken the wind-power study, which actually, he maintains, should be two studies. One involves the technology and geography. The other involves the interaction between those elements and other competitors for airspace.

That means dealing with current Federal Aviation Administration regulations and with those that might be necessary to accommodate an airspace that includes manned aircraft, the unmanned aircraft in the future, plus wind-borne energy turbines.

But first things first.

"It's important to understand the concept without regulatory constraints because it lets decision-makers and investors understand the topology of the solution space," Moore said. "We don't want to just look at the problem with regulatory blinders on, but we don't just look at it with no blinders on, either. We have to look at it both ways."

He offers another option that can help the FAA in its decision-making.

"Offshore deployment of these airborne systems probably makes the most sense in terms of both airspace and land use, because there is little to no demand for low altitude flight over oceans 12 miles (19 to 20 km) offshore," Moore said.

"Also, unlike ground-based turbines, there is almost no additional cost for airborne systems offshore because huge platforms are not required to support the structure or resist large tower bending moments.

"NASA Wallops could have an important role as an airborne wind testing center with access to offshore wind profiles in controlled airspace."

What all this has to do with NASA goes beyond the agency's commitment to help the nation with clean energy solutions. It also involves some of the core capabilities of the agency in aeronautics, composite materials and air space management.

"We've shown in the past that NASA's expertise can help broker and bring an understanding to the FAA as to how these technologies can map into constructive purposes," said Moore, who has met with wind power energy industry leaders, as well as officials from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Department of Energy in undergoing this project.

"They welcome this study because they've never dealt with flying systems and NASA has," Moore said. "You can't come up with advanced concepts until you understand the requirements well, and frankly, I don't think anybody understands the requirements well."

It's why he's undertaking the project: to bring a sense of what's going to be necessary to harvest power from the wind.

Source:
Jim Hodges
The Researcher News
NASA Langley Research Center

SOURCE: Source: http://nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot.com/ 
Permission granted to republish if and only if this source note link is given.

===================DISCUSSION is open for the news release details.

I hope this isn't just an expensive way to keep offices full.  Chuck Yeager says he used to wring all the information out of a prototype aircraft in a quick series of flights before NASA got ahold of it and pretended to make great discoveries via minor variations in procedure, taking years.

Dave: you write as though NASA has somehow bought into your concepts of oscillating kites, while shooting down the better-funded kite-flyers. Key words I take from your post: "reality check" and "weaker concepts". COuld their realoity check tag your oscillating kites as a "weaker concept"? (hey they just ignore MY concepts, so I'm throwing stones from a house with all broken windows) :)

Since NASA has no working system like anyone else, who are they to judge, anyway?

Wind energy electric generating systems evolved from small systems in the 1920's and 1930's that could power a home, to big ones later. The pause of 45 years was due to bureaucrats and their regulations stamping out all home-generated power (rural electrification act). No need to worry about all these airspace rules for a small system that does not go into restricted airspace.
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com

Regarding:
--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, dave santos <santos137@...

In my experience these pronouncements are empty.

Where were they 30 years ago when I was designing airborne systems and predicting a big future for wind energy? Rather than being inspired innovators, they are decades late to even be follow-on bystanders, with a multi-decade track record of ignoring/denying/not helping.

I've shown how to do airborne wind energy for years now, in addition to my development of Superturbine(R) for terrestrially-mounted use.

Note they say they are comparing ALL technologies.
My experience says they will only explore technologies of the big talkers who seldom build anything, technologies that can't work today, etc.
Anything but exploring my technologies. Never mind that I took the time and effort to patent them. These bureaucrats can't be bothered to survey their own patent system.

Nope, about the bnest they can do is note that nanotubes should be strong, wishing they were cheap, and schedule an indoor conference with no viable technologies to demo.

We live in a world of lies and empty press releases. Like Whale bumps. Like FloDesign. Like all the rest of the lying, "I go home at 4:00" people who think making a statement is the same thing as making a working system.

Note he talks about offshore being the best place to do it. Note he's talking about using blimps. Do you think they will care about a floating, tilting, offshore Superturbine(R) with a blimp at the upper end for extended length? Heck no! That would be something we could build today and fly tomorrow - a 4-letter word: W.O.R.K. to be avoided at all costs - Oh let me clarify - I mean productive work.

If they consider, examine, and scrutinize technologies that WORK, next, they'd have to BUILD them. If it turns out to be promising, they would have a lot of WORK ahead of them. They went to college, then got a cushy gobernment job near good ski areas so they would never have to actually WORK, so they will never DO anything.

ARPA-E should already be exploring the offshore Superturbine but, again, we have millions being spent on press releases and millions more to fly to conferences, where they can all sit around in chairs doing nothing and congratulate each other.

Don't worry, I'll solve this AWE problem -er uh I mean challenge...
:)
Doug Selsam

Regarding:
--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, "Joe Faust" <joefaust333@...

