I've noticed a lot of would-be wannabe wind energy inventors seem to promote the same old tired ideas over and over, congratulating themselves before the fact, and usually pinning the badge of Wright Brothers or Einstein on their chest if questioned for details.

I'd just like to point out that most of these are just slightly new ways of saying the same things as others before. A homonym is 2 words that sound the same. So I'm going to take the liberty to label wind energy ideas that sound the same as disproven ones we've heard before as attacking wind energy by "adding" a "homonym" (sounds the same). This, I propose. is an "Add Homonym Attack" on wind energy practitioners, and on common sense. Whatever you do, don't add another homonym.
:)
Doug S.

Joe:
That was a lot of words.
Seems like ONE word would have sufficed:
"no"
As in "No we have no indication this is a good idea - nothing whatsoever."
Oh and "No we have no information on liquified air as energy storage".
That's what I thought. Just making sure.
Thanks for clarifying.
:)
Doug S.

Instead of processing air to liquid air (LA) aloft which may have its niche uses, 

ρcF=const; ρcπ(d/2)²=const; cd²=const
c1/c2=(2/0,3)²=44,4
Of cause, flow separation must decrease this quantity, but practice will show real one

Isaac Ferris of state of Ohio  (click through for full patent of 1871)  US 117270

And why would you want to do that?
What happened to generating electricity?
Have you lost your focus?

Gabor:
Let me just tell you, if you want to develop wind energy solutions you have to stay focused. If you want to develop a liquid air energy solution, that is a different topic. You have not answered the question of what work has been done in compressed air as energy storage (if any) and why liquified air is not currently used for energy storage, and then why you would find it advantageous even though nobody else has. Don't you realize there are already experts in that field? You have to take into account what is known. This is not uncharted territory where you get to just make up hypothetical scenarios out of thin air (pun intended) without backing up your statement with a single fact from the known world.

The most common thing would-be, wannabe, wind energy inventors do is to throw a second unproven idea in with their first unproven idea, as though to provide so much doubt and confusion to make a solid excuse to never develop it.
If you are serious, get a radio controlled glider and use batteries. Forget the liquified air for now. That's like the maglev bearings for 100% solidity vertical-axis machines - a solution in search of a problem that won't save a losing design - just a distraction from realizing the entire concept has no merit. See if your basic concept is even viable before ruining your otherwise interesting idea with a second questionable concept.

I actually like your idea with the gliders in-and-out of the jet stream. I'd love to see it work! I ask the pertinent questions not to say "no", but to say "yes". The "yes" part means "Let's hear some more details indicating that we should take this to the next step."

This is the point where the person promoting the idea can either rise to the occasion and take it to the next positive step of providing more details or lines of reasoning indicating it could work and pencil out in some way, or they become hostile and start attacking the person asking the appropriate questions.

Alternatively, rather than continuing the technical discussion one started, someone similarly confused can start making issues of even word definitions such as "promoting" - nice one Joe F. - any excuse to change the subject and attack the wind energy veteran asking the proper questions - anything to remain in a world of fantasy complete with spotted mushrooms where, instead of actually solving the problem, people can imagine themselves living in a mile-high kite-supported mushroom-festooned village with Dave S. at the helm - then the wind goes calm and you fall from the sky and hopefully wake up before you hit the ground...
:)
I say we stick to the topic and solve the challenge!
Let Dr. Seuss be Dr. Seuss. Let Rube Goldberg handle the ridiculously complicated cartoon ideas that merely "don't violate the laws of physics".
:)
Doug S.

Dear Professor Crackpot:
Let me repeat the question:
Can you point us to previous work indicating the maximum speed increase for wind concentrated by such a funnel? What is the highest multiple of wind speed yet achieved?
This is NOT new territory.
NOT a new idea.
Much work has been done.
What specifically is the highest increase in wind speed using a concentrator? With and without a turbine at the throat?
Wait - let me guess - you have no idea, have done no research on the topic, and want to pretend it is a new topic and make up whatever numbers you want, as though it is all "theoretical" and "open to opinion" right? Congratulations, and I think you should clean off your glasses and adjust your polka-dotted bowtie.
:)
Doug S.

Dear Doug S.

--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, "Doug" wrote:

Gabor,

Dear Dave L.
You've hit the nail on the head.
Storing energy as liquified air is a topic unto itself.
This forum, by being loose in any requirements for factuality, backup rationale, or really any rigorousness whatsoever, represents, on the one hand, a valuable venue for new ideas, but on the other hand, a black hole where logic is sucked away, and anyone can post any notion that pops into their head without any regard for whether it makes any sense.

