Breakthrough Tech Solves Wind Power's BIGGEST Problem!

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

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[@peterlang777]

use graphene hematene water powered batteries

[@romado59]

So, how much to buy the HydroWind? Or, is they just clickbait ads?

[@user-tp5yb4hr4w]

vertical turbines make the most sense because they will take the wind from any direction, the other ones will only take the wind from one direction. but here is the major issue, we are storing this electricity with batteries, the batteries we are using currently have a 2 to 3 years of cycles and they will get more expensive as the resources to create these batteries are nearly depleting and the process has become more expensive than what it used to be. so your car may be getting power from green energy, but your battery on your car will only become more expensive to replace, even Elon Musk has admitted this, he says our current batteries are not good and we need a much better alternative, but other alternatives exist in the form of hydrogen, hydrogen has infinite cycles because your just using gas and the resource is plentiful, it's literally in everything on earth. yes you lose some of that power creating the stuff, but that's just a small part of the process for this endless fuel.

[@DarkOkie]

Funny how this is talked about today but we made this in Australia 18 years ago.... Wonder how much they paid our government for the designs and patients they sold from our company!? i can tell you the flaws in their design and how we planned to fix it! What a joke that something we build to save the world decades ago is still not mass adopted!

[@I86282]

Well they're getting close. But no cigar.!

[@plebiansociety]

As someone who worked in maintenance on offshore rigs, I give absolutely zero trust in something that depends on moving parts underwater. Saltwater, biological damage, electrochemical corrosion, erosion, mud intrusion, tidal surge, the list of things that can damage moving materials underwater is too long to list. There's a reason there's no old submarines in service, why ships have to be pulled out every few years. You'd have more reliability if you designed a machine that hits itself with a sledgehammer every hour.

[@plebiansociety]

I hate to reply to my own comment, but this is probably the least efficient way to generate power with mechanical generation also. It would be more efficient to lift and drop a giant turbine, that way you're generating on the lift and the drop, or just put it on a giant above water tank and mechanically pump and release water into hydroelectric generator storage, timing the pump and release with the tides would even make it more efficient and you have the same energy storage without water turbulence losses.

[@CHIEF_420]

🧂

[@Karagoth444]

Thank you for your perspective. I was thinking of floating offshore oil rigs to what degree they need to deal with it. Though they will have a few anchors that require maintenance, while generating stupid amounts of money, so even high maintenance will be worth it.

[@madcow3417]

I was thinking of different variations on the same concept. Use a wind-powered pump to push water up a hydro-electric dam. Lift a weight up and down a giant tower, no water involved. Dig a deep hole and lift a weight up and down the hole. I'm wondering what your take is on wave powered generation, since those seem to all involve moving parts in the ocean.

[@crinolynneendymion8755]

@@plebiansociety I hate to state the obvious but while I was prepared to listen to you based on your offshore rig experience, you lost all credibility with the post. If you can't or won't do the calculations, you're just being yet another emotional luddite.

[@jessemillemaci4107]

The best part is no part. Placing all those mechanical parts in a sea environment does not look like a good idea. Maintenance requirements would be high, which is already something that conventional wind turbines are trying to reduce because offshore maintence is a costly process (and offshore underwater maintenance would be even costlier!)

[@magnetospin]

That's a good point, due to the corrosive nature of sea water, having moving parts underwater will probably be a maintenance nightmare.

[@wombatillo]

I can only think about ocean water corrosion and biofouling of the cables and wheels. I bet that in 24 months nothing moves anymore. Gravitational potential energy is also ruthless in how little energy it holds in any kind of realistic weights. Even a 1000 metric ton weight hanging in air from 1 km high holds only about 10 GJ of potential energy. Not considering reduction of efficiency due to buoyancy issues, discharge that energy in one hour, and you get 2,7 MW of power for one hour. Sounds great but considering the amount of materials and hardware needed I don't know how this will work out. Sure the oceans are deep but corrosion and biofouling would necessitate the use of 316L stainless steel rope or polymer rope. A kilometer of two inch fiber core steel wire rope weighs around 10 tonnes and has a safe loading capacity of 30 tonnes. The length of rope you would need to hang even one 1000 ton load from one turbine float is quite considerable. I would call this anything but a huge breakthrough. Build a one quarter scale prototype that works in 500 meters of open ocean water, operate it for a year and then get back to us with the results.