The world is full of solutions to technical problems.  Getting stuff built in quantity is a human relations challenge.

Moved by the text on page 36 of December 2010 issue of Discourse 
in an article by Joe Hadzicki and Dave Lang:

potential industry, potential AWECS industry, potential AWE industry:
 These phrases refers to the concept that an industry for AWECS has not yet started. 

What will things look like when the industry is born?

The AWE industry will be born when _________________________.

Sentence finishings are invited.

JoeF

PS: Maybe the AWE industry has already been born.

yup Bob, you are right.

I don't think you understand, Dave: I've wasted a good amount of my otherwise-productive adult life trying to interest "the powers that be" in something so simple I should have just been building them all along rather than talking about it for 1 second.
What I'm trying to get across is for the rest to learn from my mistakes. Don't waste your time trying to interest them.

The bureaucracy is a wall against which you are free to beat your head, but better to get into the workshop and into the market. Remember we are in a predominantly capitalist system and the government ministries of exploring new things have no department of new things, and little interest in new things.

If you want a career, are you best off standing in a welfare line or getting a job? This dynamic doesn't change just cuz AWE came along. That's what I've learned. Waiting for authority figures to suddenly become inspired innovators who will make our dreams into reality has been a futile expectation, at least in my case. Build yourself a limo or wait for the government bus, if it ever shows up, and you will help push when it runs out of gas.

I doubt if "they" are ever gonna explore my concepts. Why? Because they are passive, waiting for people to "apply" for their "help" and I am done wasting my time "applying" since then you have to keep explaining it over and over and they will drag you down into their bureaucracy and try to make you like them: building nothing and constantly, endlessly, doing paperwork to get mnore government funding, but never a result.

Look at regluar small wind: 20 years ago the main turbine was a Bergey 10 kW for $30,000. NREL got into the act and true to form, rather than making the turbines cheaper, they did what they do best - get the government to pay for these $30,000 systems. Today after 20 years of NREL, the same turbine is the only real choice, but now it costs $70,000 instead of $30,000 and they sell more. The reason given for the subsidies was to bring numbers up so prices could drop, but the prices doubled to take into account the rebates and incentives instead.

So no I don't want to waste precious time and inspiration chasing after approval anymore - they won't help so why try?

And like I say, they are passive, not active. They won't take the initiative to survey the entire technological space, nor to proactively develop any technology. They survey the space of what is submitted to them. They merely elicit RFP's and sit back for another vacation. But I'm jaded and unlikely to apply. I say let them do what they say - survey the space and if interested they can come to me, or whomever's shizzle they are interested in.

Sad but true, but maybe not so sad - do we want to live in a country where the government does everything for us? Not really.

With regard to attracting the interest of bureaucrats, I'm reminded of the lyrics to the song "Funkytown"

"Talk about it, Talk about it, Talk about it, Talk about it...
Gotta move on now, I gotta move on!".

:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.selsam.com

--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, dave santos <santos137@...

Just ignore them and develop your system. Stop worrying and start building. Give them your money, or buy materials and tools instead.

--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, dave santos <santos137@...

So, DaveL,
what I get from your first response is a parameter or aspect of "sales" as one indicator of whether or not the AWE industry has been born. Has anyone sold something in airborne wind energy conversion systems? Yes, both at wholesale and retail level. 

Have contrracts been formed between customers and providers for AWECS matters?  Yes. 

Is there a collection of people making, testing, improving, and selling AWECS? Yes.

Is there an international association serving a collection of commercial and research entities with AWECS as focus?  Yes: http://aweia.org

Are there  profit-focused groupings or consortiums within the over-300-AWECS-working persons worldwide? Yes, several. 

Does the newly born industry have challenges?  Yes, very many challenges; and people are working daily to find solutions.

Are governments having to respond to actions of AWE players' actions?   Yes.

Are there periodicals serving the AWE  industrial players?  Yes, for one: UpperWindpower 

Are there people being hired and let go within growing AWECS companies? Yes, regularly so.  Some of the employees are covered by Workman's Compensation insurace as they work full time to forward the aims of their AWE-focused companies; real wages within AWE-focused companies are being paid as production moves forward for targets within the companies.

Are there some non-profit research agents that are bolstering profit-based AWE companies?  Definitely this is the case.

Is the AWE industry born?      Perspective?   Those who see that an AWE industry has been born may also see that the industry is a baby. Maturity takes time. BabyAWEindustry? 

Some see the baby born. Some do not.   Those--who do not see birth as having taken place yet--are invited to specify the earmarks of the birthing event; for them, what will it take to declare that the AWE industry has been born?

Some players of the AWE industry mine the wind and produce energy to do practical works. Other players of the AWE industry make and supply the lifting bodies used in the AWE industsry.  Other players are in the research departments advancing the parts  and subassembles of AWECS. There are AWE inventors bringing forward things for AWE scientists to explore and describe. There are AWECS engineers designing and directing the construction of AWECS and changes in such; testing and improving of products is a near-daily occurrence in corners of the AWE world.  