This thrust to discuss liquified air as energy storage is a perfect example: This forum seems unable to even address any actual work or known facts regarding energy storage by liquified air. The only stated rationale for citing it in the first place (There is air so why not use it to store energy?) could be equally applied to ANY situation, such as a Tesla car (operates in air), UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies), laptop computers, forklifts, flashlights, power plants, existing windfarms and solar plants, existing air transport etc.

The fact that compressed air has seen SOME use, without liquifying it, for forklifts, s few attempts at cars, etc. shows there has been work done in the field, which could be tapped for facts in lieu of anyone being willing or able to analyze it on first principles.

Why does liquified air not power today's airplanes for instance? Is there a reason?

Virtually ANY idea for ANYTHING that harvests or uses energy COULD have the idea for liquid air energy storage attached, so, like most of what you read here it is pretty-much meaningless drivel. What would be more appropriate would be to cite known capabilities of liquid air as energy storage, compare it to merely compressing air, compare THAT to batteries, and say why any one method should therefore be used. Then such a proposal might actually make sense, if the previous work on liquified air as energy storage shows promising numbers, or even numbers that make any sense whatsoever.

Similarly, NASA and the rest of the kite-pullers should show that, given a 100% free pulling force of any stated magnitude, they could economically generate electricity by in-and-out reeling, before even implying that they could do so with the added cost, complexity, and intermittency of using kites as the pulling force.

In other words, to avoid being just another "Professor Crackpot", if your idea combines multiple unknowns, each should be scrutinized and vetted individually before combining them. It is important to actually make sense, a forgotten art these days, at least in some circles.
:)
Doug S.

Joe:
This refers to a closed system. Open flows go mostly AROUND any obstruction.
One more example of nobody here being qualified to even comment on wind energy systems, let alone improve them. Typical newbie drivel.
:)
Doug S.

Meaningless drivel Joe:
Anyone serious about kites as sails would start with existing sailboats. Targeting motorized ships shows an immediate departure from reality. With a huge existing sailing industry, why target non-sailing craft for an improved sail? Hello? I guess existing sails are better than kites, right? No improvement possible there? And diesel fuel long ago surpassed existing sails right? So if diesel surpassed existing sail technology 100 years ago, and kites are not better than existing sails, why would kites be better than diesel? It makes no sense. Again. Like most everything we read here. I think my dog is smarter than that.

Liquified air for energy storage either IS or IS NOT promising, with no specific relation to airborne wind energy whatsoever. Endless talk about every topic BESIDES AWE does not get us there. Your arrows splinter and deviate from an effective trajectory way too far from the target to ever hit the target, let alone score a bullseye.

Maybe you've never heard the saying:
"An open mind is good, as long as it's not open so far that everything falls out."

:)
Doug S.

Use that calculator for closed systems, say when confining the overpressure of LA boiling off to gaseous state in a process of driving a turbine at the neck. Get a different calculator for open flows for venturi that are ducted. Do you have a link for a calculator for open flows?

--- In AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com, "Doug" wrote:

http://www.liquidair.org.uk/ 

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/C0605091/present/BELL1.PDF

Wow Pierre your conclusion is correct - the air speed is slowed by the whole device before being accelerated through the throat - but the way you get there is not. As you start your first sentence, you depart from reality immediately, describing a closed flow through a venturi, rather than an open flow through a concentrator. The open flow simply goes AROUND the whole device as the aperture diameter is decreased.
1) A venturi in an open flow mostly discourages air from going through it and instead encourages the air to simply go around the whole device.
2) As a result, you cannot expect a hole of a millionth of the area of the whole concentrator to have air accelerated by a million times. There is some upper limit to how much faster the air can be accelerated by a funnel in an open flow.
3) It would be up to the person promoting, putting forth, suggesting, exploring, hypothesizing, introducing (etc.) the idea, to cite previous work showing the limits of how concentrators actually work, rather than merely making up their own numbers pulled from thin air, or pulled from where the sun doesn't shine.
4) Air flowing of 2 times the speed does NOT have 2 times the kinetic energy. That shows 100% zero knowledge of fluid mechanics or mechanics in general. Air at 2 times the speed has 4 times the kinetic energy, and, because the flowrate is also doubled, 8 times the power. This is well-known, like learning your ABC's, in the field of wind energy. Suggested remedy: learn the basics of wind energy before introducing your theories.
:)
Doug S.

Hey Joe:
Remember one of Professor Crackpot's reliable and repeatable symptoms is to insist that prototypes be built too big.

