A Different Kind of Wind Power: Damon Vander Lind at TEDxEmbryRiddle

[@andrewada]

This format has huge potential. On ships, on the top of mountains, off shore...and nearly anywhere. Conventional wind systems cannot compete with it. Great stuff.

[@JackSparrow-jx9cd]

Interesting...but I have a question about your kite system...how much energy/power/electricity does the kite system produce in 15 min.?

[@nomadicsprites6917]

I'd be interested in seeing small systems like this for sailing ships and camp sites. I think small scale would be cool..

[@Argrouk]

So to combat inefficient blades with large bearings on a sturdy base, you make a small model, that when scaled up will require smaller inefficient blades on powerful bearings, tethered to a very sturdy base... but you're going to wave it around? Someone didn't do their thinking/maths properly at an early stage. The larger it gets, the harder it is going to be to launch, the smaller the window of useable wind. It will need a stronger and stronger cable, and require more power for hover and return modes. It has a much larger hazardous air space requirement, which could have a much larger bird strike impact both on the technology and the ecosystem.... I could go on. The reason for all of the heavy equipment holding up the small bit that does all of the work in a conventional design, is that it is needed to make it both useful and safe, as you have just found out at great expense. What happens when a cable snaps?

[@BradLaCroix]

The propellers convert the wind energy to power. Spinning in loops is what feeds the propellers more wind energy.

[@reduceelectricusage]

great video.. I would want to try and use this different kind of wind power and see whats the big difference from the other wind power..

[@albertrogers8537]

There's no difference in the behaviour of the wind, and besides, you couldn't drive a ship with it.

[@jerryfrugoli3339]

My friends you’re doing a wonderful job! Very well done on this video technically. Might want to get the speaker to visit some Toastmasters meetings

[@cujoemblakka1041]

How does this make use of the power that's in the air, asstatic electricity? Working with nature, will yield greater results.

[@poknatinpokkers5289]

I'm assuming this uses carbon brushes for electric current to pass through pivot points. of it doesn't have that, the wire or cable could twist so much and do some plastic damage to itself. that said, i can imagine replacing carbon brushes on the wing and the tether itself and think about the expense this accumulates...

[@poknatinpokkers5289]

id like to be correct on this by the team...?

[@johnhopkins6260]

um... Why don't common commercial-scale wind turbines have wingtip canards? (that "harvest" wing tip turbulence?)

[@johnhopkins6260]

um.. also why not photovoltaics on the turbine wing surfaces?

[@Chazz155511]

We are all brilliant aren't we? Why don't the people that have studied fluid mechanics for years, or better yet made it their careers, listen to people who know nothing about those things in the youtube comments?

[@vincentrobinette1507]

you need to maintain clearance between the blade tips and the tower. Canards, would take up that clearance, unless the tips faced away from the tower. That could cause flutter, and instability. Both huge enemies of turbine blades.

[@vincentrobinette1507]

@@johnhopkins6260 They may as well: it won't add much weight.

[@douglaswilliams8625]

a gravity harness (underwater wheel) uses no fuel and can produce on demand all the electricity you want totally free

[@zordeel]

Go thorium!

[@user-vq4mt4zd4e]

great content thanks

[@airplane800]

They never show the audience. Being a Embry-Riddle alumnus I noticed that students don't show up for those lectures. Many times I saw amazing special guests going on campus to give a lecture and only 20 or 30 people in the audience. Sometimes professors need to make mandatory to go so you wouldn't have an audience at all.

[@andrewada]

A cheaper non-generation version could provide mobile storm protection, by creating a wind-shadow. Knock 50km/h off the peak wind speed over a sensitive structure, during a storm, and the peak forces are drastically reduced.

[@PianoKorber]

7:04 WHOOPS! HAHA He was probably not allowed to say that, he might have pooped in his pants a little, thinking about his boss having a little talk with him later...

[@wktodd]

what is the relative mass of the tips of your flying turbine compared to the infrastructue to make use of it ?

[@doctormcgoveran2194]

It seems to be a very expensive tower with a tiny tiny power out put.