[@davefoc]

It was a surprise to me, but off shore wind farms despite their larger size and greater output actually cost more on a per kilowatt hour basis than on shore wind farms. because of the higher maintenance costs for off shore wind farms.

[@richierich252]

Very good point. I'm all for renewable energy. We are not there yet. windmills are good, but not in a big scale. For a homes ok, industrial not so much. Windmills on the water🤔 Before windmills was killing birds next fish too. When the windmills break down they'll probably just let it sink, These big industries don't care.

[@fritt_wastaken]

Also, buoyancy and viscosity of water wouldn't allow for this "battery" to be anything near to cost or energy efficient. Those things don't even work effectively on land, why would they work underwater. To me it seems like another really poorly thought out tech made by graphical designers rather than engineers.

[@michiganengineer8621]

The weakest part of their design seems to be their "energy storage" device. I'm ex-Navy, so I KNOW how corrosive a salt-water environment is going to be to all of those exposed moving parts. I vaguely recall a similar idea that seems more feasible, using compressed air as the energy storage medium.

[@jonjohns8145]

Yes, I recall an inflatable bladder under water that gets pumped full of air to charge and is deflated when discharged. But question: would any moving parts in these VAWTs be somehow any more susceptible than moving parts already on HAWTs? wouldn't they just use the same type of devices and material?

[@michiganengineer8621]

@@jonjohns8145 They're a LOT closer to the salt water and spray than the HAWTs. Remember the normal turbines have to be mounted high enough so the blade tips can't be caught by a big wave at high tide. It looked like the VAWT is designed to be mounted on essentially a big raft.

[@voster77hh]

No wind turbine expert of any certification auditor would even consider to give this designs power curve any review. This even fails on paper unless you are an absolute fool not even checking the most fundamental basics in wind enrgy biz. Let's be clear any fundor bank seeking to invest in a wind farm is asking for a valid power curve certificate from an shipping / oil&gas auditor as a mandatory step of their due dilligence process. There is no improvements over existing better HAWT designs. The auditor would flat out refuse to waste lab days and simple wirte a single page of nah. This is clearly dismal in like 20 days of operation out of 365. Where a HAWT has 350 out of 365 days to generate revenue and turn a profit. This is just pump & dump influencer marketing. That's just The Wolf Of Wallstreet Aerotyne technology sales spin. That stuff above the waterline would not even crank that weight from the ground in 11 out of 12 month. Agreed, after 11 month muck & sealife would have it permanently stuck on the seafloor and created an artificial reef. An expensive but not terribly scenic place for seagulls to create guano fertilizer.

[@voster77hh]

@@jonjohns8145 compressed air storage has terrible efficiency. Any flywheel, battery or chemical storage does better.

[@jonathanrabbitt]

@@michiganengineer8621 This. And the splash-zone is a hellish environment.

[@macrumpton]

A few major disadvantages that I see are first, moving parts underwater are famously unreliable, and second the wind speed rises substantially with getting higher off the water. So these turbines will get much less power from the wind as they are low to the water. Finally, having moving blades just a couple of meters off the water will be a huge problem in rough weather, and even in calmer weather the salt spray will compromise any moving element.

[@steveperreira5850]

Way too many moving parts, and especially they are underwater, and complicated. The eggbeaters will make great fish habitat when they sink, and that is A certainty

[@Randrew]

Don't trust their CGI for scale. The animated "waves" make the turbines look tiny. But there are all sorts of other issues - moving parts in sea water being a big one that others here have already mentioned. Another limitation, sparked by your rough weather comment, is storm waves - even mild ones. Since the turbines float on the surface but are de-facto tethered to the sea floor by their "battery" mechanism, any substantial waves or storm surge are likely to disturb, submerge or even topple the floating platform. They could try to use adaptive tether length using high speed winches to pay-in/out their tethers to allow riding the waves, but now we're talking about even more complexity on at least a couple of fronts - Electromechanical systems to operate the winches in time with waves at the very least, plus eating up their own power output just to stay on the surface. Of course they could actually design it to NOT have to "float" directly on the surface... but that's what their "only exists in CGI" shows us. Which tells me their idea IS NOT at "level 6" as Guy Undoubtedly Looking For Money said. They're at the "played with shiat in the shop and paid for some animations" phase.