Examples are
a) The Spruce goose
b) Putnam's Wind Turbine in Grandpa's Knob in Vermont
c) The early Great Pyramids that required their angle to be lessened halfway through construction
d) Large vertical-axis utility-scale turbines that all failed without a successful small vertical-axis turbine to pave the way...

If I try to Google-news ships powered by kites, it seems all I pull up are press-releases from 2008. My impression is that the initial enthusiasm has waned, probably as the ship's owners and crews decided "This has been amusing, but now we have a schedule to adhere to, and a budget to work within - thanks but no thanks".

Can you fill us in on the latest developments in pulling ships with kites? The idea has always been attractive to me. I'd like to see it take over. How close are we now, as opposed to 2008? What exciting new developments should we know about?

If I were serious about developing kites as sails, I would start with smaller craft first. Let's just be logical - wind surfing has been outdone by kite-surfing right? That's the smallest scale. So, taking baby-steps, one might next try to replace the sails on small sailboats, or make one for relatively small motorboats before "improving" cargo ships.

If one is confident that kites can replace sails in a broader market, why go so big that progress becomes constrained by that very size? What's the problem with starting with an actual existing market of people already willing to furl and unfurl large cloth sails etc. - people already INTERESTED in wind power for boats? The sailing community - seems like they might appreciate a better sail. And that is what you;re ssaying, right? Improved sails? What about identifying some unlimited classes of sailboat racing where one could show unequivocal superiority at a reasonable scale, with the funding and interest already there for higher performance?

The difference is, one course would have you making progress, actually improving something to the point that people demanded it, in the other case you are into politically-correct-land, telling lies to get grant money for projects unlikely to ever pan out.

And of course in the confused minds of the average AWE would-be, wannabe wind energy innovator, this all blends with a questions like liquified air as energy storage - a completely different topic, and one that has not been shown to be relevant to ANY technology, let alone airborne wind energy per se. The only qualification we've seen for this idea is that someone mentioned it. That;s it. Nothing more. A mention. Does that hypnotize us into saying "this is an essential concept"? Is that how little focus we have? Are we complete drooling idiots, just so we can keep an "open mind"?

It seems to me that where you'd like to go is that because AWE is (was) a new field, somehow there is no requirement for anything anyone says to make any sense. I don't buy that.

And I also don't buy the notion that people can enter this ongoing discussion with proposals that make no sense, and have nobody comment on that fact.

To keep a discussion both lively and effective, there must be a give-and-take where ideas introduced are then discussed, identifying possible flaws in the thinking, or flagging points where the supposed question has long ago been answered, removing the alleged mystery.

In fact, is not the ENTIRE POINT of having a group like this so ideas can be discussed, vetted, maybe modified, and refined, by discussions that may reveal holes or flaws in the ideas?

We in wind energy are very used to would-be, wannabe wind energy innovators wanting to simply have the entire conversation on their own terms. Whatever the crackpot says is automatically "right", no matter what, and nobody with their feet on the ground is allowed to question or prod for any backup information, lest they be called names and have the spectre of "The Wright Brothers" or "Einstein" held up as part of the general descent into name-calling and intolerance for facts.

This never changes.
So, what's the latest news on pulling ships with kites now that it's been done for 5 years? Is it expanding? Or forgotten?

And by the way, my opinion is that pulling ships with kites is a super-interesting topic, but not necessarily coincident with AWE. If I am not mistaken, pulling boats with kites is a topic that is thousands of years old (hundreds?), not a new topic at all, really, right? That, and other related applications of kites, such as kite-fishing, seem distinct from airborne wind energy.

Let's take a moment to remember what Airborne Wind Energy is:
The world has been increasingly adopting wind energy for utility-scale grid-power. Many visionary minds have pointed out that, while this progress is good, higher windspeeds and more reliable winds at higher altitudes offer the possibility to lower the cost and expand the range of wind energy for generating this grid-power. This has nothing to do with sending messages by kites, kite-fishing, mythical kite-suspended cities with spotted mushrooms, etc.

Kites pulling ships is a subset of kites pulling boats, an old idea, and is not a subset of airborne wind energy, any more than going sailing is a subset of running an electrical utility. Different topics. Those are diversions from the topic at hand. These other topics are EXCUSES to have no answers in the topic at hand. They are actually LIES, making it seem OK to show no progress, by diverting the discussion to a separate discussion that APPEARS, on the surface, to rationalize a lack of progress or even clear thinking, by changing the discussion to unrelated topics such as whether liquified air is a promising means of energy storage, which is a completely different topic.

The funniest thing of all though, is the resistance we see if we actually take anything anyone says here seriously! OK Mr. Einstein, if you say liquified air is a good means of energy storage, do you have anything to back that up? Ooooooo - you want a real discussion? With facts and stuff? We're not prepared for that! That is scary!