[@joseperez2515]

Interesting but, what happens if you need more than one kite up there? I can see them tangled up and crashing to the ground.

[@albertrogers8537]

It makes not the slightest difference how you use it, the wind is capricious, it is fickle, it is intermittent, its pettern of occurrence is a random walk. If you cannot depend upon an electrical energy resource on the grid, you must provide against the rate at which it might disappear. You must do so with dispatchable resources, which means generators that within periods of time that are not large compared with one cycle of a 60 Hz grid's voltage, can be brought on line to provide the demanded, or "missing" power. There are people who tell you that the cost of energy storage is coming down. Look it up and estimate what just one gigawatt_week would cost, capable of delivering one gigawatt of power.

[@YodaWhat]

Albert Rogers -- Tsk, tsk, such negativity. Is that a _strawman argument,_ or did you just contradict yourself? Let me straighten you out... Providing backup Power for short-term variations does not require a massive amount of stored Energy. Long-term variations in power leave long times to bring online those back-up systems which are good for that kind of load. Also, quite apart from the usual wind variations you were probably thinking about, this kind of flying system will operate at high altitudes where the wind is much stronger and more constant. When widely deployed, some of them will always be in some windy place. When wind power is in excess of need and/or beyond what their local grid can accept, water can be electrolyzed and the hydrogen put into the natural gas pipeline network, or used to synthesize zero-net emission hydrocarbons with CO2 from the atmosphere. Heck, these flying powerplants can even carry wireless communication equipment to augment and back-up the terrestrial communications networks, and do so at far lower cost than commsats in space.

[@JacopoCastellano]

Is it possible to find test results about power generation??

[@rstevewarmorycom]

Jacapo Castellano The only "test" you need is the cost of wind energy right now in Texas, 3 cents a kWatt-hr, cheaper than COAL!!!

[@Muehlenbauer]

@@rstevewarmorycom Yeah, but unreliable.

[@rstevewarmorycom]

@@Muehlenbauer No, that's the lifetime cost of maintenance TOO!

[@calvingreene90]

The problem with wind energy is that they keep trying to be base load power and wind is not suitable for that. If they lifted water or compressed air and then generated peak load electricity from that they could generate clean current and make the money to pay for the system without cash subsidies. Fossil fuel get reduced taxes to reduce consumer costs and it is called a subsidy.

[@aravinth007vt]

but how much energy is being generated from this? I didn't that point...

[@truefiasco2637]

you don't generate money instantly from R&D lol!

[@capoman1]

I didn't understand the presentation; I don't understand how this thing extracts power.

[@LupusMechanicus]

+capoman1 The fan blades brake against the wind generating power. The glider/kite is moving at around 150 miles an hour making the blades spin extremely fast.

[@Brainbuster]

Also, the electricity generated from the turbines goes down the string that holds the kite down.

[@MurgoTV]

It saddens me that there is not a single word here said about the power output, or even the possible power output...

[@Heavypsychoverdose]

don't forget tidal and geothermal energy

[@albertrogers8537]

Nobody knows tides better than Lord Kelvin, then merely Sir William Thomson, did when he built analogue machines to predict the tides in quite a fair number of places in Britain, but as to energy from them he expressed the belief that it wasn't worth the rental of the land you'd have to use to get it. Geothermal is different, if you are near enough the Ring of Fire. I cannot understand why Hawai'i bothers with the unpredictable, undispatchable wind.

[@billblass2]

Really cool!

[@pieteri.duplessis]

Great stuff.

[@RichardKingADI]

Who would have guessed you could get power from a wind 'turban'!

[@MrPDawes]

You should be able to make gigawatts from a field full of Indians then.

[@BoDiddly]

What about the problem of the tether twisting up?

[@YodaWhat]

Bo Diddly -- The tethered airplane can fly figure-eight patterns, which prevents any accumulated twisting of the wire.

