This Crazy Wind Turbine May Be The Future of Wind Energy
This Crazy Wind Turbine May Be The Future of Wind Energy. The first 100 people to use code UNDECIDED at the link below will get 60% off of Incogni: incogni.com/undecided Solar panels are a marvel, right? One of the neatest things about them is that they can be used almost anywhere, from big farms, to residential spaces and anything in between. If only we could make other renewables, like wind power, as versatile. Well that’s exactly what a company called AirLoom Energy is trying to do, they claim they’ve developed a radically different kind of wind energy device. One that’s much cheaper, more flexible, and has the backing of Bill Gates. Given his cleantech investing success rate, I’ll let you decide if that’s a badge or honor, or a sign that this device is all hot air. How does AirLoom work? And is their radically different wind turbine design going to change the game?
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Is AirLoom onto something or is it just hype? The first 100 people to use code UNDECIDED at the link below will get 60% off of Incogni: incogni.com/undecided If you liked this, check out Why This NASA Battery May Be The Future of Energy Storage kzhead.info/sun/Zd6AXb6qemZ4gmg/bejne.html
You got me (out) at "Bill Gates" 😅
I think they could possibly be on to something, but I find it interesting that another company did this 20 years ago, and now the head of this company is claiming he thought about it because of his windsurfing 🤔 sounds more like he waited for patent protections to expire, then went forward with his "new" technology. Not that there's anything wrong with building off of prior ideas, but claiming this is novel seems a little dishonest.
Looks interesting, but I'll wait to see testing results before getting excited. I can see many things getting tangled in it along with your teams thought on dirt and grim getting in.
Like any VAWT design its strength, at least in my opinion, lies with its ability to be used alongside other, already existing, infrastructure. Along highways, Train tracks, Powerlines and also on the middle of our inner city & Suburban roads(depending on the noise they produce) Many streets funnel wind like a wind tunnel through them, but traditional HAWT couldn't even try to harness that kind of Wind. Many smaller VAWT would make for a more distributed energy generation, especially as it is just wasted atm. This Airloom alongside a highway could also double as message board if you put flexible LCD Films on them, playing adds and traffic messages on them to not only make it a profitable Energy production venture, but also a Billboard one
It doesn't make any sense. The swept area determines how much energy can be harvested from the wind. This doesn't have a large swept area,and the mechanism is overly complex and will require more maintenance. Further, the fixed orientation means it cannot maximize output from winds from the non-prevailing direction.
Hi Matt, have you considered makeing a "where are they now" style video of technologies/companies you've spoken about in the last years? Would be cool to see the progress made
But then he'd have to call his channel "Decided"
Yes please!!
@@kevinbissinger idea for a second channel :)
Man all those batteries too. It would be great to see how they scaled
I like this!
As a mechanical engineer, I see some potential issues with this design. One of them is how the blades would react to turbulent winds. I can see the blades twisting the track and really stressing the pulley system and even potentially hitting the vertical support towers. Having a single mid-point track does not have much resistance to twisting. There are plenty of moving parts here that would require upfront CAE analysis and thorough development testing to determine how long it would last and the conditions it would be able to survive (high winds, high and low temperatures, ice, etc.).
just to name a few... i still think this is pure bullshit, there is no way in hell a cable/rail system like that will have lower friction than a shaft. Also, wind on ground level is very low on energy, wind turbines are tall to reach high energy wind. This is just a cash grab from green funds, this will go nowhere.
I imagine that if they add a spherical rail system below it would rotate the elipse to the most favourable wind direction, reducing stress if facing the longest side. Which means the one of the curves would always be facing the wind direction?
I also would like to know how stable this would be. I’m wondering why not a double track for stability.
Good observations and questions. Doubling rail increase costs but if the LCOE increases because of bad design it would make sense to have a more ruggedized design. Instead of a vertical support rail maybe an angled or offset support could correct that deficiency.
Would also like to hear how much noise this set-up creates. Specifically the changing air-gap between the poles and the blades when the blades move past a pole.
I like this concept, and I could even see niche case uses, such as at the top of skyscrapers. At that height, you've typically got the wind, scale the device to the structure. It doesn't need to be crazy power generation if they're also cheaper to produce and maintain.
I said more or less the same on twobitdevinci same video. String them up between sky scrapers.
Real estate is always an issue. If it is better to just have something else like one of the other rooftop designs or solar then there is no point. I'll believe it when I see it. Matt and TwoBit basically regurgitate what these companies say. Wish Matt and TwoBit would talk with other experts, because they've talked about technologies that just wouldn't work no matter the hocus pocus the company said. (Hydrogen Nano Tape!) The lack of assessment from outsiders also not being there for that first test project concerns me. You'd think they'd bring in someone to say, "hey this does work".
@@dianapennepacker6854 string em between buildings in windy cities. No one is using that real estate.
should be tested to see if it works on the exterior of buildings, along the vertical sides. imagine one track for each floor above a specific height. @@justinmyers6737
@@justinmyers6737 police and news helicopters do, and now drones everywhere. Wouldn't mind seeing drones be grounded though :P
The first thing that came to my head was "it's way too short". Maybe it's a good solution if you plan to put it on a big flat roof of a tall building (it would be more conspicuous than a solar roof, though)
frequently those buildings have other stuff on top like antennas so putting this up there around that other stuff seems like a good option that doesn't clutter the airspace. If it works, vertical wind turbines would work in those locations too and I feel like a single pivot vs a track is more reliable.