Already some fossil fuel has been saved substantially by use of installed AWECS.  Traction AWE is a strong part of the babyAWEindustry.  The baby is being launched into early childhood in my perspective.   The AWECS industry has its own internal sectors; some of the sectors are profiting already in sales and services; other AWECS sectors have not seen anything but the spending of investments. The traction sector is already profitable; the free-flight sector is also already profiting. AWECS-obtained electricity for sale to village or region grids is not yet occurring, as the baby just has not so acted yet.

JoeF

Hi to all readers,

I have the pleasure to announce to you that the 2011 Airborne Wind Energy Conference will take place in Leuven, Belgium, and this on May 24-25.
The website with travel information, registration,... will launch in the first week of  january 2011, on  http://www.awec2011.com   .

All ( 1-page ) abstracts are welcome from now on, and should be sent to    program  [at]  awec2011.com  .  The Program Committee will review all contributions and reserves the right to suggest to change the presentation format (poster/talk) or to decline a submission. AWEC2011 only has a limited number of talks, so don't wait too long to submit your abstract !

So, reserve the dates in your calendar, and see you in May !


The AWEC2011 organising committee
(represented by Reinhart)

The baby has its leg twisted so it can't get out. Looks like a stillbirth to me. Sorry.

Oh wait, the baby refuses to be born. I think I hear it: it's waiting for bureaucrats to pull it out of its orifice.

Is it an industry?
Well perhaps in the sense that people are putting work into it... or is it play - mere recreation? Only results really count. Does it need a smokestack to be an industry? A listing on the NASDAQ? Some press releases? Or does someone, somewhere have to be using one - maybe a few people using them - maybe a few systems running in an economically-advantageous manner?

Discussing whether it's an industry has become an industry in itself.
In fact, I think--discussing it--IS the industry for the most part.
Yahoo is making some money right now.

Are you really changing anything to ask this question, or is this question a better question for Webster's dictionary? Are we examining what we're doing, or are we investigating the meaning of a word, testing the borders of vocabulary, so as to be able to congratulate ourselves on being part of an "industry"? Is this an engineering discussion of an overdue area of research, or a vocabulary quiz?

What's the point?
If you can possibly rationalize using a certain word to describe the same reality, what has changed?

Does more time go into building them or talking about them?

If someone has an application that requires a working AWE system, where can they get one?

And why is this so, if NASA is interested. Oh wait - they're waiting for some kid to build it on $100 budget. Then they can schedule $1,000,000 conferences around it and discuss how it can't be done.

Ah remember the good ole' Saturn 5 rockets?
Now THAT was a NASA I could get behind.

:)))
Doug Selsam



--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, "Joe Faust" <joefaust333@...

Cool.
Might as well power the conference with exclusively AWE, just to show consistency, to show that it's really a serious subject with serious players, and to prove that it's really an "industry".
Maybe you could get Al Gore to burn a few thousand gallons of jet fuel to show up, and save the polar bears stranded on teeny ice floes!
:)
Doug S.

--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, "reinhartp" <rein-art@...

Sent on December 17, 2010, to a list of 139 persons using blind
addressing and to this group of 80 members (some duplication of reading
then occurs).

AWE Industry Founders' Circle at the moment (yet short) stands at the
moment at: 364 persons worldwide. We are sure we are missing very many
persons while we are reaching out for reports; see below.

Good AWE Team,
Best of Lift to you and yours these holidays!

You are invited to send me:
[ ] List of names among your team that are to be considered in the AWE
Founders' Circle. I have missed some and depend now on your kind report
for the Dec. 31, 2010, point where founding will be considered by AWEIA
International as closed. An announcement will be made in the first
quarter of 2011 listing the founders of the AWE industry.

[ ] Gross AWE-related sales for any type of trade category in any AWECS
sector at any of ten scales.

[ ] Your vote on whether or not you perceive that we have birthed a baby
AWE industry or not. If not, what earmarks of birth would you specify?
There are differences of opinion.

[ ] Your safety-critical knowledge, small or large.

Regardless of your nation, you are invited to communicate with Mark D.
Moore of NASA about your technology or AWECS challenges.

Thanks to all for your news and subscription support in 2010 to keep
this end flying,

Joe Faust
Editor, UpperWindpower

If all progress stopped today, would this field of endeavor, as it exists today, be looked at by history as an "industry"?

I guess it would have to have a growth stage, a peak, then a decline. Say the peak has already passed. So if we are in a decline now of a disappearing industry, what is (was) the industry? What is the product? (hot air?) Who are the customers? (us?) What were the hallmarks of the heyday of this "industry"? Self-congratulation on not having a working system? Is that the peak? Or is it all the happy Magenn customers with all that excess power that they don't know what to do with? Or is it the NASA airborne wind energy system?

If I am walking along and I trip and fall and knock all my teeth out, is that an industry?

Doug S.