[@williamjamesLMT]

A Wire Tether swinging through the Earth's Magnet field will yield a current. That will go where?????? To draw down static electricity and lightening from the clouds and blow up everything around! Remember the Shuttle tether that did the same thing and created so much current it fried and snapped the tether?? Yea???...NO!!!

[@charron1]

Million dollar question how much power it generates? what is the cost/kwh

[@wildwildben]

using turbans and flying carpets to generate energy

[@felipebatista2484]

can one of your prototype produce 50kw?

[@Muehlenbauer]

Probably not, at least I assume that.

[@Muehlenbauer]

It's just that hydropower is superior to wind.

[@rgaleny]

add a delta wing design make from parachute cloth

[@tedrees5989]

It takes up a LOT of air space. Isn't that a BIG negative?

[@amogorkon]

Not if you have it offshore where nothing needs that space..

[@rstevewarmorycom]

Ted Rees The Washington Post Could wind power ever meet the world’s energy needs? By Brad Plumer September 10, 2012 At the moment, wind power supplies about 4.1 percent of electric power in the United States. Still a bit player. Yet there's a whole lot of untapped wind left in the world. Wind whipping through the Great Plains. Wind gusting off the shores. Wind circulating high up in the sky. So what would happen if we tried to harvest all of that wind? We'd have enough energy to power the world. At least in theory. A new study published this week in Nature Climate Change finds that there's enough wind potential both on the Earth's surface and up in the atmosphere to power human civilization 100 times over. Right now, humans use about 18 terawatts of power worldwide. And, technically, the study found, we could extract about 400 terawatts of wind power from the Earth's surface and 1,800 terawatts of power from the upper atmosphere. This isn't what's likely - just what's possible. As Kate Marvel, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, explains, this paper mainly looks at wind power's maximum potential. "We were looking at the geophysical limits of what the Earth could handle," Marvel says. "We didn't necessarily restrict our study to what was feasible." (Marvel coauthored the study with Ken Caldeira and Ben Kravitz of the Carnegie Institution for Science.)

[@katrivers1489]

What am I thinking! For the record the law energy can not be created or destroyed but simply changes form is wrong. That means there is no such thing as an energy shortage. Just greedy people creating shortages to drive the cost up. I know 2 physicists who would back that statement.

[@poknatinpokkers5289]

y challenge thermodynamics now? i think ur talking in the quantum level, not real world macro physics.

[@dsouzand]

this is cool but seems overly complicated

[@rstevewarmorycom]

dsouzand Okay, we'll just turn your power off then when we run out of oil.

[@reibass]

and Airplanes equiped with some kind Turbine-generator on wings, closer to engine, to cover the electricity consumption and charge the batteris.

[@gabydewilde]

I'm most curious about that long wire.

[@timelsen2236]

It's 2 wires sending power captured to batteries on earth, in the final system anyway.

[@midnightwatchman1]

looks too complicated what about using airships instead

[@apagoogoo]

why not cover the thing in solar panels too?

[@YodaWhat]

apagoogoo -- These powerplanes are meant to fly at high altitude, above most clouds and even into the jet streams, because the strongest and most constant winds are there. It's not that helpful to add weight and complexity to them, when they will tap into wind energy far more concentrated than solar energy, with no downtime for night.

[@lcloverviewman5755]

@@YodaWhat If they fly that high, how do they manage the tether?

[@Mekinhumbel]

@@lcloverviewman5755 Funny, no answer to that question...I was wondering the same thing.

[@killyourtelllievision]

A team with a Yellow Lab must be a GREAT team!

[@jhendricks203]

I learned how to fly a kite when I was 10 yrs old.

[@doctormcgoveran2194]

It only takes a thousnad acres to light a litght bulb

[@wisikahn]

Wind Power? Nah, got to go to Thorium Neclear Fusion is the way to go..

[@randomaxe662]

Does anyone care about birds interacting with wind-power "harvesting" methods like this?

[@alanmathews9833]

Which app has he used for presentation??????

[@maracachucho8701]

paint

[@MarkAhrens-HeritageFilms]

Wind power, the cheapest form of renewable energy. Unless the subsidies are removed? Are you seriously in science and engineering?