I think the fundamental issue is also going to be with friction loss, fundamentally they have more wearing friciton parts which would result in losses and increated in maintenance costs.
Also, part of the blades necessarily need to go against the wind plus i swept area is the square of the with a regular windturbine but afaict this would just scale with length or height.
Magnets?
@@hendrand from what i've seen outside of magnetic bearings you will not really find a magnet used in any major industrial environment to reduce friction, and within the context of magnetic bearings those use a good chunk of electricity. Passive magnates really won't be used in any context like this. So sorry no magnets are not a solution here, but I am happy to be wrong.
@@hendrand electric magnets would decrease amount of generated electricity ...and constant ones - where you would get such amount of them and further maintenance, when they would lost their rated specs
Exactly. The track friction is the obvious problem. Triple cable suspension like a Gondola perhaps? Top, middle and bottom of the fins for stability would be worth testing.
A regular turbine can generally last at least 20 years. Many around where I live have worked for well over 30 years at this point. This point is mentioned in the video but I would like to see how long a track system such as the one shown here is going to last. These tracks, when used in the industrial applications I have seen, are regularly lubricated and maintained and operate in factories which, compared to a field in a windy area, is a relatively clean environment. I think dust and dirt buildup will make scrap out of those tracks in a few years without regular cleaning and maintenance. We'll see, but I doubt it will amount to much. Also, thank you for including the recap of previous wind technologies you have covered. It is greatly appreciated.
But the degree of maintenance is much simpler, so a maintenance by year would be cheaper than the replacement after 30
turbines lasting 20 is a lie. we here in texas have been monitoring a special wind turbine blade "recycling center" in Sweetwater, forty miles west of Abilene on Interstate 20. The site is approaching 40 acres and piled with blades many of which are about 10 years old and have reached end of life due to significant erosion on their leading edges and damage to the internal structures. They are being cut up an most buried. another company is seeing many of the turbines themselves having significant issues with water intrusion resulting in corrosion and generator problems.
Maybe there could be a built-in cleaning brush that also circulates.
@@renaissanceman5847 I've seen people make this claim before but the far majority of them are recycled, as far as I can find. I haven't seen any fields of tons of buried recyclable materials.
Regularly lubricated is the issue I think most people would find with it, if they only knew lol.
That does seem like a very high friction system in less than optimal wind conditions. I can see how, in theory, you could potentially capture more energy in a given footprint, however blade area is only one component in the lift equation. Velocity is a square component in the lift equation, so chasing higher air flow with taller structures makes more sense. Also the higher the aspect ratio of the blades the more efficient as well, this is one of the major driving factors behind taller wind turbines.
Thanks for mentioning the F word here. Since somehow it wasn't mentioned in the entire video. I can't imagine how this doesn't result in huge losses, especially with a single track and these long thin blades only supported in the middle, it is going to bend and cause friction like crazy. Also the fact that it can't rotate with the wind direct is a pretty huge issue. This idea is just the epidemy of stupid.
Great to see that you got back to being more critical again nowadays. I had some problems with some of your videos in the past that felt like you were - to put it bluntly - parroting marketing material. It's important to showcase new ideas and you're doing a great job at that, and it is good to see that you're staying critical. Will go back and watch a few of the latest videos that i skipped.
As others have pointed out, AirLoom is a vertical axis wind turbine where the central axis is replaced by a rail.
put the on magnetic high speed trains are.
I think you're right to be concerned about both the intermittency of low-level wind, and the overall cost of maintenance.
Things that move always require additional maintenance. Solar panels don't require ongoing annual maintenance (unless they get dirty) which is why I think they've been so successful at all sorts of scales. If the LCOE at install is low but after a while we discover that they require quarterly maintenance I could see that LCOE going up dramatically.
I don't think maintenance would be the killer issue, simply because the scale and materials are so small and mundane. Low level wind, however... If either of those issues stabs this in the back, that's likely going to be it. You can improve materials, design, and construction to fight wear and breakdowns, but if the wind just fundamentally won't cooperate at that altitude, the discussion is over.
Given the size of the Airfoils I would say that the AirLoom is LESS affected by the wind's intermittancy because it would take less wind energy to get each airfoil moving compared to a traditional Wind Turbine Blade.
Seems to me (as others have pointed out), that there is entirely too much of a chance for friction within the track. How are they inducing a voltage? Magnets on the connecting chain passing through pickup coils on either side of the loop? On top of that the friction of the chain in the track and the blades turning the corner to reverse their path is bound to make a racket. The idea for smaller more transportable is there but the land required for the footprint of a larger system, the maintenance of that land (mowing grass), and the generation system doesn't add up. A traditional turbine only takes up the land at the base of the mast and the other area outside of this can continue to be used (farmed, grazed on). Sorry sounds like snake oil to me.
@@dougchatch You could induce voltage by just having magnets on the blades and a fixed not moving wire, which is connected to the grid, but they will have more maintainace due to more moving blades. The footpint does not matter, if the economics are good. Based on footprint, we would never have solar, their footprint is ridiculous compared to any other power unit, but their LCOE is the cheapest in sunny areas. I assume their promised LCOE is the optimal case and therefore likely underestimated. The only question is, how strong will the LCOE rise for the final product.