Facts? You want facts? You're asking an actual QUESTION that would require an ANSWER? There is no place here for that! You are a BAD person! We don't like facts! Or questions! We don't want to THINK about facts, and the mere MENTION of facts is too scary for us to even consider! Hellllp Mr. Bill it's a FAAAAACT! Nooooo! Please no mare facts! We don't like them! We don't want them. We don't know anything about them! And we don't want toooooo! Noooooooooo!

:)
Doug S.

Ah yes, cryogenic safety, one more indispensible topic for making sure we never make any progress in AWE! Forget trying to find out whether it's ever been shown useful as a means of energy storage. Gloss right on past any useful facts, and proceed directly to paralysis by the next distraction! I'll bet Dave S. could spend the next 6 months looking up FAA rules for shipping cryogenics on commercial air carriers, and crafting nasty know-it-all e-mails over it. Nice call, Joe. At this rate we'll solve AWE in no time!

Hi Gabor:
You asked David: "Are you saitisfied with the answer?"
I am not satisfied with the answer.
You have merely provided a few more details about boiling a liquid that most of us already know. There are no numbers indicating it is a good choice for energy storage.

I think a more responsive response on your part would be:

"Liquified air has been shown as an efficient method of energy storage here: VVV" (provide some evidence or info - maybe a link).

Next you could explain further:
"While compressed air storage has been oft-cited as a potential energy storage medium for wind energy, the reason I'm instead advocating liquified air is X".

Additionally you could compare efficiency:
"Work done to date on liquified air as energy storage indicates an overall efficiency of X%. Contrast this with energy storage using merely compressed air at an overall efficiency of Y%.

Finally, you might mention why either is preferable to batteries:
"The specific cost and weight of liquified air as energy storage has been shown to be Z and W as compared to batteries at Z' and W', respectively."

Then, if it can be shown that it's looking like a potentially fruitful avenue of pursuit, that would rationalize deeper exploration. With the basic efficiency and cost justified, a more detailed exploration might start looking at specific equipment and potential safety procedures etc.

or not...
:)
Doug S.

Some interesting ideas are presented - the kind that have been rolling through my head since I was a kid.
Search the report for the word "efficiency".
You will find, predictably, the efficiency of liquified air as energy storage is not addressed in the paper. Facts - too irritating to consider. Gloss over any facts and instead present endless hype.

"Air flowing of 2 times the speed does NOT have 2 times the kinetic energy. That shows 100% zero knowledge of fluid mechanics or mechanics in general. Air at 2 times the speed has 4 times the kinetic energy".

 

From my precedent message:"air speed is two times at minimum-cross-section,kinetic energy being 2 times that at maximum cross-section".Yes kinetic energy is 4 times when air speed is 2 times,but area of maximum-cross section is 2 times that of minimum cross-section, so here kinetic energy is 4 times/2.

PierreB

AWE field is invested by more and more researchers, but yet without
decisive progress. The relevance of AWE _ as utility-scale energy system
_ is not established. My opinion is there are too many inherent problems
for a global development: reliability, land and space used (at less for
said crosswind kite systems), maintenance... Perhaps AWE can be
advantageous for limited conditions : low cost of land or sea,and
space.My idea is AWE should be a component of ground turbines for the
reduction of the structure.

Concerning the lack of development of ships: the kite allows an economy
of energy until the absence of wind forces to the started of engines. So
engines start,stop,start..., with more expense than without kites.

PierreB

Gabor,

What this wind energy veteran is seeing is a typical splintering of a newbie,would-be, wannabe wind energy inventor, without a real solution, fixated on an unproven peripheral detail of a scheme whose more basic aspects are also unproven.

It's like listening to religious fanatics eagerly debating fine details of bible stories as though factual, without scrutinizing whether the story has any historical basis.

No point debating how many angels can dance on the head of your pin if you are not sure if you even have a pin to start with. If you HAVE a pin, why debate constructing it from unobtanium? Is your pin so strange it cannot be made from normal materials?

Similarly, is your airborne wind energy concept so flawed it cannot use normal means of energy storage? If liquified air is a better way to store energy, don't you think it would be vital that you get that information out to all the people pursuing batteries for electric carsm grid storage, etc.? I mean energy storage is a serious field, and you have a better way to store energy, isn't it almost a sin to hold it back?

I believe you need a distraction to avoid analyzing the more basic aspects of the scheme. I'd say try substituting batteries and see where you get with that, or switch course and research liquified air as energy storage as compared to compressed air and batteries, forgetting the airborne wind energy idea for now.