[@MassDynamic]

will this shred the birds or nah?

[@YodaWhat]

MassDynamic -- Mostly these powerplanes will fly higher than birds, even into the Jet Streams, where winds are fastest. Birds do not fly that high, except for very rare cases where they happen to migrate through high mountain passes, like in the Himalayas.

[@amogorkon]

They also can be installed en mass in the ocean away from the coast, where few birds ever go.

[@neddyladdy]

That means that the turbine will be at the end of its tether.

[@musikSkool]

We will just make taller windmills.

[@egorbiletskiy2950]

You need to make some changes. Check Avasva Solutions if you want to make it right.

[@katrivers1489]

2013? Really? Use the landscape man. My block at the bottom of a hill every time the wind kicked up we practically had to bolt down the trees. Create the landscape.

[@vimalk8923]

why not simply use a helium balloon to raise it ?

[@vimalk8923]

but their approach is indeed ingenious and provides better control

[@kimbal1958]

Sorry to be a wet blanket on your research - but not a very practical system - way too complex ( over-engineered ) - and looks like something off the Wright Brothers airfield, back in 1910. Just an excuse to keep University Academics in a job playing with model aeroplanes. Sorry Uni folk as much as I love you guys, you always do things the hard way. A better and simpler wind generators work with 44 gallon drums cut in half lengthways fitted to vertical mount drive shaft generators so no swivel is required on the "blades"( 2x 44 gallon drum shells ). Generator/s made from Fisher & Pakel washing machine motors at 1kw output for each motor minimum. Also the newer TURBY design has proven to be very good, used in Europe, running at low wind speeds and very low altitudes. As no maths or test results were shown - I fail to believe your design is superior.

[@lawrencesmallman]

Turbine. Not turban.

[@owenprince4823]

When a person can not speak proper english they lose credibility because if they don't get something a simple as turban is a hat and a Turbine is for creating torque then how can they understand something as complicated as power from the wind. This can not make enough power to drive anything so is just a toy.

[@rgaleny]

piggy back it on a drone

[@How2RC]

Uh, UM, UH,UM That is all I can hear...

[@plejaren1]

I hate that myself.

[@johndickie8085]

Those sounds we make filling the large silences we hear in speaking. Are NOT necessary. The pauses are NOT long to the audience. Don't waste your time with UM etc. Concentrate on the phrase . No one will notice the pause. And they can concentrate on what you are saying. It even sounds better in your head... Good Luck.

[@ytl01]

by 12:14 got thoroughly bored,and off to new pastures.

[@user-xg6zz8qs3q]

Turbans? What?

[@senortroncoso1898]

Se le ha olvidado el boli en la oreja.

[@joejoe2928]

HE IS WRONG. ........FULL STOP.....IT. IS FINISHED !!! MAN IS A SPIRIT IN A MATERIAL BODY ....

[@Sheeshening]

This produces irrelevant amounts of power

[@rstevewarmorycom]

Sheesh No, they produce a kiloWatt continuous for each 3 cents invested in them. THAT'S CHEAPER THAN COAL!!!!!

[@valgeir80]

stop saying "um" and "uh"

[@stap0510]

valgeir80 He is nervous. You would be too.

[@relentlessmadman]

um ok uh!

[@josephomole6404]

I started noticing it as soon as I read ur comment

[@joshuaewalker]

Not as bad as people who say "right?" after every sentence. (See: The Young Turks)

[@aler13CR]

This company was bought by Google.

[@JMRreesesKILLA]

Um

[@correomacv]

I do not like combustion.

[@doctormcgoveran2194]

I have seen worse ideas and philosophy in play but it has been a long time. utility scale? nope won't do it.the air is to thin for a device that size.

[@bugs181]

Poor presentation distracts away from any reasonably good ideas. Too difficult to watch and/or listen to.

[@suereed]

Give the guy a break, I was pretty captivated in this rather radical idea. Good effort in different thinking from a seemingly great bunch of people.

[@knugs1991]

EHM -.-

[@relentlessmadman]

presentation much to long and not very informative!

