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Wind Power Without the Mills

forbes.com

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Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#31

Post by david-given »

frobozz wrote: post #23

This says 'Because there is no contact between moving parts, there is no friction. Therefore no lubricant is required. No replacement of spare parts either.' However, there are animations that show it wobbling. This implies that it's made of a flexible substance. I'm not being so pedantic as to suggest that the fibres or crystals etc. of the substance are moving parts (though surely there is friction between them), b…

How to make tall, stiff objects wobble safely is pretty standard technology these days --- all tall buildings do it, and very tall skyscrapers are carefully tuned and damped to wobble in exactly the right way. This is partly because of wind, and partly earthquakes. Here's a terrifying video of a skyscraper farm in Japan swaying gently after an earthquake in 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQaHyY9-Fuw

So I'd say it's at least plausible that these generators could be built.

Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#32

Post by insertnickname »

lambdaelite wrote: post #28
NLips wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because generally the birds don't really need saving from wind turbines. Numbers from an unverified source: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science... (other sites seems to agree on the cats vs turbine numbers) Alternatively, from a source you might expect to be very biased in favour of birds: http://www.rspb.org.uk/forprofessionals/policy/windfarms/

A problem with the estimates in the U.S. is that turbines disproportionately affect legally-protected birds, and so the numbers are suspected to be severely under reported.

So what? If they're too stupid not to fly into a giant blade, then maybe it's ok that they die.

Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#33

Post by samatman »

olau wrote: post #18

I think you have to separate joy of the tech from practical matters here. Regarding the practical matters, it looks like they are three orders of magnitude from being on par with the three-blade vertical design. So while this idea may be worthwhile in some niches like mentioned in the article, it's currently not a replacement for the giant, towering, 3 MW and up turbines erected these days. And just like other wind-t…

Getting kites to work has proved challenging, yes. But the beauty of the design is that they have in principle better scaling properties than a wind turbine. Don't count them out yet.

As for the parent design, could be interesting. I cannot imagine a possible justification for not building it out given the urgency of renewable power to our present needs.

Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#34

Post by ska »

boardwaalk wrote: post #29

The comments here are amazingly negative -- personally, if I was to live off the grid, the 4kW, 40', 220lb version sounds pretty great to me. At 220lb, you could easily raise/lower the thing as one person with some sort of mechanism for installation/service. I'm really curious how much it'd cost in comparison to solar. Maybe someone can estimate with the "80% less maintenance cost, 53% manufacturing cost" than wind t…

Well to be fair, I thought the article and company blurbs was targeting significant production as much as smaller & off-the-grid use. And these guys are hardly the first to make strong claims before demonstrating at scale.

On the other hand, this sort of unit might be interesting for the use you suggest. Even if the manufacturing cost isn't a big win, if the MTBF is enough of an improvement by design, it might have some application in small remote sites where maintenance is a pain.

Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#35

Post by toomuchtodo »

boardwaalk wrote: post #29

The comments here are amazingly negative -- personally, if I was to live off the grid, the 4kW, 40', 220lb version sounds pretty great to me. At 220lb, you could easily raise/lower the thing as one person with some sort of mechanism for installation/service. I'm really curious how much it'd cost in comparison to solar. Maybe someone can estimate with the "80% less maintenance cost, 53% manufacturing cost" than wind t…

> I'm really curious how much it'd cost in comparison to solar.

For a 4kW sized solar system, you'd be looking at ~$6K-8K USD before your 30% federal tax credit (plus state incentives, if available). Your solar system would have significantly less maintenance requirements, consisting of rinsing the panels with a hose 1-2/year.

Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#36

Post by boombip »

barryfandango wrote: post #26
startupfounder wrote: post #20

I have repelled (using Industrial Rope Access) off hundreds of multi-megawatt Wind Turbines on $1B+ wind farms around the world to inspect and repair the 13+ ton fiberglass blades and wanted to give my 2 cents. [A clarification: Wind Turbines generate electricity, Wind Mills mill flour. It's a small but important detail.] Operation & Maintenance expense is my biggest issue with new technology. I have met many design…

It would be really cool if the mast could retract, either using some kind of collapsing structure or a hole dug out underneath the structure. Great for repairs, also would allow a farm to retract for extreme weather events.

Yeah, until the retraction mechanism breaks.

Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#37

Post by ifdefdebug »

bpodgursky wrote: post #22
scblock wrote: post #15

Again? AGAIN? Another "no blades! save the birds!" technology that's little more than a concept. There are constantly amazing technologies just around the corner that will definitely totally be awesomely better than existing 3 bladed horizontal axis wind turbine technology. And they'll always be less expensive than current technology somehow. Trust me, getting the cost right at this stage of the technology curve is a…

Decades? I would say it took centuries at least. The basic design hasn't changed since the middle ages.

Well maybe changing the basic design of wind turbines would be somewhat like changing the basic design of wheels but still today's wheels are better than medieval ones.

Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#38

Post by johnchristopher »

insertnickname wrote: post #32
lambdaelite wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem with the estimates in the U.S. is that turbines disproportionately affect legally-protected birds, and so the numbers are suspected to be severely under reported.

So what? If they're too stupid not to fly into a giant blade, then maybe it's ok that they die.

Let me introduce you to a wonderful concept:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem

Enjoy the next three days of reading.

Re: Wind Power Without the Mills

#39

Post by ChuckMcM »

startupfounder wrote: post #20

I have repelled (using Industrial Rope Access) off hundreds of multi-megawatt Wind Turbines on $1B+ wind farms around the world to inspect and repair the 13+ ton fiberglass blades and wanted to give my 2 cents. [A clarification: Wind Turbines generate electricity, Wind Mills mill flour. It's a small but important detail.] Operation & Maintenance expense is my biggest issue with new technology. I have met many design…

It is certainly a valid point that maintenance costs are a huge burden on wind farms, that said, you cannot really jump to the conclusion that 2MW of generation capability would be deployed as one giant tower. From the web site it seems it would be 2x 1MW towers but it could easily be 10 separate 200kW towers or even 100 20kW towers. The density of a this with respect to wind turbines seems a bit higher.[1]

That said, their web site makes them out to be idealistic dreamers (I know that sounds judgemental but it is the impression I got from it). If Google were still running the RE[1] Caveat the amount of energy you can pull out of a moving mass of air at STP is finite.

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