Found this in my mind and share it with friends: 

April 19, 2011.  Oil just might be processed kites.   Thanks to Georg Agricola for the biogenic origin of oil.  Then with having leaves, trees, and plants as kites (resistive set (the roots in soil) , tether set (the stems, branches, trunks), wing set (the leaves of the plants); and having the theory of how oil might have arrived from such organic matter, then we have it that oil is processed kites.   This does not follow for the fairly discredited abiogenic believers. 
       

Now we have kites aiming to displace oil via AWECS; kites displacing oiled kites?  And some of the kites are being made of the processed kites (oil).

JoeF

Joe,

This method is hard for me to envision, but it appears to be one of those methods that is likely going to require significant drag I suspect so it will not allow tacking in all four quadrants as other ideas. I think we should gain a lot more by focusing on the truly aeronautically efficient concepts -- i.e. true lift rather than draggy lift.

Dave S,
 
                Is the front the back or the back the front?
 

---

To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: santos137@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 09:25:50 -0700
Subject: [AWECS] Analysis of Makani's Latest Prototype

 

Take another toke.

---

To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: santos137@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 12:07:30 -0700
Subject: [AWECS] ESD (Electro-Static Discharge) Kite Case

 

Google and ARPA-E have wasted my time by tempting me to "apply" for their largesse, to no avail. It occurred to me that since I was the one flying wind turbines on TV and magazine covers, they should be applying to me, not asking me to apply to them.

Anyway the Google thing evaporated quickly enough: the "visionaries" at Google turned out to be just more cookie-cutter bureaucrats, and ARPA-E was such an instant "hit" with the masses applying that it would have been like winning the lottery to get funded. I wasted just enough time on a "concept paper" to see that it had basically never even gotten read, just thrown on the pile.

Hey I even was invited to an event where I got to hang out for 3 days with with not only Bill Gates, but also the CEO of Google (this past summer), Eric Schmidt. Do you think that helped? Thousands of dollars and a few days wasted hanging around the Ritz Carlton for a meeting of the minds at 7000 feet(?), and the results?
1) Eric Schmidt referred me back to the bureaucrats at Google whop had changed by that time and they said if I knew Eric and Bill gates I should not have any trouble getting funded. Ring around the rosie.

I'm serious about one thing:
These funding agencies will KILL any effort you have: death by paperwork. The time you could spend in the shop building and in the field testing turns into time in front of the computer trying to convince the impenetrably dense and unimaginative that a breakthrough could occur.

At some point one realizes that the time arranging words on paper could be better spent arranging airfoils and generators. And that's the incredible thing: model aircraft, whether for entertainment or for capturing energy from the ambient wind flow, can be undertaken at a small scale to the point that little funding is needed to conduct meaningful research.

If you've got a configuration that works, it's not too expensive to build and fly a scale model.

I say let's call the press-release lies what they are. I've never seen a field with so many scams and lies as wind energy or energy in general. Is a press release a fact? or is it a lie? In so many years, will someone check to see if this press release is true and call the purveyors out on the carpet to explain why they lied? Heck no, they will have an excuse! If anyone even notices that they had lied. They'll probably be too busy listening to the next lie to analyze the last lie.

Take Honeywell for example. They released a typical scam small wind turbine a couple years ago, with all the typical loser aspects of "Professor Crackpot" characteristics, we in wind energy have become so tired of analyzing and debunking: high solidity rotor, claims of meaningful performance at improbably ;wind speeds, building mounting - they could not have made a more typical joke of a turbine, and yet their press releases made it out to be the next big solution. Go take a look at the Honeywell building-mounted turbine today and see it for what it is - another "big lie".

When I saw Honeywell had an entry and a speaker at the AWE conference I had to laugh out loud! These press-release addicts who cannot even match the performance of a SMALL REGULAR wind turbine - the type homebuilders routinely construct from wood, using plans available online, are now gonna fly tethered stealth space-planes with reverse props to produce electricity? Please! How stupid can we be collectively? And ,meanwhile they have no model at any scale, but jusdt re3nderings?!?! What now, Honeywell doesn;t have the budget to make a model airplane? Is there ANY SENSE LEFT IN THIS WORLD?

Is that like someone who cannot even crawl is gonna walk, then run, then win the Olympics, then teach us all to surf!?!?! better learn to crawl first Honeywell.