[@robertjones2134]

I have a better system that uses sails. Much simpler than this nonsense!

[@WolfeSandy]

How will you solve the problem that these are electromechanical and by nature have moving parts that will battle the wind? How will you solve the problems of friction and dirty electricity and sporadic output? Once again people will look out at the mess on the horizon and wonder where they will get their power and how they will clean up all that broken hardware. Meanwhile, the output from these will have killed people and someone(s) will have used nefarious means and corrupted someone else to put these up and to cover up the huge problems and death. Where are the actual improvements when all it looks like here are that the problems have taken on a new face and the poison has taken on a new frequency? I'm not just badgering, I really want to know, because I am watching people and animals and land die here, and you are working to perpetuate that. If you want clean energy start with the concept and reverse engineer. Do not take something that by nature disrupts and wears solidity down and then pump it into life's very core, disrupting and wearing life down. Start with the desired frequency from a source that is actually clean. There is more to say on this. Do not cover up problems by making them look different. Each and every engineer that continues to push wind looks blind to physics and the fundamental issues of power generation and transmission in a world in which that very power is, in theory, intended to support life, not destroy it. Whether we like it or not we do have certain constraints if we are going to even make a small effort to support the world we live in.

[@stir_stick]

Anyone can find problems, the trick is finding solutions. That is what they are trying to to. You are perfectly content to criticize him while you use dirty depleting power sources? Seems foolish to me.

[@WolfeSandy]

T Yomama What is foolish is thinking wind power is green or free. 'Dirty' fuel consumption goes up when industrial wind turbines are added to the portfolio. Pollution is horrendous within miles of industrial wind turbines. You are wasting your time if you call me a liar or something of that tone about that; I live among them now. We have a destructive electric field in the ground now that is killing the burrowing animals - industrial wind turbines are deadly to life in general, and who will be next? You did not read my entire post. My suggestions were valid. However, here is an excellent suggestion - don't be so quick to call coal dirty and don't be so quick to throw away what does work. Before you criticize people like me ask yourself "what if they are right"? We have already asked ourselves that about your opinion, so we have one up on you. We all came into this being taught 'wind is green'. So, ask me some real questions. That is the way you and I will communicate, because right now you simply appear to be one of the people destroying other people's lives for too high a cost for something that hasn't and still doesn't produce the real power everyone needs. Land is a finite resource. Industrial wind turbines use enormous quantities of land and poison that land in the process. Would a re-engineering of the wind turbine techniques take into account the waste of land, the pollution produced by the technology or the destruction from the grounding of the chaos wind energy produces? There are a lot of missing pieces right now. Viable solutions are being cast to the wind (literally). That is why I recommend looking at the whole puzzle from new angles - perhaps more PhDs and more thinking and a little less breaking people's backs with bad ideas.

[@WolfeSandy]

T Yomama One more thing. Do you really think you are benefiting from the wind industry? Your comments are belittling the very real problems with wind energy and the way that wind industry diverts from what needs to get done.

[@stir_stick]

+WolfeSandy I am not an ignorant tree hugger... In fact my income is derived purely from oil production. I work for an oil company. I realize that there are issues with wind power but I have , as an electrician, worked in lots of power generation plants in my past in construction, they are non-renewable dirty power. I am sorry that you were lied to by corrupt slick salesman that had your neighborhood convinced that these would be OK to have around you, but wind, solar, hydro (via rivers or tides) power have to be researched. I question your line about dead burrowing animals... They may have moved on due to noise and vibration but there is no way these mills are energizing your ground. You sound plainly ignorant there. Aside from that I have no doubt they are a hateful thing to live under. I simply questioned you on solutions. To say "find a solution and reverse-engineer" is a joke. What is the solution?

[@stir_stick]

+WolfeSandy one more thing from me also, we are burning around 95 million barrels of oil PER DAY... we need to find alternatives. We need to dramatically increase clean renewable energy production, and equally decrease inefficient usage. We need major breakthroughs in all aspects, how we are living now is not sustainable.