There's nothing more symptomatic of Professor Crackpot than to combine TWO dubious ideas into the same "invention". Especially when there is no obvious reason to add another layer of "inventing".
:)
Doug S.

Gabor
I would suggest you look into the ACTUAL efficiencies of liquified air as energy storage, in real life practice. Note: you are trying to produce electricity. Try storing your initial energy as electricity. The liquified air seems to be requiring more and more peripheral systems to "make" it work. Let's see, now you're requiring heat exchangers, a source of heat, a heat engine to turn a generator, blah blah blah. Each stage introduces more inefficiency.
How complicated (expensive and inefficient) do you want to make it?

Real wind energy people know you are lucky to be able to connect a rotor to a generator =
And your statements of not making enemies or keeping friends, whatever - we are used to it. Wind energy debunkers are the only place for would-be, wannabe, wind energy inventors to vent their frustration for their ideas that don't pencil out. They mistake the helpful response of the veteran debunkers, warning the would-be inventor about how nature will react to their idea, as the skeptic CAUSING their idea to not work.

No we are NOT "causing" your idea to be a crazy idea - that is you. We as debunkers just try to warn (helpful), when we see the same sort of stuff again and again. This is similar to any field. I could imagine if I wanted to learn golf, for example, the instructor might try to help by telling me "All beginners have that same problem with their swing - try this". If I were an idiot, I would call the instructor an idiot, and get mad, instead of adjusting my swing. That would be my problem, not the instructor's problem.

In this case, forget me, I am merely the messenger. I'm warning I see too much complication and too many dubious unknowns combined. Don't worry - I won't take it personally if you get mad at me for replying to your idea with experience and facts. That is normal. We are used to it. Happens almost every time. Have fun!
:)
Doug S.

http://www.liquidair.org.uk/files/full-report.pdf

Yup saw that one Joe.
I believe it says you cannot liquify air by compression, you must use cryogenic refrigeration. So much for merely using a compressor at altitude... Let's loft a cryogenic refrigeration unit, tank, etc.

You can Google-Wikipedia it too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenic_energy_storage
Here are three excerpts:

1) A liquid air powered car called Liquid Air was built between 1899 and 1902. (bbbbut I thought this was a "new idea"!)

2) In isolation the process is only 25% efficient, but this is greatly increased (to around 50%) when used with a low-grade cold store, such as a large gravel bed, to capture the cold generated by evaporating the cryrogen. The cold is re-used during the next refrigeration cycle.[7] (OK now we are adding more and more components)

3) the efficiency is less than 15% because of low efficiency hardware components used (nice excuse - sure, the next one will be better)
*****
Of course if you add waste heat from power plants, etc., you can supposedly push it up to around 70%. That's where we MAY be getting a bit Rube-Goldberg/Dr. Seuss in the sense of too many steps, too many systems... (Remember, batteries are about 90% efficient)

I've always liked the idea of compressing or liquifying air at altitude, among other related possibilities. There are MANY MANY directions one could go with this... But I always remind myself how these scenarios pencil out when actually scrutinized with realistic diligence.

I'll just give you one example:
People are always saying "use electricity from windfarms to create hydrogen, to be used later to generate power when the grid needs it."
There has been at least one government-sponsored demo using a 10 kW wind turbine like the one we have here.

Here's how we wind-energy debunkers analyzed it online several years ago on a different yahoo list for people who are not completely insane:
1) Electrolysis is 50% efficient.
2) Compressing the hydrogen gas uses a huge percentage of its chemical energy since each H2 molecule has little chemical energy compared to hydrocarbons etc. The heat of compression is easily lost over time, so the compression cycle uses something like 30% of the available energy - actually I forgot the exact number so I am making that one up. (I am being generous since I think it was 40% inefficient"
3) Burning that hydrogen in a combustion engine such as a gas turbine is something like 35% efficient(?)

Multiply those out to get the total efficiency of hydrogen as energy storage:
50% x 70% x 35% = 12.25% efficiency. (I remember 10% at this point - probably from the compression losses of 40%, not 30%)
Now figure your wind turbine is 40% efficient and your electric generator is 90% efficient
12.25% x 40% x 90% = 4.4% total efficiency
starting with the wind and ending at electricity.
Add in wire losses and you are down to 4% by the time it gets to the customer. (Less if the compression cycle loses 40% as heat)

And that is a very straightforward-sounding scenario that would not appear to have large losses, right?
Yet by the time you are finished you have less than a tenth of your original wind turbine's power going to the grid.

Weigh that against just using the turbine = eliminate all that cost of the hydrogen crapola plus you put 10 times as much power to the grid.