The key physical problem is the loss to friction due to the track system; a secondary problem is alignment as it seems designed to sit statically aligned. Wish 'em luck!
This will definetly work I am and have been a windsurfer for over 25 Years now I can say from just looking at the design it will work, since the sail or wing would flap over and act as an accellarent to the horizontal axsis. I Love the concept! And I am looking forward to seeing it in action
it may "work" but is not financially feasible
@@vicelias5288 What makes it not financially feasible? The shipping and manufacturing alone has cut down a ton of the cost. Even if it requires more maintenance you can likely do that for years with the reduced cost before breaking even. They dont have to replace all the big windfarms they just have to be good enough to outpace them in some locations. Also looks like a homeowner could install one with some know how.
@@iamunknowable Because there is very little wind energy at the ground level. I used to work in the industry at a failed small wind turbine company just like this one. Look at all the moving parts! Unreliable in the long term. It will never make enough money to pay for itself. This thing will never generate enough power and then it will break down and repairing it will cost any energy it may have made. This place is just looking for naive investors. I remember reading about his silly concept back 15 years ago when I worked in the industry nothing has changed.
Maintenance would seem to be the biggest issue. More moving parts, more problems. Close to the ground might be another issue, but there also may be places where the wind blows all the time.
Building placement can literally create places where there is constant wind, in some locations. Designing for that purpose might be a good pairing to make the best use of something like this.
Exactly. They would have to do two thing's to make it cost effective in maintainence: Make only one type part wear out by making it softer than the tracks (maybe rollers). And make a quick release replacement part system. Also wouldn't it be an unprecedented amount of friction?
@@Justwantahover I would think a lot of maintenance issues could be discovered and solved by looking at the systems used for ski lifts. They would seem to face the same issues, only more so due to the greater weight being supported.
@TheYuleTube This does work outside, cables over wheels can be somewhat dirt tolerant. But I could also see a track working, it would have to be an open arrangement. Like maybe two solid rods, one over the other with sets of wheels between.
The inability to turn the long axis into the wind is a bigger issue. The wind shifts 10 degrees and you're losing double digits off your performance.
If you could gimbal the blades as they travel around the track, you could maintain an optimal angle of attack regardless of wind direction and ensure the blades generate torque during their entire rotation.
Any gains would be lost in vibration and noise. So i doubt it.
Sort of comes down to the vertical axis turbines ... where have they all gone? (Yes, I know they were fixed pitch).
Seems like that would be easy enough, and could be self correcting with a wind vein on each end of the loop.
Yet, the ones on the prototype shown appear to be fixed. So, how the hell does that work?
@@wirelesmike73 It's all a math problem. Off the top of my head, I'm guessing locations that have consistent enough winds to make this viable probably have those winds blowing consistently enough in the same direction that the efficiency gain isn't worth the complexity cost.
Matt, another one of the big hurdles for these large-scale long-blade wind turbines is airspace. For instance there are none of these large wind turbines in our area because we have Wright-Pat AFB, Dayton International Airport, Wilmington Commercial, and four small regional airports all within 25 miles of each other. This makes for a very large air space that simply cannot accommodate Eiffel Tower tall wind turbines in that same airspace. So yes, these other projects you mentioned would be well suited for this kind of space. Keep up these videos on products like these and others. Your approach is greatly appreciated.
Low, long solutions like this are needed. They can be put on buildings, along canals, in fallow fields. I really hope this one pans out.
Well, I have 'concerns' about the blades being supported at just the midpoint. Imperfections and uneven wind could put a lot of twisting on that central mount point. Seems the earlier company shown, with two cable loops and blades attached at the top and bottom would be better. And of course the cable or chain that runs in the loop is a point of friction and problems. Cautiously move forward with a prototype and gather some real-world test data and experience I guess.
When you say "uneven wind" that would realistically be "wind". I have the same mid point support and real world loading concerns. Still ...interesting concepts.
Matt Ferrell has become more skeptical and objective in his analysis.
Any one with a brain would. The direction we are moving is an absolute disaster in the making.
I dunno man - I'm still undecided.
Yeah, I noticed as well. Felt less like an add and more like an objective look at a new technology. A few of us did have a discussion about it on a recent video and I'd like to think that it might have had an impact but who knows.
I think you kind of have to become more balanced over time. You can only pitch so many amazing sounding bits of tech that turn out to be baby steps (or worse) before you have to step back and ask whether any new claim will just join the pile.
After all those batteries that never saw the day light... I think this turbine will not turn at all, it will generate 0. If the wind pushes one side, it will push on the opposite direction the other side
Yeah, I have so many questions too about this one, including twisting of the airfoil in high winds and their possible contact with the support structure and friction on the track.
As if the engineers aren't going to take that into account.
@AORD72 Yes but that doesn't mean they'll find a good solution.
There could be a two-track version, to prevent the twisting, but it would entail more friction. I don't think friction is a serious issue when you are getting all this free energy anyway.
@@Felix-st2ue it wont be hard. Look at a airplane wing, look at a gondola, look at a crane. Many examples of far more complex engineering under far more load.