At some point you have to acknowledge that some people would rather talk forever than ever DO anything. Personally I'd be embarrassed to be spewing so many lies. but that's the nature of bureaucracy: One can lie then disappear back into the bureaucracy, and there's nobody to be held accountable. Best case scenario is there is a new liar appointed with slightly new lies.

So will any of these press releases transition to fact? Who will we hold accountable if they don't? I'd say let's identify exactly WHOM is making whatever statement it is and PUT THEIR NAME ON IT SPECIFICALLY, then HOLD THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE when the time of the predicted product. Sadly though, even then, all you can expect is another excuse.

Just in case anyone in any agency is TRULY interested in advancing this art NOW, I've got several configurations that will work. I'll make them and fly them as fast as I can as one person, at a small scale. But remember, I have a regular wind turbine copany to run too, with customers and orders and breakdowns etc. Yup, that's what I do, wind energy. Progress could be greatly accelerated if others could be brought to become involved.

Doug S.

Hi David,
 
              Thanks for the input, that said the concept is not slow at all, even though everyone thinks it is. By varying the width of the the wings and the number of wings the SpiralAirfoil concept will cover all possible spectrums of air and water.

The other day we had a four footer on the back of a truck going down the road; by 20 mph the wings had turned into a blur; at 30 mph more so. I figure we were doing about 800 rpm.

At this time the SpiralAirfoil is slightly slower than the traditional tri-blades, but the power/torque is approximately 5-6 times greater than the traditional tri-blades. This is a young discipline with a lot of growth and development ahead. It truly deserves a fair shot on the world stage, if the powers that be, will it to happen. Breaking into the club has been the problem. Challenging the status quo is never easy, nor should it be.
 
Dan'l

How do your Spiral Airfoil numbers compare to this Gorlov wind turbine design? 

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: santos137@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:03:00 -0700
Subject: [AWECS] Spiral Airfoil Turbune Advantages & Limits

 

'Quiet Revolution's  technical data page
How does the 'Spiral Airfoil' wind turbine compare to this performance?

---

To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: darin_selby@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:52:28 +0000
Subject: RE: [AWECS] Spiral Airfoil Turbune Advantages & Limits

 

To restate the obvious:
DaVinci explored the spiral rotating angled vane concept 5000 years ago. Check out pix of DaVinci's "helicopter" in the same batch of drawings that show a hand cranked battle-"tank" that wouldn't work as drawn because the drive wheels turned in opposite directions. Da Vinci turned out a lot of unworkable ideas, mixed in with the good ones. Da Vinci "threw spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick".

DaVinci's spiral flying machine never went anywhere.
It had anything to do with a "foil".
That's the point: having no foils, it didn't work.

I think "Spiralfoil" is an oxymoron, meaning a word that defies its own definition - something that makes no sense.
It's a made-up word. Words are just symbols for things. Sometimes.

We can make words do anything on paper, including just making up words that make no sense. It proves nothing except what we already knew: We can make up words that make no sense. A spiral is a spiral and a foil is a foil, and a spiral without a foil is a spiral without a foil, not a "spiralfoil".

If this is too complicated for you, go back to bed.

Nice creative crafting of a confusing word though. Just goes to show how easy it is to confuse people just by the choice of words or by making up new words. I'd say keep trying. Your thrust is in the right direction. Re-apply that admirable amount of energy to making new stuff, rather than re-naming what is already proven unworkable.
Have a day!
:)
Doug S.

Some historians theorize that Da Vinci, lacking a patent system, put deliberate errors in his drawings, such as extra gears that would lock up the motion.  However, his helicopter seems to be clearly based on the wood screw shape, like several of the early water propeller designs.  These suffer mainly from excess surface area, since very little force can be imposed on a fluid medium.  We don't need foil shapes - flat wings fly OK, and sheet metal fans move air, just not as efficiently and consistently as foils.

I think Doug is playing defense
 
"DaVinci explored the spiral rotating angled vane concept 5000 years ago. " how did he do that as he was not born til the 14th century.
 
 by Doug making noise about the SpiralAirfoil shows his weakness.
 

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: doug@selsam.com
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:31:32 +0000
Subject: [AWECS] Re: Spiral Airfoil Turbune Advantages & Limits

 

Hi Dave Santos,
 
           I have found in my testing that the SpiralAirfoil is very good at receiving wind, not so good at producing wind in a controlled direction as a propeller. I did not duct it as in a tube, however there will be a water app. All propellers might be called a spiralairfoil including he  of whom we cannot speak  (The Village). I will refrain, thank you David. 
 