[@jeffbrunswick5511]

In their simulation, it is windy, yet the water is calm.......

[@DunnickFayuro]

Moving parts can be inserted in a tube. No sea water exposure required.

[@Randrew]

@@DunnickFayuro a tube full of air, perhaps? A very buoyant tube trying to rip the whole to the surface?

[@aeonturnip2]

Moving parts (pulleys, cables etc) in seawater... Sounds like a maintenance nightmare.

[@douglee2438]

Barnacles alone will be a nightmare. Seriously the cable will become fowled with them in no time.

[@matpegheata]

It's the same smart ppl that came up with the pilars that go up and down for power :D such a fail.

[@i_am_the_monkey_king]

@@matpegheata Was that the one they call Gravity Battery or something? Yea. That's clearly a project thought of some grade schooler. I'm surprised people even thought that'd work.

[@WSzu]

I just don't get it either. How in the world is that going to be tethered to stay in the same place?

[@Paul-bx5cb]

Someone saw the video of the energy vault and thought that it was a good idea. They took an already bad idea and now combined it with ignorance. The problem with windgenerators is that you need hight to have linear wind. Even for the vertical wind generator that is important. And being close to the water level is even worse than having trees around. Also the vertical generators are less efficient compared to horizontal generators. That is the reason why you don't tend to see them that often. And everyone who has a boat can tell you how good stuff still moves after a year or two under water. Those weights will need anti fouling coating and cleanings more often than any boat in the sea. I am not convinced that this idea will become more than an few prototypes

[@TheCountess666]

Why would they care all that much about fouling on the outside of the weight? And being less efficient doesn't have to matter all that much as long as they are cheaper. and not needing that huge shaft to the bottom of the ocean floor does save a lot of costs. Other then that, i agree with you on the energy vault comparison. The weights would need to be enormous to be of any practical use... and being in water they would need to weigh even more then on land because water is already pretty heavy.

[@mccue2439]

Wind mills can produce 1-5 MegaWatts at peak. A 2MW Vertical Mill could lift a 2.5 Million Kg weight 300 meters in 1 hour. That requires the windmill to have a floating platform that has a buoyancy of ~3 Million Kg. Given the density of water, thats a 50x50x50 ft haul. The weight would be able to store 2 MWhr of energy, which would be around 160$ worth of energy. The concrete for the weight alone would costs $340k (2200 yards at 150$/yard), 2100 trips would have to be made to pay for the concrete weight). Im going to round up and say that this system would cost $5M to store 2MWh of energy, which is $2500 per kWh. Im rounding up a lot due to cost of haul, cables, anchors, concrete. Current Lithium Ion Battery storage systems are currently around $400 per kWh. Pumped Hydro Storage costs around $120 per kWh. Anything is possible, but it seems like all of the Gravity Battery concepts just arent cost effective... gravity isnt a very strong force.

[@siral2000]

Especially when you have to take off weight for buoyancy. 10% loss for steel and 40% for concrete if I remember right.

[@surferdude4487]

I agree. Keep the wind turbine as simple as possible and put the energy storage on land where maintenance is a lot cheaper and simpler. My concept involved pumping the water out of the supporting structure and placing the gravity storage in that shaft, but somehow, I don't think that would stand up too well over time.

[@siral2000]

@@surferdude4487 The only gravity storage I've seen that works on large scale is water-based and that was freshwater. For that essentially you need to create a lake near but at a higher elevation than another lake. Preferably in rocky terrain so there's less water loss to the ground they might treat the ground but I can't remember. It's hard to find a place that works well for it. But anytime humans get involved with using water on large scales someone down the line ends up in drought. Like with the Nile River.

[@surferdude4487]

@@siral2000 Agreed. Pumped hydro is really the only large scale, gravity based energy storage system, but as the conditions where that type of installation can be built are rare, I'm more in favour of battery based power storage systems. Batteries can be placed just about anywhere and they can respond instantly to demand. IMO, storing energy by moving huge blocks of material is not going to end well.

