I'm sorry but I can't reconcile statements of urgency, emergency, etc., with the pile of excuses for a lack of action.
If the world is about to end because of "global warming" and "peak oil" then bureaucratic quagmire has no place. If these "emergencies" are not real, then so be it - there is no urgency and these agencies should be abolished. Pick a lane - emergency or not??? I don't think the evidence shows that "they" are serious about any of this, from the global warming, to developing airborne wind energy - none of it. They just want a steady job that can keep their kid in (overpriced) college for another year.

Rather than figuring out who has solutions and helping to develop and implement them, instead a complex gauntlet of qualifying actions and an inordinate amount of paperwork is constructed. One could spend days of otherwise productive time just jumping through the preliminary hoops that allow one to waste more time trying to convince phalanxes of bureaucrats of the simplest concept.

I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater since I did get a grant from the CEC that helped development in some ways, but overall, it's easier to just build them when one has the time than to get mired in bureaucracy.

The problem as I see it is these bureaucrats are attracted to what they are used to - mounds of paperwork and tons of excuses for a lack of progress. They need things to take up enough pages that nobody will ever be willing to wade through it and flag all the inconsistencies, so they keep looking good becuase nobody has the time to dissect the results.

It's difficult to bridge the gap with innovators who just want to cut through the clutter and say "let's try this" or "let's build one of these". Just filing the patents is exhausting, then you are told instead of building things and testing them, the answer is unlimited paperwork, and an avoidance of ever building anything.

The amount of funding wasted just to analyze the ideas presented could have had units in the air producing energy.
If 10 people with able hands and some limited funding showed up here at my 20-car garage, powered by a 10 kW wind turbine, we could have 10 different working AWE concepts in the air and flying with power generated and data recorded inside of a month or two.

Hey all I'm saying is look at the facts - look at the pronouncements, then a couple years later, look at the results. Like Joe Friday used to say "just the facts Ma'm". Anyone who wants to build and fly stuff, come on over!
:)

-

http://arpa-e.energy.gov/About/Team/MattDunne.aspx 

Dear Matt,Dear DaveS,Dear Mark,

As French citizen am amazed at Dave Santos's numerous criticisms towards the ARPA-E and towards Makani;I do not share them.Indeed AWE is an emergent industry,so that a governmental agency made the promotion of AWE through a company is a positive point (few agencies do it in the world).

But it is only a beginning.By creating EnergyKiteSystems Joe Faust made and pursues a huge work for building the single place for datas in AWE.AWEIA is the association of industrial actors like start-ups,individual players, projects,teams from universities.AWE Forum is... THE forum on AWE.These three entities work so that AWE became an industrial reality.And a first point is an exhaustive search about all possible main conversion schemes (soft and rigid flygen,reel-out/in,lever,etc.) and variants.

Nor a good application of AWE depends not only of the AWECS itself but also of its environment (policies of aerial rules,choice of the places of implementation...).So a small technological variant can involve in great modifications of the expected results according to the environment.

ARPA-E could also examine (with funding) other (US) schemes like for example autogyro-like versus reel/out/in like Skymill or versus FEG like SkyWind Power.

But ARPA-E could also examines a possibility to etablish bridges between other governmental agencies and players:"By Dr. Arun Majumdar In summary, let us take the lead from the President to out-innovate, out-build and out-educate the rest of the world. That is the best course of action for our nation to create a secure future for our children." Thanks to Roderick for the citation.

It would be an interesting reverse of situation governement agencies work as a sort of gobal rating agency (like Standard & poors) through complete AWE reports with a description of all schemes and their respective utility according to the environment and the applications,that towards a massive promotion of AWE with little cost (main investments for the realization from privates,reports from governmental agencies).

Economical schemes could be also studied like for example:"An economic plan allows to by-pass the difficult problem of the storage of the occasional energies:the indexation of the price of the electricity according to the weather forecasts:so people can plan to use their washing machine in the reduced rate."

King regards,

Pierre Benhaïem
http://flygenkite.com

 

Filling Like a soft ram air kite each layer of fin's added around the ring will not need tethering.

When I first considered my website as a source of open knowledge, An initial consideration was hosting a fourm.

And that's how I started it. Until I discovered the value of the concentrated membership of this populous and open forum.

This forum hosts diverse, open topics which are professional, technical and humanely administered.

I have seen my posts rejected in the past ... and rightly so ...
To be honest they were my usual overly simplified twoddle.

All the technical info already exists in this forum to build world class AWE devices.

This forum is not a single point of contact for a group. It is a billboard to all AWE interested parties. In my opinion any body who seriously wants to research the absolute best AWE is foolish to ignore using this forum.

The boat will sail

I second that motion; This is merely a forum, not an organization where we've voted on anything or where Dave S., for example, specifically speaks for any of us. Nobody here is directly representing me.

It's funny, but many AWE inventors who contact me have never HEARD of this forum. The last one sent me a history of the development of a certain type of flying machine, going back a century or so.
This certain type of flying machine already IS a wind turbine, though the semi-crackpot who sent me the paper maintains that it cannot work that way. I digress.