@AORD72 wings dont have moving parts. And the other two work with a steel cable. Plus, they have fewer running hours and get regular inspections and maintenance. After all, there is always staff around that's operating them.
Holy cow, this could be something a DIYer could install if this works. Really cool to see this.
I like the idea, full advantage the area of the blade. It will be interesting to see how this “flies” in a storm and how they negate friction in the long cable track.
Awesome coverage of these guys Matt! You found way more then I did when looking into them! Fingers crossed the numbers workout and they can deliver! I want one on my Barn!
I question the friction losses of the wind track
I always love to see weird things being made to combat the same problem. Someone coming up with the same idea "but better" is not always innovation, but if you can look at it first in confusion; it then has the chance of making a change.
Bro it has an entire track that slurps up efficiency and requires maintenance instead of a single hub like on a traditional wind turbine. I'd love to be wrong but I don't see a way in hell that this thing is gonna beat current wind-tech.
Well low upfront cost is one advantage. That's not a lot of metal.
@@kkknotcool That's true, probably far cheaper to plop these down than a giant tall conventional turbine. But then what? After only a few weeks of dust, rain and dead insects there will be a buildup of gunk inside that track destroying efficiency.
@@petertimowreef9085 Efficiency and repair are just negative costs that are amortized to the initial cost. When your dealing with something that costs say a quarter as much to get running and looses a third of it's efficiency over time that's a totally fine trade off. I mean the thing is supposed to make a peak of 20 mw. I doubt all the dirt and insects in the world could cannibalize 1 mw, all the bearings/wheels would melt if their was that much friction. Of course it's not gonna do anywhere near 20 mw most of the time so lets say everything goes bad and it looses 500kw to friction and makes on average 5 mw. That's 4.5 mw of power from a machine that costs a quarter of what a normal turbine costs. Factor in repair labor and lets give the unit it's own full time maintenance person, definitely more than it needs but to be pessimistic again. That's $100k in labor and lets be pessimistic again and say the yearly parts are $200k. That's $300k in operating cost, lets say $400k with the transmission lines and an upfront cost of 2 million dollars at 10% to pay interest and the principle back. That's $600k a year in total cost on a unit that makes 4.5 mw or at 5 cents a kwh $225/hr or 1.8 million dollars a year if you factor in 2 hours a day of maintenance cost. Much better economy than normal wind.
@@kkknotcool That's an impressive and interesting set of numbers friend, I appreciate the effort. Either you googled a lot or you know a lot more about the economics of power production than I do, and I suspect the latter. All I can say is that I believe you underestimate how fast an exposed track loses efficiency, I am just thinking about how often I need to keep the chain on my bicycle oiled, and that's fully enclosed in plastic. I really hope you're right friend and we get a revolution in clean power, but if this system was really as good as we hope, why isn't anyone making money with them?
To me it looks like something that will be mechanically very fragile and susceptible to failures, too many friction points and moving pieces.
Friction looks like a killer for this design.
Exactly. The purpose of these kind of invention is to get money out of the pockets from "dumb" investors who will do good 😒 (virtue signaling).
Engineering can adapt for that and that's what pilot testing is for. Much easier to maintain than what we have now! Let's not kill potential ideas until we learn more. Even if this doesn't become viable it could be a stepping stone to the next idea.
@@davidmccarthy6061 I agree - they won't know until they try. That's the nature of iterative design.
In Denmark, we call this kind of thing a dead herring.
I am 50, kitesurfer and in the past windsurfer. I believe that this can work, but with limited directions. 2x half wind is most effective. So 90 degrees directed to the long sides. So good for locations either way local thermal winds that happens during part of the seasons and mostly not during a full year.
I think they should make individual blade actuators/etc that would turn the blades that are returning back into the wind, to an angle that the wind will press against less, and turn the ones intended to be caught into the wind, fully/mostly flat; perhaps a software could detect the changes in wind direction to compensate =)
The friction on the wire rope or track has been the killer for the many bladed approaches, not just because of the power losses but also because the setups destroyed themselves at high wind speeds, that is at least one of the reasons the wire rope style generator looked like the blades were attached so loosely.
11:09 Glad you mentioned this. I was wondering how maintenance would be worthwhile enough with the amount of moving parts open to the weather. Also, I don't understand how it would be easier to find locations for Airloom vs current wind turbines. What are the effects of uneven terrain?
Visually, I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around this one. I can't see how the sails don't create resistance against the system on the return trip back around the loop.🤔 But, I look forward to updates... and an in-depth explanation of how it even works.
The blades would be going crosswind along the long section of the oval. The same way boats and windsurfer can go crosswind or even upwind.
The sails in one position are going right to left. The sail reverses position going around the bend. Then goes left to right across the wind.
@@artsmith103 Something like: Wind | | V --/--/--/--/-- --- --- --\--\--\--\-- If I understand correctly?
@@RJWhitmore 1st, I edited my typo when you brought me back. 2nd, your sketch is correct with movement switching left to right (upper), then right to left (lower).
So now the question is, what is the best possible configuration of a continuous loop that can pick up wind from any angle (or a preferred angle)
Good afternoon Matt this is brilliant, this system can be installed on skyscrapers in cities on the top floors maybe 1 to 2 systems deployed on each skyscraper the city’s in all countries could produce mega watts of power. I love this idea.