[@siral2000]

@@surferdude4487 Current batteries are not feasible on a Country-Wide scale. There's just too many rare Earth minerals needed and too short of a lifespan for it to be feasible. Renewables just means the fuel for the energy is renewable it doesn't mean the technology can be used forever. Eventually the rare earth minerals will run out and recycling will only get so much of them back. What scale would be required for that though I do not know.

[@arjovenzia]

Im calling it a 1/10, an investment grab aimed at people who failed physics. I'm all for innovation, but there are really good reasons vertical axis turbines and gravity storage are not common things at any scale. their blade design looks pretty neat, I'll give them that. The problem with gravity storage is to get any usable amount of power, you have to deal with enormous masses (and therefore structures) fighting against gravity, we just cant build things tall enough and large enough to be practical, Especially when the whole thing is supposed to be moving. one day, perhaps. No problem, this thing is in the ocean, its 700m deep/tall, no tower required! it comes down to drag, which is a function of density. water has a density of 997 kg/m^3, whereas air has a density of 1.2kg/m^3, so lets ballpark it that water has 1000x more drag than air (yeah its more complicated, but its within magnitude). That's some serious loss! But the real kicker is their animation. If you were think that to be in any way representative of what they are intending, they have paid ZERO attention to drag. their counterweight has all sorts of greebles and widgets on it, if they were making any attempt to be serious, that would be torpedo shaped. Soo, that makes the animation useless, and therefore their 'clever' blade design pure fantasy. If you really want to put the boot in, Its ** IN THE OCEAN** one of the more challenging environments to build in. sure, we can anchor oil rigs and ships and traditional offshore turbines just fine. But they are static, no moving parts. pulleys n cables vs currents and weather? I know who I'd bet on. also marine growth, not only gumming up the works with crud, but adding even more drag. a clean hull on a sailing boat can go about 20% faster than the same one with 6 months of growth on if your overdue for an antifoul coat. A university near me ran a field trial with 2 other uni's (I think one was US, the other was scandinavian somewhere) on capturing wave power. 3 totally different designs, refined for years in wave pools, all the mechanical kinks ironed out, reams of data on performance. was supposed to be a 6 month trial. was canned in under a month, none of them could be kept reliable enough to capture any meaningful data. turns out large, moving things in the ocean are really hard. and they were all uni's with well regarded marine engineering departments, all had been optimised for simplicity and reliability over pure performance. quite a shame really, some excellent ideas there. and I haven't heard wave power being a serious thing since.

[@brandongehrke8943]

High capacity gravity storage does currently exist and is in use; we know it as pumped hydro storage. It's also significantly more efficient than any sort of mechanical gravity storage device would be.

[@joep5170]

Gravity storage is VERY important for renewable energy to work, it is not a question of now IF, but HOW. A mass inside the HAWT support tower will provide a few minutes of stored energy and buffer to erratic wind force. VAWT can be used in areas a HAWT will not.

[@kennethferland5579]

I think you have nailed it, were seeing a lot these frankly scam projects now, often just recycling ideas from the 80's or 90's when their were no mainstream renewables and almost any crazy idea might have merit, but subsiquent research has weeded them out and esatablished a baseline of real renewables that one must credibly be able to best to have any legitimacy. The common thread in these scams is a physical device simple enough for non-engineers to understand how it operates but not to realize why it's completly impractical. Gravity storage is right at the sweet spot of simple understandability, but total impracticality because lay people confuse the force with energy, falling object have high force but low energy.

[@brianhaygood183]

Their blade design looks neat, true. That's important if you goal is to do, "an investment grab aimed at people who failed physics." That looks exactly like what this is. The reason wind turbines are tall is because the winds at the surface are far less than the winds 30m or so up. These little things are going to be ineficiently pulling energy from a much lower energy environment, then moving masses against fluid drag through one of the most hostile environments you could put moving parts in. Total nonsense. The quest for usable wind power is a great goal (which is why it is fertile ground for this sort of, as you kindly put it, "investment grab."

[@ArroEL922]

My main concern was the one about drag that you so clearly explained.

[@bobqzzi]

I don't think the physics of this works out. Presumably it operates through some sort of mechanical gears? If it is anchored by cables, how does it deal with large waves?When they are lowering the weight, is the wind turbine still producing electricity? How much weight is required to produce a significant amount of energy? I think the real tell here is there are no pictures of actual machinery, just CGI stuff.