Or just use batteries and put 90% of the power you collect in the jet stream to the grid - well minus any losses such as getting TO the jet stream. And remember the cycle times to get up there and back down...

In short, any idea for generating electricity will have to be a business at some point and the numbers must make sense.

I would summarize:
"Doing AWE will require mentally keeping ones feet on the ground"

You may say "Doug you are missing something - what about fuel cells?"
Well in that case, if you HAD the fuel cell (sounds great - where are they and why?)
IF you had a fuel cell, you would want to use the cheapest hydrogen you could find, right? And where would you find the cheapest hydrogen? From natural gas. Yup the minute you say you want to use hydrogen you need to use the cheapest hydrogen which is not obtained by electrolysis. So much for the economics of that.

Hmmm 50% efficiency using compressed or liquified gasses - ring a bell?

This is the kind of reason that one must go beyond mere "physical possibility" to "economically advantageous".

Let's remember the original reason for AWE:
Lower the cost of wind power.
Oh yeah! Lower the cost! I almost forgot!

Now if I were Professor Crackpot I would still be touting all the diversionary "advantages":
1) The thing will go up empty and come down full - that is good.
ummm I am trying to think
Oh yeah
2) Zee vind een zee jet stream eez much faster
Yah yah
and what else?
Well I gotta say I love the idea of the possibilities of stuff like this, but one has to be careful it doesn't depart from a realistic solution, which is so easy to do.
Oh darn I gotta get some stuff done.
Catch ya later!
:)
Doug S.

Hey Gabor:
It's easy to see that you will never make any progress in wind energy.
Instead of ever building even a single small example of your theory (knowing how complicated and difficult it would actually be), it is easier for such a non-wind-energy person to pull false statistics out from their butts and try to argue topics about which they have no relevant information, so they just make up their own "facts" and the elaborate on these "facts" to arrive at their desired statement that the people who understand wind energy know nothing, while the wannabe wind energy person knows everything.

1) Capacity factor at windfarms in California are higher than your stated 20% - around 30% last I knew...
2) Your statement that windfarms can only sell 70% of their electricity, and your further statement of that being a generous estimate are false.
Where do you think all that "extra" power goes, if not into the grid? Do you think they are putting power into the grid for free?
Windfarms sell ALL the electricity they produce around here.

I am not surprised the capacity factor in Hungary is below 20% since areas with a good wind resource are limited, and Europe in general does not have a lot of wind overall compared to, say, the U.S. which has been called the Saudi Arabia of wind. Heck we are also now about to outproduce them in oil!

The reason your capacity factor for wind in Hungary is because you are just copying other places that have a good wind resource, due to good salesmanship by the wind energy companies, the banks that finance the projects, and the carefully-constructed belief system that the world will end soon if you do not make such purchases.

Hungary didn't develop wind energy on its own and then export it, it's more about purchasing products from other countries. Overall, it is part of the effort of developed nations to make sales, and to eventually mire less developed nations in debt, then then take over their industries after they go bankrupt. Note the common thread:
Global warming: "It's your fault for breathing!"
Insurmountable Debt: "It's your fault for borrowing!"
Notice the arrangement where everything is the little guy's fault.
The giant steamroller rolls on.
Have fun liquifying air in your mind!
:)
Doug S.

See Gabor, now we're onto Giraffes.
Typical splintering of the all-talk newbie lack-of-effort.
Anything to keep talking and avoid building anything, right?
Hey is that supposed to be a compelling story by Hungarian standards? Because I think it's pretty lame. I like the one about the elephant better...

Here's a saying for you:
"Whether a man thinks he can do something or not, in each case, he will be correct".
Well that is not quite always true because you think someone can generate lower-cost grid-power by using liquified air from the jet stream.
But then again you have said it is a job for someone else. Good luck being an inventor without getting yoru hands dirty. You thought you could merely TALK about lowering the cost of electricity by liquifying air in the jet stream and that WAS correct!

Here's a story for you:
3 blind men were asked to identify what was standing on a stool.
One reached out and felt a bowtie "I can feel polka dots on this bowtie, therefore this is a clown!" The next felt a bit higher and said "I feel a beard - this is a terrorist!" The third blind man reached out and said "I feel eyeglasses coverd with dandruff - this is a man who cannot see!".
Then a guy who was not blind walked into the room without knowing the other 3 guys were blind.
"What's the matter with you guys, are you blind? That's Professor Crackpot!"
:)
Doug S.