At first I thought they are too low however they could work well on big open freshwater lakes (no corrosion). Also in valleys that tunnel the wind. Maybe a problem with dust in hot deserts but could be great in cold ones.
These look like they could easily be installed on top of existing tall buildings, not just towers. Even if there are challenges, the economic and NIMBY-resistant nature benefits are huge! I’d say it’s worth looking into any shortcomings and trying to overcome them.
I'd think it's more viable on top of (1) shorter single buildings that have a large horizontal footprint (i.e. in light industrial parks) or (2) a shorter series of buildings that are roughly the same height (i.e. apartment complexes).
I was thinking the same thing. A moving light feature on a building crown with the added benefit of generating power sounds interesting.
In my opinion they look REALLY ugly. And I doubt some thingies movies around in a circle are completly silent.... So I really don't see how this should be NIMBY resistent
I also thought that these could go around buildings. Maybe small units around the top of billboards. The main thing here is the the initial build costs. The points Matt makes about transporting, and manufacturing turbines are very valid. If they are using off the shelf parts, these will cost much less to make. Also, given their smaller, lighter build, the maintenance will be much cheaper, even if it does take more maintenance for the track system. Think about a small portable lift vs a huge expensive crane.
The tops of skyscrapers don't have much horizontal wind; most of it is vertical, sweeping up the large, flat sides of the buildings.
Braaaa! Red-Flag Fault:Unit change; switch from kWh(kilo-Watt-hour) at 3:20 to Watts(not kilo-Watts) at 8:47; clear indication of "size distortion"(using different units to change impact of numbers and distort comparison)
Matt I love your channel and content ! Keep up the good work !
I don't even care if it's marketing and hype - as long as they honestly are pursuing the goals they say they are, the fact that there are people trying to come up with new and better solutions is always a great thing. Frequent last minute disappointments are just an unfortunate part of the process of tech development, and the PR is just doing their job if everything looks rosy outside. I wish AirLoom the best of luck and motivation to work hard through any engineering issues!
its about making money... saving the planet is the BS.
@@renaissanceman5847 There's always the element of making money, but saving the planet as a side effect would be nice. In any case, nothing will improve without someone trying, regarless of motivations.
_"I don't even care if it's marketing and hype "_ You need to get out of that mindset ASAP and start some critical thinking.
@@ferrumignis Maybe, or maybe I'll just consciously choose when I apply the said mindset already. Or maybe you're right, I'm idiot and just float with the river, believing everything for profit companies with their own motives feed me.
@@renaissanceman5847 Saving the planet may be BS: it is a ball of iron that will go on without us. Keeping humans around without genociding 9/10ths of them is something that requires us to live within our means.
Seems like a large footprint. The design certainly has potential. Reminds me of a water wheel on its side.
I love innovations because that's how we get to the really good ideas. Of course, that also means that we go through a lot of ideas that just don't deliver. What we need is real data.
I have decided that you always provide excellent information! 😊
If this works near advertised, a few places it could be installed would be tall buildings. Also, from the design layout, it has an option of stacking and separate tracks. Perhaps, it could have two or more separate loops stacked catching wind speed at different velocities. I would like to see how this technology adapts and the final outcome.
Wind generators on roofs and structures often have huge resonance issues. I'm betting this thing isn't exactly silent and can only imagine how much it might transmit into a structure :(
That was my thoughts stack these things 1015 stories tall
I am absolutely sure that this will come to nothing. But, it could work very well in a tidal current or a river.
I think conceptually there are some takeaways to be had. It is similar enough to a ski lift, combine that with a gravity generator and you could possibly have an effective power system.
I could see this being feasible for offshore generation in certain areas. I wonder if using magnets on a dual-rail system to help support the blades would reduce friction and increase stability.
If viable, I feel like these could be put on the top/top floors of some sky scrapers (high up and they often create "wind tunnels" that these could really take advantage of)
More moving part more friction, I think maintenance will be the falldown.
Matt & Team....excellent reporting effort! Fair and Balanced, just the way reporting should be. Walter Cronkite would be proud of Matt's reporting style in this video.
Thanks for the video. I agree. A fair dose of skepticism is reasonable at this point.
The idea of a wind generator that can fit in a cargo container is very attractive. Imagine what that could mean for remote islands or other hard-to-reach communities. That said, let's keep our critical thinking caps on until the research has been done and vetted.
Interesting and thanks. Looks remarkably like a ski jump chair setup. That being the case then, one might guess that a lot of the tech is well known and borrowable, if that's a word.
Just triple the speed and the load of a chairlift and set power points all over the track and ...
I am trying the see the mechanics of it. In an oval horizontal track, it looks like the forces would naturally cancel out and prevent rotation. So the foils would need to change their orientation to maximize rotation. There would also need to spokes to turn the gear or else the device would need to have a lot of tension so it wouldn’t slip. With all of the potential friction involved it is hard to imagine any electricity being generated and the device having a long lifetime.
If no wind a helium filled delta kite floats 100 ft high. Wind above 4 mph causes top kite to rise and pull a train of kites up. Cloth hose connects all train kites so air pressure runs a generator on the ground. Weight pulls kite train back in when wind is too light.