                                                                                                                                             Dan'l

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: santos137@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:25:06 -0700
Subject: Re: [AWECS] Re: Spiral Airfoil Turbune Advantages & Limits

 

Hi,

Just a message to let you know that although this platform is a good way to communicate in (semi) real time, it is extraordinarily bad at collecting this information in an organized manner.

There is no way that I am going to read through 3464 messages with duplicate, false, incomplete, rambling, irrelevant and lengthy content just to find the few nuggets of valuable information.

I suggest starting a wiki.

If desired I can help with the set-up (it's as easy a starting this group was).

Hi Simon,

Hi Bob,

That doesn't strike me as a problem: just list the different opinions in the article under different headings.

Every wiki page has an "Article" and a "Discussion" page, you could either in that "Discussion" page or here discuss about the subject and how to write about it.

Here, we have the different opinions listed under different authors' names.  Perhaps you could extract what you want with a simple search.  I agree that we are doing a lot better at collecting information than at making it easy to access from a progressive introduction.

Dan'l:
Sorry I accidentally hit an extra zero "0" turning 500 years into 5000 years. That was a typo.

Try reading up on rotor solidity. Also check out the history of airfoils & propellers. You will see that the early thrust was toward a spiral, even calling the first propellers "air screws". Over time, the best amount of rotor solidity and the best shape for the blade profile were found, resulting in today's low-solidity wind turbine rotor resembling a slender-bladed "propeller".

The best place to enter this art is right here at the 21st century, not go back thousands of years.

Even DaVinci had no excuse to pursue a spiral since wind turbines with airfoils, using lift, had already been the predominant industrial power source in Europe for 500 years by DaVinci's time.
Doug S.

The spiral air turbine looks nice, yet it has more resistance than the Gorlov-style Turbine blade design, which pulls itself around.  The Spiral Air Turbine can only be pushed around by the air.   

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: doug@selsam.com
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:25:21 +0000
Subject: [AWECS] Re: Spiral Airfoil Turbune Advantages & Limits

 

Doug,
 
          We've heard this all before from you Doug. Don't pay my lil SpiralAirfoil no never mind. If I needed or wanted advice I would ask for it. Leonardo's Helicopter and the SpiralAirfoil are different in many aspects. In Leonardo's time the material list was rather limited. Today the material list is growing, so old concepts that did not work in the past may work in the future, many concepts should and will be reviewed using new materials and techniques. Oh by the way, I did not build the SpiralAirfoil on any of Leonardo's works, but from the Double helix of the DNA, Spiral of a drain and the Spirals Galaxies, seem as if the universe takes a liking to the spiral/helical as we see it over and over from the micro to the macro. Hmmm.
 
                                                                                                                                            Dan'l

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: doug@selsam.com
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:25:21 +0000
Subject: [AWECS] Re: Spiral Airfoil Turbune Advantages & Limits

 

The question isn't whether or not your idea is great, and whether it mimics the Universe, or not.  Does it have these aerodynamic qualities of getting pulled around by the wind, or is it just getting pushed around like a pinwheel?  Is it just a twisted ribbon around a shaft?  If your answer is yes to the pinwheel effect, then perhaps a different aerodynamic contour of your spiral blade is in order?   Keep the corkscrew spiral look, yet improve on the contour 'cross-section' of the blade.  This may help with how fast it can spin, and how stable it is in high winds.

---

To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: spiralairfoil@hotmail.com
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:49:59 -0400
Subject: RE: [AWECS] Re: Spiral Airfoil Turbune Advantages

 

Darin Selby,
 
                  I am not sure if this is addressed to me but I will answer. All options are on  the table.
 
                                                                                                                 Dan'l
 
Ps. Darin, what matters is energy produced per given diameter will tell it all.

