(thanks to  Alexander Muzhichkov  of awenergy.ru  for tip on URL for the following news on a concept by Dutch group:

Some tugging of big items in 2001 might be part of the mindset of Bogey Venio

Name-spelling correction:  Correct is Venlo  as in the first post. 

Clarification:   

http://www.eurospiraal.com/concept.php

I think making an aircraft unmanned, tethered and remote greatly decreases the risk to life and property. Low risk should be the same as low complexity from a regulatory point of view. I did notice that they were now considering weight and speed as not being enough to judge the danger an aircraft posed. Perhaps we should add operating height as an important variable in our own risk assessments.

Brian

The world is powered by wind turbines that mostly also make their own wind.

A typical car is powered by:
air pressure pushing against metal disc-shaped surfaces
that air pressure is created by internal artificially-created weather - a mini-heat-wave, causing a localized high pressure zone, that generates wind, that pushes the pistons, that move the car down the road, (with the main task being pushing still more air out of the way of the car body...)

Believe it or not, some people have promoted a "wall of pistons" concept in wind energy. Sounds farfetched I know, but remove the wall itself, use kites as pistons, and strings as piston rods, and you have heard this same concept promoted here within the last week. (That's why, I sometimes say, many concepts discussed here repeat previous known losing concepts in wind energy, now taken into the imaginary sky. But I digress...)

Your blow dryer is an inverse wind turbine that also generates its own internal weather, a warm front, using power from the wall.

That wall-outlet-power was generated by a turbine that used internal artificial weather to create a warm front that generated a high pressure zone, that then created wind that powered what is really a sort of wind turbine, that we call a gas turbine.

Or maybe it was a steam-turbine powered by an internally-generated typhoon!

Airplanees? Well what is an airplane propeller but an inverse wind turbine? And whether piston-powered or jet-powered, it's some version of a moving-air (wind)powered motor that turns that propeller. Creating moving air, to create movement through air.

Hard to get around the fact that, even if we have to create the weather events in special enclosures, most everything is, at its root, powered by some sort of (what could be called) wind turbine!
:)
Doug Selsam

http://www.treehugger.com/wind-technology/wind-turbine-makes-clean-water-desert.html
http://www.eolewater.com/gb/our-products/range.html

This is rather impractical at the moment with a 30 kw sized wind turbine producing only a cubic meter of water per day but with time it may get interesting. With kites it might get interesting faster.

Brian

I'm not sure the author of that article understood the process.  Where does the steam come from?   People have had success in collecting water in deserts from nets to help dew condense in the morning,  or by pumping air through pipes buried to take advantage of lower sub-surface temperatures, without using compressors at all.  A kite might be able to condense dew rather better than a land-mounted mesh by using motion to affect condensation rates.

If this was facebook / google I'd, Love or +1 that post.
All these forums are definitely powered by a lot of hot air.

We have made contact with Dr. Sjef Beaujean. He has given us a link to a direct site: 

Interesting concept which has been discussed for years.
Nice to see someone actually doing it - or are they?
Is this a working product, or a hopeful rendering?
Do they have any happy customer examples?
I'd like to see how it works here, in the actual desert, at 15% humidity!
My other points of concern would be the passive pitch-controlled hub, which would require lubrication.
There is no known wind turbine in this size range that can run for more than a year or two without maintenance.
There are very few wind turbines in this size range that are reliable at all - most will turn out to be an expensive hobby. The manufacturers go out of business faster than they appear and if you need parts you'll need to make your own or call a machine chop.
Note: The lack of installed working examples, lack of customer testimonials - have they even built one yet?
Since a few years back when the quality of renderings reached near photorealism, one must remember that many such documents refer to a hypothetical product as though it were already on the market in large numbers with known performance and a happy customer base.
Likely, if such a product could even be obtained, it would turn out to be a prototype and you would turn out to be a beta tester.
I've mused on a number of ways to get water out of the air. I'd call this the "brute force" method.

During the "public consultation" period regarding the Beaujean system developments, a collection of notes will be accumulated at

http://www.energykitesystems.net/WaterCollectionFromSky/index.html 

Which will win for ship propulsion?

If you had two belt and pulley systems sending power to the ground, and you wanted to go with torque instead, you might start by adding 50% to the length of the tension side, and getting rid of the slack side of the belt, so that the two working members can spiral around each other.  Then you need to add struts to keep them separate, and that's the killer.  The problem of gearing to make good use of the material is there in most cases as well.

Bob, I was only suggesting running connection carriages around on a cableway near the surface. I would want the whole tower rotating above.

Ha ha - another "new" idea...
:)

Glad someone is waking up to the possibilities. The floating, tilting, offshore turbine concept was originally my idea. They show a single level of what could be a multi-level Superturbine(R), as delineated in US Pat. 6616402.
:)Doug Selsam
http://www.selsam.com

I see floating tilting generators in US6616402... but not as a group, and not raising and lowering above the water.