The fixed orientation to the wind seems limiting (even with blade attack angle adjustment). Wonder if you could stick this system itself on a tower and have it rotate to the best wind angle. Towers can be modular so aren't construction wise as hard as huge turbine blades.
Fixed? It’s a loop. No matter the direction of the wind, it will always be tangent to part of the loop which means it will always work regardless of wind direction
It seems like a easy ish fix. If the baldes contact point on the rail is not on the middle edge of the blade, but if it has a cut out section where the tract is the middle of the "blade" and have a blade on top and on bottom that can move with the wind | • | It would increase maintenance and production costs but levelize the outputs.
@@Rkcuddles its an oval- the long axis needs to be tangential to the prevailing wind direction. In my country the prevailing winds (85% of the time) are either SW or NE but they may not be opposites everywhere.
@@Rkcuddlesyes If it was a circle I'd agree but it's not. It's oblong on purpose to maximize collection on those long straight sides. Hence by being fixed at an angle it won't always be at max efficiency even given adjusting blade angles. Just saying it might be another way to increase efficiency...and by putting it higher it's in better wind.
@@john38825 yes blade angle adjust is already there, just thought this seems like another possible optimization. May not be worth it, but an idea, just like how a windmill turns into the wind for max efficiency.
Friction, lubrication, dust/sand buildup...sounds like a maintainance nightmare to me. Also I have doubts if the device can easily start by itself, given that the windswails have to drag the chain/rope around while starting. I wouldn't drop a penny on this, but it's nice that someone with infinite money supports them, since he doesn't need to care about the losses and for the 0.001% chance that this somehow works it's a big win for everyone. Edit: Also the huge space requirement of these is insane. I don't agree with your criticism of wind turbines taking up too much space when they just grow vertically (yeah, I understand that distance to other tall structures increases with larger blades) while this is meant to take up huge ground level space, which in most civilized countries is a valueable ressource.
The cost reduction comes from the fact, that a 10-15m high device needs only few certificates to operate around, so the workers are a lot cheaper than the current technicians (at least here in germany, where you need a shitload of safety certificates after your apprenticeship, to work in/with progressively dangerous environments/devices). Basically you can get a bunch of 1-Euro-more-than-minimum-wage-guys and then do maintenance for a pretty big area after 3 month of certificates (employer pays to make it look like a good start for a career), unlike now, where its literally a few specialized people that have to go all over the country(and world) and get paid accordingly.
can't trust anything when B.G. has his hand in it.
It looks interesting. I think a twin track would make it more stable and the use of magnets to levitate the track and reduce friction would also help and reduce noise.
Sounds like the key terms in this video are "if" and "alleged." Thanks Matt for another great video with good insightful information!
Hype. This will be a niche product at best for those who are unable to deploy something better. They have more moving parts to maintain and take up more land to deploy.
There was a concept I saw a while back, basically wind turbine blades in a massive inflatable blimp like ring. A wire connected it to the ground and transferred the power it generated. Allows it to be raised or lowered to optimal positioning, and much higher than structural turbines. Curious what happened to the concept, or if you have a video on it. (Looked, but didn’t see one.)
it has two main problems. the first is that people tend to underestimate how much volume of lifting gas you need to pick something up. I think the Goodyear blimps only weigh about 1.5 tons. the second big issue is storms. airships have historically had a lot of trouble with storms.
@@thamiordragonheart8682 I’m sure there is lots of issues with it overall, but for storms it would just be brought down. Also makes repairs and maintenance easier. I’ve used small blimps with camera setups for security before so am a little familiar with the concept and why I’m curious what issues it may have as a wind turbine.
200 m from sea level there is already 99%, not much higher than structural turbines
I think one of the best systems is derived from a gyro-kite acting as a turbine, because it has the potential to tap right into jet-stream winds. However the problems with airborne systems is that it requires restricted airspace and may have location issues with current air traffic routing. If it weren't for that aspect, I'd think that system would be seeing some good traction by now.
The other issue for this device is the drag from one side of the loop on the other. We could space normal wind turbines much much closer together if we wanted to merely for space concerns. However it’s not just about space. Blades chop up the air, and make it turbulent. When another blade passes through that turbulent air, the efficiency is lower. A loop design guarantees that there is always turbulent air going across a significant proportion of the blades.
I’ve read about this design; but my concern isn’t about how well it works; but maintenance costs & frictional losses. The cable drive seems especially vulnerable to failure.
At first glance, the connection of the vertical blades to the horizontal cable/track looks to be a weak point. The top of the blades is likely to be in a stronger wind, than the bottom, so there will be some vertical wobbling/torque. The longer the oval track is, the more friction there will be. And this system will have a lot more drag - I can't picture it "coasting" very well. And one side of the oval will be in the "shadow" of the other side. Edit: how should the oval be oriented? What happens when the wind shifts direction?
Yes. I like more the cable system from the predecessors he showed. The rail idea is just dumb to me.
Well, they can use circles instead of ovals. And they can replace the track with a mast. Oh wait...
To ship just one 56.9-meter blade by truck five hundred miles costs over $10,000 or $30k per turbine and that doesn't include the tower or Nacelle so even if they only meet half their stated goal this is a Game changer. Plus, farmers can plow right under them.