The point is, in reading this paper, one cannot help but note the extreme difference between what went on then, and what goes on now.
Then, serious researchers did serious math and built model after model, carefully analyzing every failure, every conceivable vibration mode, oscillation mode, methods of control, etc.

If they had had anywhere NEAR the kind of budgets that today are considered to small for anything but more paperwork, they could have done more - look at the Wrights.
These people built and built and built model after model, many of which really worked, and many of which crashed.

I do not see ANY activity of this sort taking place nowadays. It's as though progress and the internet have dumbed us down.
Why? Well back then if you wanted to fly, there were few options. Aviation was a backyard endeavor in many cases. Airlines were few and tickets were rare. It was a new and exciting field. There was no "harmless" internet outlet for the ideas of those excited about flight. Instead, people had to roll up their sleeves and get serious about building things that worked - or sometimes almost worked.

I can think of so many obvious ways to do wind energy, starting with using literally off-the-shelf components to create a working system within perhaps a day or two of receiving those off-the-shelf parts.
That lets me know that there are no serious players in this field, really, not like they were serious about aviation. One could have a nice working AWE system up and running for a few thousand dollars within a week.
:)
Doug S.

Sure Paolo, post the video!
Sorry to take so long to respond - just remembered.
:)
Doug S.

First system has just been tested ...

woooo hooo

total success

video to follow party party

Hey anyone remember Whacky Races cartoon on Saturday Mornings?
Penelope Pitstop? Dick Dastardly and his dog Muttley? (snicker snicker snicker) Professor Pat Pending?
OK how 'bout those whacked-out machines in the Dr. Suess Books?
How 'bout Rube Goldberg machines?
Well, anyway, Whacky Races was a great show.
Remember the song?
"Stop the Pigeon, Stop the Pigeon..."
???
Such was our training for AWE...
and in this tradition, we carry on
"Stop the Pigeon!"
:)
Doug S.

Article HERE .   Scientific American site: 

Don't be ridiculous Doug

stop the pigeon was a whole other cartoon

My kids love whacky races , You totally called it there.

A few thousand dollars Doug? what

Yeah there are a few vibration modes to look into...

But I think when I publish the shape of repeatable, printable, stringable wing to wrap around the next doughnut ...

It's probably going to come in under £100
stick it to a cranking, thrust bearing mounted wheel rim (bits of a motorbike back wheel) lift the fronts of many kites up in a line with a massive sled set and backs with a more draggy chute sled...band them all together... your laughing

it only has to be cranking on the bottom and the top sets can be strung onto front lines mounted spinning hubs(smaller hubs for higher faster rpm)

freekin A broo

http://youtu.be/tZHn9_qiluE

What a fun day out it has been.

http://youtu.be/tZHn9_qiluE

 

Thank you all for the kind words.

Yes I have a plan for the front cone section of tethers to be tie into a cranking wheel on the bottom kite.

For kites flown above this one...
the front cone would be replaced by a tall cupping pulley wheel mounted on a thrust bearing plate ring against lifter kite lines.

Bigger pulleys for lower kites as rpm is lower.

But the exciting thing is the new wing shape to make the thing in yesterdays picture... it's one fold and two tabs... fold stick repeat fold stick repeat.

Bless it really was fun

Get some sleep Dave,
before you read the rest of this post.

"fair-play" Right it's Rip into Dave S' time. (Morning and sorry big DS it's just so fashionable right now)

Come on DS Americans aren't all rubbish. tight fisted bankers. yes the dream is a bit skewed to money but We "the group" can all help you get over it.

Trust your Tech DS. Google didn't write the internet, they developed a key search algorithm early on. You have done the same with kites.

Geeks are the new social elites you talk of chin up.

"work harder than the lucky kite surfers." have you tried kite surfing? It's bloody hard work. (have you flown a 12m lei kite surfer whilst riding a unicycle (no crap) I have)

"Unfair Trade" oh come on., the best trade we have is in communication not dollars. Here's the fair bits ... sharing what you have built after learning from others and comeuppance on being found out.

"Any AWE company in the world that did not have a protectionist government that only serves its national interest would be hard-pressed to compete with the government favored companies." consider the Telecom infrastructure case. Everyone in the UK is turning against BT and it's many faces. Many small scale companies are starting to thrive.

Your own good hippie values should tell you to tread easy on others who have commented in this thread.

If google and the US govt can improve the world by using my kite designs responsibly, that'd be a nice dream come true.

Rod, thanks for the video. Great to be able to see clearly what is going
on for a change.

Our Visventis project is at a similar stage ie. near to doing a
no-generator demonstration of flight. Who will get their generator
powered up first?

Following the links that Youtube puts up to tempt us to stay online the
whole day I came across this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_iztlez6-g&feature=related

No graphics so you may have to go to http://verticalpowersystems.com/ to
fully understand what he is talking about.