We have talked about US6616402 before and It wouldn't be a barrier to independent development of the system I suggested.

At any appropriate juncture, we have Doug's invite to form agreements with him for collaborative progress. 

Thanks Dan,

Roderick:
I did not mention any barriers, just that the entire concept of a floating, tilting, offshore wind turbine was originally my idea. I introduced it. Whay should anyone care, right? Hey what's one more basic concept I've introduced and get little to no credit for? First, my renderings were making the rounds on the web, showing a floating, tilting offshore turbine that used a spar buoy. In response Norsk Hydro and now Siemens, I believe, are working on a regular old turbine mounted on just such a spar buoy. Nobody ever cites me on it, but I really think I was the first with that floating spar buoy idea. Beyond that, you have to combine a couple embodiments delineated in US 6616402, to get to a floating, tilting, flying wind turbine.
:)
Doug

could the London eye be retrofitted with kites for generation?

Good question. Not sure how it lies relative to prevailing winds. Probably doesn't take much energy to drive it. Would be neat to put sails on the wires and let it drive itself. Of course if you put in on a swivel base it could reorient itself  and even adjust speed by orientation. I imagine there'd be a fair amount of engineering involved but a neat concept. Too bad they didn't think of it when designing it.

OK, this isn't quite what I said I'd draw,,,

slight update...

 

What program do you use for your drawings and animations. I have tried to use Sketchup but it does not draw strings well.

Brian

An old copy of rhinoceros 2.0.
I had it on my computer from teaching technology.
I did some of my drawings in a newer version 4.0. It was only a trial and now I cant even open them. Oops.
I used to use inventor in another school and I quite liked it I might change back to that soon. Not sure
it's quite a large purchase though.

Harry:
Yes I'd say first power one home. That's a realistic test. That's how it's done. - Doug S.
(writing from a rural, wind-powered location)...
--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, harry valentine <harrycv@...

Perhaps you guys discussed this as it happened before I was on the list, but I found the report interesting. A Cessna 182 hit the tether to the aerostat in the florida keys.

A short article.
http://www.aopa.org/asf/epilot_acc/mia07fa083.html
The sectional.
http://skyvector.com/?ll=24.639520568195653,-81.52018272128133&chart=37&zoom=2
The NTSB report
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20070425X00453&ntsbno=MIA07FA083&akey=1

Cruise speed is 167 MPH on the 182. It would have covered the distance from the edge of the restricted airspace to the tether in 43 seconds. The only system that I can imagine that would have avoided this is an automated avoidance system hooked up to the radar system. That can calculate the position of it's tether and the maneuver that it needs to make to avoid a collision. I think NextGen would have handled the situation well. I should go study NextGen.

I also think we should look into making the tethers glow. There are various electroluminescent devices that can do this. If an aircraft is on a collusion course turn on all the lights. They would need to be off normally to keep from annoying the neighbors.

Another interesting side note. A friend told me of the balloon being on the sectional and mentioned that it had caused 2 or 3 accidents. There has only been one. Public perception magnifies accident reports.

Brian

Geez 12 people killed by kites in Pakistan? Throats cut by kite strings? God forbid they get ahold of a Frisbee! Maybe that's why - hey wait - they already have nukes! And they can't even handle kites without killing many people. I gotta say, that is a lot of people getting killed before anyone decided to take any action. I did not realize they were that into fighting kites anywhere. Why was this not national news?

In our quest for glory, maybe one of us will win a Darwin award, as well as inventor of the year.

More extensive drawings including wind deflector and arrays: 

see;

http://profeng.com/cover-story/sustainability-by-numbers/page:1

In March I tried to convince David that Makani was
not the most promising wind energy proposal publicised so far, with
several other systems showing far more promise, if they could only
get funding. I wonder if the PE interview was before or after our
discussion. Publicity received seems to be proportional to funding
received irrespective of the true technical merits of the program.

The sad thing is that often people seem to start believing their own
hype. Take Magenn. David Antony was the VC who did a certain amount of
the work connecting that company with its funders. I hear he committed
suicide last month. Sad!

The chances of the better AWE proposals getting funding are not lost.
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_049/pn12_049.aspx
The advantages of AWE over conventional turbines are greatly magnified
when we move the generators offshore so I remain optimistic.

Robert.

Groundgen with loop.

Robert,

Tomorrow will be a worldwide day dedicated climate problems.
I think, AWE technologies try to reduce climate pollution, so it means, we are involved in action 350.org and may official join to action.
There are so many actions planed for tomorrow, unfortuantly just few of them are in Russia (somewhere in Siberia).
May be we make also some event to declare our wish the world to improve. It can be also a possibility to advertise AWE in general and particulary AWEIA. Report can be puted also on site http://350.org/