Ski lift is probably relative influence source and likely the optimal location for this specific wind energy extraction method, make give it pneumatic elevation changers
I hope this sort of thing works, I love when people come up with something different, even if it fails the idea might feed to something else and better
There is a 300MW wind farm, just a few miles from my home; I think they are beautiful. I've visited it a number of times and I really don't understand the fuss about noise. To me, the awe at realising, just one turbine, supplies 1000 homes, a decent sized village, with all the electricity they use annually. 'Twirl, baby, Twirl.'
I conceptualized this idea 30 years ago. Only my idea was on a larger scale, use railroad tracks and flatbed rail cars with huge semi ridged and retractable sails. It idea could actually be built on barges out on the sea as well.
Nobody would allow cheap energy. Read my article "Energy revolution, DIY"
is there maybe a friction loss problem? the one central ax. vs a track that needs a lot of lubricants and still will lose momentum.
Only thing I see is so many moving parts. I’d like to see a long term test. I have several customers who work on tower wind turbines and they break constantly so with way more moving parts I’m skeptical they can make it reliable.
That would be my concern as well.
I hope Matt make Channel 'Decided'
it's good to see you being more reserved when it comes to the claims of new energy companies
Makes sense to try it in Wyoming. It’s one of the windiest state in the US with few trees to get in the way of a low-to-the-ground device
I come to Matt's videos for new puns😚
It's nice to see a company putting a new spin on wind turbines. Hopefully, laying it sideways is an improvement, and not just a lateral move.
Couple of notes: onshore wind power (and offshore wind power is hot on its heels) is one of the cheapest forms of electricity. You can’t “side step” the issue of height. Wind speed inevitably increases with height and wind power is proportional to the cube of wind speed. I’d like to see a working prototype at, say 100kW. I think there would be some pretty difficult issues to do with side loading and flapping or instability of blades. Also, I think each installation would have to be made as a bespoke item to take account of rolling ground, trees etc, while you can stick a wind turbine wherever is convenient.
This is essentially like a squirrel cage fan design but just implemented differently. If you can set it up so the long side faces dominant winds I could see it having an advantage over simply using a round design the same size. Seems like lot of moving parts to worry about though, like the track system etc.
nonsense
I wish there was more emphasis on energy storage. Everyone is so interested in clean energy creation but little is said about storage. Electricity is easy to make but that is useless if it is not there when needed. Every solar/wind energy fan I know quickly changes the subject when storage comes up, there is this thought that there is this big storage battery that will solve all the problems.
I had a similar idea of using tracks with a cyclogyro design, but it still needed a central hub for the articulating mechanisms and didn't scale up well. Wish I had thought of trying this.
Absolutely, moving the parts of a HAWT are troublesome because of their sheer size. While driving cross country I was once stuck for an hour behind a single blade on the back of a semi trying to negotiate a sharp turn. Then of course once they reach end of life and have to be dissembled what to do with the parts becomes an issue.
Sail boat principals... on a track, Idk, may be possible. Constantly adjusting the blade pitch to be the right 45 degrees to the oncoming air sounds like more maintenance
What about wind blimps? A blimp way up on the air with the generator in the middle and the cable that connects it to the ground transports the electricity? Also they stay in the air 24/7
I find that wind very rarely travels the path depicted, I still don’t see how this can be made viable, but it’s some very outside the box type thinking, and I’m glad you shared it. If you make more videos about this, could you describe how it works? Because the information presented is akin to “free energy generators”, all the “how good it is” but none of the “how it works”. Also the height of standard wind turbine head is to tap into the wind gradient where higher altitude results in stronger winds available. Maybe this still sounds rude, but this is my 3rd edit where I tried really hard to be polite and helpful.😂
Hey Matt, any chance we could get an update video on one (or more) of your older Undecided videos with information on how the idea/invention/technology/company panned out?
To subcepital to dust and debree. Clogging up the tracks. Bringing it to a grinding hault. Remembering those old sliding screen doors. 😂
that dose not stop 200 mi. train
The one thing, it being in Wyoming, I wonder how snow sticking to the blades and slowing or stopping the system. It will be interesting to see the results.
If it works that can build a track go and cross the great Wyoming Tundra. Just put a couple seats on! °~•.☆.•~°
As soon as I saw it I instantly thought of the 80s clothesline style. I was hanging out laundry and my fiancé who never had a clothesline, asked why not in the dryer? I told him I could have my clothes dryer faster with no electricity if I put it out for 45 minutes. It’s a great warm windy day. Please do a video of other turbines. I’ve been looking for something for two years
i wonder if they besides being modular, could also be stackable, if they're as efficient as the claims, then stacking them would save on land use as well.
Ok that incogni segue really got me this time, seamless, nice!
I saw a whole bunch of wind turbines in Costa Rica from giants owned by the electric company, but there are lots more smaller ones that are privately owned. Some use the electricity themselves and others sell it to the grid. Most of the ones I saw were concentrated in a specific area in the mountains where it's generally windy.
My concept was to basically have a wire grid with lots of fans fixed onto it. No single point of failure, but a lot more electrics needed to add up the voltages together. Hopefully funnel the wind in with well planted conifers. As others have mentioned something like this gets much more cost effective with efficient funneling, so slow wind speeds are boosted. i.e. work on increasing the wind capture area, but it needs people who understand aerodynamics, and can rapid prototype using a wind tunnel, which isn't exactly cheap. Computer modelling sounds great but far too easy to waste time, just looking busy.