Joe if I remember correctly, the formula you offered merely swapped area for speed, describing an incompressible closed system. While wind energy is normally approximated as an incompressible flow, since little compression takes place, to approximate an open-flow system as a closed-flow system is the kind of extreme idiocy we saw last week with some moron claiming a cloth funnel would increase the wind speed by 36 times. So your 20 mph wind goes supersonic by putting a hole in a piece of cloth, right? I should take a funnel from the hardware store outside and experience a supersonic flow on my finger!

Looking for information and equations for concentrators in an open flow? Be prepared for a lot of "Professor Crackpot"-style misinformation, since every "Professor Crackpot" thinks:
1) Ramming air through a silly contraption in a wind tunnel approximates what happens in an open flow;
2) To improve wind energy requires higher solidity machines.
Both are wrong and could count toward a total net negative I.Q. for the good professor.
I'd like to know some numbers for funnels.
Maybe someone could look them up.
I'm sure there is some solid theoretical treatment available - just be careful it's from someone who actually knows and understands wind energy.
So please, in the thrust for good information, please look it up and share the answers!
or not...
Why look anything up when it's easier to just make it up?
By the standards here, both have equal weight.
:O.............

Newbies always think that. I suggest you stick to the original topic:
Wind transitioned from grinding grain and direct mechanical tasks to generating electricity 100 years ago, when factories went from being powered by leather belts to using electric motors.
Windfarms now provide a small but significant portion of grid electricity.

It's been noted that if the better wind resource at higher altitudes could be economically tapped, we could improve the industry of wind-generated electric power by increasing output, increasing capacity factor, and lowering costs. Maybe using less land.

So that is the basic task for AWE - lowering the cost of grid-generated electricity and improving that idustry. That is a huge task.
For those with nothing to contribute to the stated problem, there are endless distractions. By word definitions they fool themselves (and they think others) into pretending to be working in the field while not actually doing so.
They immediately give up on producing electricity, believing it is "over their heads" and because they believe this, they are right - it IS over their heads.

So typically they revert back to the closest thing to AWE that they actually know: flying kites.
They say flying kites can substitute for sails to pull ships.
They cite work done in 2008 to pull ships, redefine that as part of the new field of airborne wind-generated electricity, though it is a very old idea, and that is where their effort rests, the newbie convinced that he has conquered the field of airborne wind energy because someone pulled another boat with a kite again a few years ago, and they, by merely knowing about it, are somehow a "pioneer", a "player" or even a "prophet" in the nascent field of airborne wind-generated electricity.

The problem is one of words more than anything in the real world. Words make great shortcuts that can help our thinking, but they can also be used to divert and distract, impairing clear thinking.
The fact that our civilization uses electricity so extensively that it is often referred to using the more broad terms "power" or "energy" does not change the meaning of the conversation. It is merely a point at which a scoundrel can insert himself into the discussion by changing word definitions.

We all know that the term "energy" in the original idea of "airborne wind energy" referred to generating electricity better than existing wind technology. Now a scoundrel fixated on merely fooling people by technically satisfying the requirements of language, all the while changing the discussion, can have a heyday.

To start calling sailing craft using kites as "airborne wind energy" is to change the discussion based on the fact that mere words and meanings thereof could be substituted and shifted around to say "Look, technically THIS is airborne, and it takes energy to pull a boat, so this is "airborne wind energy", ignoring the fact that they have not addressed the original stated challenge: "making wind-generated electricity cheaper in the sky!"

The last desperate stab is to cite the notion that such a ship COULD spin a propeller, to spin a generator, to charge batteries, that will be connected to the grid as soon as the ship reaches shore, or to cite the well-known and very old idea of APU's driven by an airplane's movement through the air, as though the mere existence of that old idea is now a substitute for making any progress whatsoever in the stated field of airborne wind-generated electric power. Let's face it, if you jump into the air and shout, technically that is airborne wind energy, right? Does that mean we've conquered AWE? Is jumping and shouting a step forward for AWE?

The problem is one has thereby distanced themselves from the original task, substituting other unproven ideas whose best point is merely that they "don't violate the laws of physics". Dave S. has stated so himself: The field of AWE was long ago conquered and no further progress is needed because Dave S. has been in an airplane that had a RAT (Ram Air Turbine) APU many years ago, and because there was a thrust to pull ships using kites a few years back that never panned out. Well OK Dave S. after all that work developing and finally conquering AWE I think you should take a long-deserved break! Your work is done. Retire. Congratulations!
:)
Doug S.

Doug, 

Here's the way I look at it:
If someone wants to say they can increase the wind speed by 36 times using a cloth funnel I am going to speak out and say that is dumb and I highly doubt it. I cite the fact that nobody has lost a finger by holding it in front of a funnel from a hardware store in a 20 mph wind. Is there room for a little common sense here?