---

To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: darin_selby@hotmail.com
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:19:00 +0000
Subject: RE: [AWECS] Re: Spiral Airfoil Turbune Advantages

 

Welcome,  Hwa-seok Lee,
 Topic mentioned by Hwa-seok Lee

Aerofoil kite wind power station
SEE PATENT: http://tinyurl.com/LeeINTERESTED
And see a copy:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitepatents/files/PatentsSome/
AND see link in our files for CN101230840B.pdf

 Aerofoil kite wind power station
 Inventor:
JINLUN HUANG [CN] Applicant:
JINLUN HUANG [CN] EC:
Y02E10/70 IPC:
F03D5/00
F03D9/00 Publication info:
CN101230840 (A)
2008-07-30
CN101230840 (B)
2010-12-29 Priority date:
2007-01-22

Abstract of  CN 101230840  (A)
Translate this text
The invention utilizes a centipede kite structure which is connected in series by a plurality of kite discs extending to be very long and a favorable lift force principle. Aviation pneumatic requirements are then combined with the invention which is provided with a wing kite composed of a wing disc j and an aircraft wing k disclosed in the picture. The wing kite with a plurality of blades is then connected in series into a 3-kilometer-long aircraft wing kite by a kite rope a and a kite three rope ja, and then is flied into 5 to 6-meter-high sky. The upmost end of the kite is connected with the same kite. Moreover, a big conical wind cylinder is tied horizontally to the connection point. A wind outlet at the small end of the wind cylinder is provided with an auxiliary turbo-type windmill generator set.; The generated electricity is transmitted to a station on the ground by cables contained in the kite three rope ja and the kite rope a. A cylinder wing, a flap wing and a tail rudder are arranged on the wind cylinder, so that the wind cylinder can generate electricity by suspending in the high sky horizontally. A wing shaft ka of the aircraft wing is used as a pivot shaft, and an angle of attack of the aircraft wing can be regulated. The flap wing and the tail rudder of the wing cylinder are both automatically controlled by an electronic intelligent neural network. Operation accumulation hours of storm, heavy snow and wind borne sand in the high sky exceed a wind generating station on the ground. The present invention enables a region without wind energy resources to use wind energy electricity in the high sky.   === [End of found abstract] ]

INVITED BY SOMEONE: translation to English of the patent applicaiton text.

Open discussion of claims as we become aware of the claims   : )

JoeF

 

I have a design that could be held aloft, not by a kytoon as drawn, but by a tensairity kite.  This kite invention is simply amazing.  (I am sure that I'm preachin' to the choir.) 

Pressurise air into a lightweight, do-it-yourself mini-air tank to take along on the trip.  This inflates the tensairity kite
The entire idea now becomes very portable.  Only an enclosed 'roof rack' space is needed, on top of an electric vehicle, to bring this wind generator along!

So, imagine the deflated, folded-up tensairity kite,  four flexible, contoured V-blades that can disassemble and lay flat in a roof rack container. 

Six  rings, an electric generator, kite hand winch, & a conductive tether.

With the tensairity kite, and 4 flexible Gorlov-style "V"-blades that snap into rings, this system could be light enough for use in a cross-country electric vehicle trek! 

Dan Parker schrieb:
...
I don't know too much about turbines, but something about propellers. However to
some extent, the same principles apply. The thing to keep in mind is that any
foil is most efficient if it has a high aspect ratio, a high lift to drag ratio,
and is moving about 45 degrees to the true wind. With propllers, 98% efficiency
would be possible with infinately strong materials, in practice it is around
95%. I'm not sure how this relates to turbines (Betz limit), but as we
disscussed in another thread, the concept of efficiency is a different one anyway.

Anyway, that's the theory, and devices built like this do substaniate it. This
is why today's wind turbines look the way they do. What it doesn't say is that
other concepts don't also work well. For example, dolphins work rather like a
high-efficiency propeller, with high aspect ratio fins and tails. However eels
use a quite different principle but also swim well.

So we don't really have to argue if classical or spiral airfoils are better or
not. Why just choose the ones which suit us best, all factors considered, even
imaterial ones like looks.

Theo Schmidt

PS Dan and others: Please don't forget to edit your quotes on this list,
especially snip multiple quotes.

Theo Schmidt wrote:

Sorry, the foil of is of course usually moving at 90 degrees to the true
wind. About 45 degrees is the best angle of incidence for an efficient
foil to the true wind.

Cheers, Theo

Hi Theo Schmidt,
 
            I like what you say here, there is plenty of room in the air waves for many different configs, all should be looked into til defined, once defined fairly, the dust will settle.
 