Cable rotation failure is my guess on the number 1 problem. Especially with dust/salt/ice etc. I hope it works!
"Airloom" has already achieved success. The point was to get funding. Funding secured, it'll now fade away.
You nailed it. It is one of these bogus new idea used to attract venture capital. Directors will pay themself handsomely even though... it does not have a chance to work.
I can see this as a better answer for farming as it can be above and not impact growing below like other options. Solar panels are taking too much land out of production in the East and Midwest for a lot of folks comfort. Also depending on cost, would it be a small solution for off grid living in areas that can meet it's requirements? Thinking like West Texas where they do grow hay or run cattle? And if not off grid would it be useful for micro grids in small town areas of unobstructed winds? The more we can cut down on long distance grids the better off we will be in the long run. Like you said though the track maintenance is a real question. I guess time will tell.
On the NIMBY topic: I have my doubts on how quiet a system with 100 rollers on rails can be. NIMBYS (and regulations, at least in Germany) may currently be more concerned with the height of wind turbines as the main factor determining their impact on residential areas (which is currently accurate: the higher a wind turbine is, the further its noise can travel unimpeded and the louder the noise will usually be in the first place). The company _might_ get the quietness of the rail+rollers system down (at lest initially), and the low height might allow them to _bypass_ current regulations. But it won't be long before the system starts suffering from wear and the noise levels increase (if it _was_ ever lower than a horizontal axis wind turbine in the first place.) And legislation will eventually catch up. The only way how you could really benefit from the low height in terms of the distance that noise travels is if you installed this system in a dip or surrounded by a berm - which runs completely counter to getting out of the way of ground turbulence.
"N-Y-M-B-Y Resistant" is a great term for countering the short-sightedness you mentioned.
Thanks for keeping the video down to earth from the very beginning. I hate to get pumped up until the "however" comes. I really hope their calculations are sound and the system works, specially from an environmental standpoint, but, even if it does, it'll probably take some years until it reaches industrial development.
It's possible that this is a work-around for the blade length problem of maximizing swept area, but I don't see the short towers as a viable path here. You can't get around the lower wind speeds/higher turbulance problems of short towers. I'm also concerned about the potential differential loading of wind shear on the multiple towers involved: those on the leading edge will experience more shear than those on the trailing edge. That's going to cause the track to flex and warp. It's almost certainly a solvable problem, but how expensive will it be to solve? Also, the oval shape feels like magic sauce to me. Even if we assume that there is something to it, it's got to be relative to the direction of the wind. Are they going to rotate the oval with respect to the wind direction? That would be tough to say the least with the tower setup they have.
One needs to define one's words and word definitions of wind turbine. Wind mills are a vertically based fan operation facing their "O" blades into all of the various (and moving) wind directions for wind propulsion of the blades. The design as shown here is not a "O" shape but a flattened elliptical on the ground. This is a fixed compass direction in which you need this device to have a constant (and fixed) wind direction in that elliptic. If the wind comes at this device on its sides, as shown, then you only have the small elliptical-circular ends of this design working against the greater majority of the whole unused (and blocked) portions of the device. If they were to truly do this design, then one must have a true circular design on the ground so that all wind compass directions are accounted for. This also means that the down wind blades of the device have proper movement, but that the connected upwind portion of the blades - must be designed to slip-stream through the wind (no wind friction drag) , and the 2 smaller opposing lengths of the upwind and downwind traversing blades must also be slipstreamed and no drag coefficient. The design is unique, but installing a vertical helical or a spiral wind turbine one has a smaller footprint, there is no great wind friction and drag on the downwind blades restricting its spinning motion. As said, if one can make a circular design, where the upwind and downwind broadsides have no drag, and the same for the upwind blades, then one can have a viable working design. One also needs to account for the moving cabling system across the 2 (shown) generators, with maximum wind velocity and minimum generator resistance in creating this energy. If instead one is able to have an electromagnetic generator, using magnets stroking a separate wiring and charging system - one has removed any mechanical friction on the wind cabling system. In doing this design (my consulting fee is $1000/hour ...) if you have a complete magnetic cabling system working an entire "0" separate wiring that gets charged, one could have a frictionless system for charging the wire, and the (hopefully) frictionless cabling-and-wind blade system provides the maximum energy creation. Also one needs to have the proberbial rooster-wind-compass-on-the-barn system, so that an electronic monitoring system knows in what compass direction the wind is coming from. One then needs to alter the wind blades to maximize this company direction, while turning away the other 3/4 portions of the wind blades to be non-wind resistive. So one needs to have an entire wind blade alignment and wind compass direction, and one can then have total 360 degree wind capture mechanism.
Crazy idea. Sounds actually fantastic if it can be made reliably & at scale.. The disk area scaling problem is definitely one of the worst issues with wind turbines, and also propellers & jet engines as well.. Linear systems are so difficult to build but if successful the results really are worth it..
Правильно говорите. Только эти конструкции делали ещё в начале 2000 годов а может и раньше. Размещали их на плоских крышах домов. Тогда от них отказались в замен более эффективным.