I like the idea of funnels for wind energy. I think they could be helpful for airborne wind energy. They are known to work, although none has been commercially successful yet due to not solving "the problem" which is lower cost of energy. Increasing rotor size brought better results.

I say if someone wants to come in and let us know how much more power a wind turbine can make in what sort of funnel(s), have at it.
No I do not happen to know the formulas. I think anyone interested could look them up. I'd say the person promoting - er um suggesting the idea should be the one to provide the formulas if possible. Oh yeah but they don't know what they're talking about. Well they could look it up! That seems to be a problem here - nobody wants to look anything up, just assume they are Einstein, maybe get a patent, never even knowing their "new" idea is at least 500 years old, maybe thousands of years.

There will be one formula for a concentrator,
a similar formula for a vaccuum diffuser
another for the two combined,
others for concentrators, diffusers, and combined, with rotors in the throat. That's 6 formulae although it may really be just 4.
That assumes perfect loading of the rotor which may not be the case.
Then there will be all sorts of variations, so at some point you may just want to estimate a bit and build one. Or just enjoy "paralysis by analysis" as so many do.
One thing about a list like this:
Put forth an idea and people may actually discuss it.
They may think about it and explain what they are thinking about it.

Hi Joe
I have to say also for your number 3 it is just nonsense.
If we don't know details like whether there would be a venturi in a system to extract electricity from liquified air, why would we be discussing it? The whole topic is a distraction and a discussion of throwing out a formula like that as though it changes anything is also irrelevant. You call it a calculator, I can see the formula it's based on. I have to just glance fast - nobody can spend too much time on nonsense.

I'd like to see some suggestions for working systems, or reports of working systems, or even components. I don't think playing games with words and constantly shifting the discussion to slightly-relevant or almost-relevant-if-only-they-were-relevant details of nothingness, which none of us knows anything about anyway, gets us to our goal of producing more wind power, more reliably, and at less cost, than we can today.

I don't want to hear how someone is great because they work at NASA and promote turbines supported by blimps in the near-vacuum of Mars, or Honeywell and think typical newbie-idiot-crappy turbines with all the wannabe-wind-energy-inventor missteps combined are breakthroughs, or field abuse by people who think they are Einstein for repeating some goofy old disproven idea.

I would like to see the promise of lower-cost electricity from the wind happen. If everyone comes over to my house, and if they can stay for quite a while, and really get their hands dirty, I know we can do it!

Hi Doug, 

Hi Joe:

As a generally curious engineering type personality, I of course share the excitement at any such potentially promising new concept as liquid air as energy storage.  But I have learned to temper that enthusiasm with a certain amount of healthy skepticism before losing all my common sense and jumping in with both feet.   Remember, if you follow up later,  how many exciting and convincing press-releases announcing "clean energy breakthroughs" turn out to be a complete lie and are never heard from again (almost every one).

One good way to analyze something is to break it up into its constituent parts, analyze the parts separately to make sure each part makes sense, then, if the parts each make sense on their own, roll it all back together and see if the combination makes sense.

So in the case of liquified air as energy storage, to my way of thinking, only a fool would wrap that up in their bigger idea without vetting it as a concept on its own first.
I'd recommend that before anyone "promotes" such an idea, as part of a bigger idea, they look into it.  To me, having considered probably 20 ideas that use compressed or liquified air as energy storage over the years, I always keep in mind the cascades of mutually-multiplied inefficiencies often emanating from such ideas.  From a cursory glance, just looking up the concept a bit, I see efficiencies well below just using batteries, as a start.  Unless someone could show a lower cost or other significant advantages over just using batteries, I'd ask them why pick such a simple technology that has not really shown much if any advantage in the over 100 years we've seen it tried? 
AND
if the pursuit of liquified air as energy storage has merit, is it not worth pursuit on its own regardless of any airborne use per se?  Develop a system?  If not, why not?  Is it a good idea or just an interesting idea as long as nobody really looks closely?  It's good to pay attention to stuff like that: a simple idea, tried over 100 years ago, still with no serious applications: WHY?  There are probably REASONS.  Just a guess.

Anyway thanks for telling me about a forum specially dedicated to untethered airborne wind energy, and about dynamic soaring.  Sounds very cool.  Gosh I'd guess using the jet stream it would be possible to stay up indefinitely.  Until some environmentalist had some problem with it...  I should probably learn from all my wasted time here and resist the temptation (did I say thanks?) to log into that forum, to be honest, enough nonsense is enough nonsense.

Meanwhile stay tuned, if I get around to building a machine that uses dynamic soaring like you would not believe.  "Out of the mouths of babes...."
:)