                                                                                                                                             Dan'l
 

Perhaps we should ration posts about device types, so those with only one proponent are seldom an irritant to the mainstream thinkers?  Or, we might only allow news of new experimental results, presented in a format that allows them to be duplicated.  Perhaps a poll of list members is in order, to ask what should be censored.  Currently, the moderators are only filtering spam and watching for major flame wars, but they could be rejecting a lot more if that would please a clear majority.

Funny thing is I'm involved in 2 wind energy groups online:

1) A forum for working wind energy home systems:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/small-wind-home/
Talk is restricted to working models, no "pet theories" allowed, no "self-promotion" allowed.
This group has gone from being VERY interesting, in years past, when there was no censorship, to being 100% predictable and boring now.

Newbies ask the same questions over and over, while jaded veterans sometimes bother to answer. These jaded veterans now grudgingly maintain their entrenched biases year after year and nothing new emerges, for the most part. It turns into a bitch session whenever the latest scam turbine enters the scene: The latest was Dyocore, that got the California rebate system shut down by claiming more power than the wind contained at their diameter.

It turns into a newbie promoter vs veteran skeptic debate every time. Over the years we've seen most, if not ALL, of the concepts discussed here, dissected and analyzed for ground-based use, rooftop mounting, or tower-based use. Most of the concepts produce so little energy as to be almost unmeasurable, like the spiral concept, which was laughed out of the group for a year, despite insistent protest by its promoter. They used the term "helix" rather than "spiral".
http://www.helixwind.com/en/

Note: in this OTHER group, discussion is pretty much restricted to systems that work, and discussions of the challenges to keep them working.

2) THIS group, which is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. Thanks for this great group, which is open-minded so we can share our thoughts without censorship. BUT, remember, without any sort of requirement that the discussion relate to products that routinely work on a daily basis, or at least imitate those that do, this discussion goes into no-man's land. Anyone can just claim any sort of nonsense and it gets the same billing as reports of systems that make power.

I'm super-thankful for this group, but we have to also realize that the openness also allows complete nonsense to enter the room in a big way.
It's funny that there is really no effective product available in the AWE field that one can buy and run, so there's no "baseline" to weigh concepts against. But one can weigh against working wind turbines, as we do still purport to improve the art of wind energy, of which AWE is a subset.

Be aware that many (most?) concepts discussed here are very old and they never went anywhere. I've got stacks of old patents for spirals, for example, and the best I could discern from them was that they tend to untwist into a flat sheet. Rather than making power, if one actually constructs a lightweight version and runs it, the first thing they see is it naturally de-twists. The solution seems to be adding extra guy wires to get it to hold its shape, by the end of their patents.

Other than that, the concept is known as an "Archimedean Screw" and was known before Christ for pumping water uphill in an enclosed channel for irrigation. Working Horizontal-axis wind turbines using less solidity than a solid spiral were already in use all around Archimedes, in the Greek Islands, since this was the Greek period of wind energy and Archimedes was in Greece. Good to take a look at old ideas but remaining fixed on them is not productive. The spiral was not an improvement 2200 years ago and remains so today.

The funny thing about these groups: Certain people tend to champion a specific cause, or "pet theory" forever, whereas other crackpots CHANGE their pet theory every few years, as both the debunkers and the crackpots themselves become weary of repeating the same tired arguments over each others' heads after a few years. Usually the crackpots never actually address the arguments the debunkers make, or their arguments make no sense. The jaded veteran debunkers by the same token are not very open-minded if a solution DOES emerge. Actualy some of the most opinionated veteran debunklers took over the forum a few years ago and basically won't let anyone disagree with them.

The main guy in charge is actually AGAINST wind energy, preferring solar, AND has a built-in conflict of interest since he's an editor at Home Power magazine. His ban on "self-promotion" is designed to steer paid advertising toward his magazine. He lives in the forest and constantly insists that towers need to be over 100 feet to get above the trees, even while many list participants live in the desert with no trees or on the water, or on a hill etc.

Very interesting to transition between one group with ONLY working turbines and NO pet theories to the other with NO working products on the market and ALL pet theories.
Have a BEAUTIFUL day!
:)
Doug S.
http://www.selsam.com

The intelligent reader is capable of sorting rant from reality. It is typically obvious when someone is self promoting and thin on data. But after all, what is a burrito without some good hot peppers?

We can vent all we want. In the end, the market will decide, as DaveS has often pointed out.

As a new group member, I have enjoyed the strutting and pontificating along with the plain-old engineering talk. It gives me a feel for the characters at play.

DavidC