Essertier knows what he is talking about. I considered building a
prototype like the one he describes when I was first studying wind
energy in 2008 but I already knew that kites hold greater potential.
However, his system for controlling the angles of the blades is exactly
what I have been trying to tell you guys is the way to go with kite
control. Listen to what he has to say.
High complexity need not be expensive.
Accurate millisecond control yields huge power advantages and cost
savings.
By having complete control on the forces on his blades he can make them,
and their supporting structures, much lighter which allows him to make
his cost claims.

It took him 5 years but by going open source commercial AWE models could
be available much quicker.

Robert.

So, would a 1000 m bead of kite-lifted micro-controlled-pitch VAWT units be a unit of a huge mega-wall AWECS win over Wayne German's 1000 m Vertical Blinds?

Hi Doug

great ... i'll do it as soon as possible

any news W.Y. guys?
PM

Joe,

Your talk of "kite-lifting" concerns me. Generators are heavy so trying
to lift them into the air gets expensive and the requirement for wind
energy devices is to be cheap. Lifting enough generating power to handle
flight control is OK, but most of the generating needs to be done on the
ground.

Robert.

Thanks Dave,

I should have pointed out that there are 3 videos in the series. His
talk about the low cost of computer control comes in the second video (I
think:- maybe 3rd). He has invested the time in doing the complex stuff
so it can now be reproduced at low cost. He talks about using cheap air
pressure sensors made for the car industry to work out exactly what the
wind is doing. Maybe that bit of tech can be directly imported into AWE
applications.

The German model aircraft builders chasing speed records have build
wings with L/D could be built like that it produces some unwanted side effects like
noise. In a light breeze of just 4m/s a kite with L/D of 100 could
achieve speeds approaching 400m/s. Sonic boom at about 330m/s depending
on temperature. Large land-based wind turbines keep their tip speeds
below about 80 m/s to keep noise down. That means the optimum L/D for an
AWE kite is in the range of 10 to 20. This could be achieved using
tensairity which also improves the safety factors you have talked about.

Robert.

Robert:
I do need to laugh a little here. I'm suddenly reminded of the regular yahoo wind energy groups. We've had 10 years of people coming in with a structure that could barely rotate, announcing the end of the energy crisis and their conquest of the world... er um that is, well, as soon as they get that pesky generator hooked up...
Nothing more common. In that larger context, we've seen people touting roof ventilators as the answer to the energy crisis, selling territories and making millions before ending up in legal hot water.
Anyway, please know, when you talk about needing to connect a generator, it IS humorous in some ways. Next you get to "gosh I thought this generator would make more voltage!" or "how come it doesn't turn?". Yes turning a generator IS the main idea, as far as we know now.

As far as vertical power, the straight-bladed Darrieus machine is old old old old news, and many many companies have gone out of business pursuing the vertical axis dream. What is it some woman who was a mayor? Sounds about right. Let me know when she's a millionaire. I can tell you, people who don;t develop wind turbines have no idea what challenges face machines like this when the wind gets strong, for reasons I've never seen discussed here and of which I do not think anyone here is aware. Some things you have to do to understand. Windspire is one you can buy off-the-shelf.
:)
Doug S.

Hey Dave S.:
I didn't say I was going to have a machine in the air in a week.
That would be misquoting me.
I said ANYONE could order off-the-shelf components, and put them together to have a perfectly good working AWE system, anytime they wanted. It might take a week to assemble the pre-existing components. THAT is why I say there are no truly serious players. I look at this in the larger context of innovation in wind energy.
If you are the one who told me about this forum, thanks! :)
I've been in a few other yahoo wind energy forums for many years.
:)
Doug S.

-

See this is what I mean. There are a million viable ways to do AWE, with most everybody talk-talk-talking and almost nobody trying anything. NASA etc. couldn't have done that with 100 g's?
Roderick you are the type of person who is willing to actually make things, try things. Congrats 2 U!
:)
Doug S.

Hey Dave S.
Yes, you're right, I had a fit when I saw the AFresh website from Vertical Power Systems. Deja vu vu vu. I should say first I DO think it has an interesting idea of controlling pitch in real time. Fine fine fine, many utility-scale turbines adjust pitch on the fly these days. Nobody has bothered to do it with a vertical-axis machine just like nobody is applying anti-lock brakes and airbags to wheelbarrows.

Here are the typical funny parts:

1) renderings only - this is a few steps back from those who build machines without generators - in this case they build a machine without a machine, and can of course assign any fantasy attributes they wish to the rendering.

2) 10 kW is at least 3 times (3x) what a machine of this size could be rated at for any reasonable wind resource (this message is powered by a 10 kW machine 22 feet in diameter).
That assumes performance as good as a horizontal axis machine, which would be unprecedented.

3) They talk about 70 m/s winds = 157 mph. Nobody with any experience in wind energy would talk such foolishness. Such a machine would be napolean blown apart long before winds ever got to this category of hurricane/tornado.

4) Nice website - of course they have the "investors" tab. That should have a red flashing "danger" sign next to it.
:)
Doug S.

Offer: It is too early to set a general L/D "

hey Joe and Group.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57327382-264/breakthrough-material-is-barely-more-than-air/

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

Request.

Anyone up for winning one million portraits of the queen on wallet size paper?