[@I_like_Plants130]

That’s what I was wondering

[@xntumrfo9ivrnwf]

Exactly. 3d generated promos... show me a working prototype and maybe then we can talk. This also reminds me of Energy Vault (but underwater).

[@hydrowindenergy]

@@xntumrfo9ivrnwf Yes similar but this is not an energy storage solution but rather a wind power generation energy system with inbuilt storage that has significant advantages in terms of the quality of power that is produced

[@jayeshmahapatra7085]

@@hydrowindenergy Yes, but the efficiency and durability questions still remain. There are solid counterweights and moving parts operating inside the sea, which could be quite difficult to maintain and repair.

[@ericferguson1062]

You mentioned with rough seas, as the turbine is bobbing with the waves, while the weight in the water is stationary. If they are dropping the weight to produce electricity, it will not be a constant output. Like bouncing a lure on a fishing pole

[@markthomasson5077]

Sounds far too complicated, all that maintenance. Be interested to know how this works with large ocean waves, say 20m. Either a huge problem or add the wave energy.

[@matpegheata]

To many mechanical parts it's sure to fail .

[@sudeeptaghosh]

nothing has long life when touching salt water ..so do not have high hopes 🙁great video indeed

[@justinweatherford8129]

They need energy storage, they need renewable energy, and they need a way to regulate the amount of energy produced. If they make this system into modules, then the repair problems might become less.

[@kylenolan2710]

I agree. I'm a mechanical engineer. I think it might be better to use the turbines to compress air into seafloor anchored airbags. The air can power turbines to drive generators. No moving parts exposed to seawater. You wouldn't even need to have the same number of wind turbines, airbags, and generators. For example, 50 turbines could feed 10 airbags and a single generator for economies of scale. Downsides are: 1) The need for seafloor construction. Anchors, nets, and weights to constrain the airbags. 2) Seafloor ecological disruption.

[@anydaynow01]

Completely forgot about the effects of waves during storms, that is a very good point, 20m waves are nothing to sneeze at. I was more concerned with the complex pulley system and how it would be affected by sea life growth. We have sensors at our plants that have to be cleaned every few months in brackish water due to biofouling, I can't imagine the maintenance nightmare a whole farm of these things would need to keep running for reliable steady state power to the grid.

[@pappaflammyboi5799]

Gravity has low energy density and you also encounter high fluid friction under water, not to mention the difficulty involved in fouling from seawater and other debris.

[@pcercuei]

What's the point of the integrated gravitational "battery", if everything is eventually connected to a plant on the shore? Why not just have the battery (gravitational or not) on the shore directly?

[@asgerms]

Yeah. Seems weird to pay over-and-over for all the mechanical complexity for each and every generator. Not to mention maintenance of the underwater cables/mechanics. (hope your question gains some visibility/attention).

[@davidgrieve7691]

The point is in the video

[@ProjectPhysX]

A small, expensive vertical axis wind turbine does not "change everything" and is clickbait at best. There is a reason why almost all wind turbines are 3-bladed horizontal rotors. The energy scales with rotor cross-section area, so a small increase in blade length largely increases energy output. Vertical axis turbines do work, but they have failed to compete in cost per energy output with traditional wind turbines over and over again in the past. The weight-lifting as energy storage is nonsense as well. Pumped hydro energy storage is many orders of magnitude cheaper and does not nearly need as much maintenance.

[@xntumrfo9ivrnwf]

It's refreshing to see reasonable people in the comments. As I mentioned elsewhere, I can't wait to see thunderf00t's BUSTED video on this.

[@plebiansociety]

nobody has scaled a vertical turbine up to the same footprint as the big horizontal turbines. I'm sure if you had vertical turbine 2 football fields wide and 6 football fields tall it would definitely provide more power than horizontal.

[@manlyadventures]

Two things jump out at me as a engineer, more complicated means more problems, more moving parts means more maintenance and a lot of it under water?! Gravity storage gives it on a demand component, which was always a problem for renewables.

[@plebiansociety]

Yeah, seems to me like it would be way more efficient if it just filled an above water tank and released it into a hydroelectric generator.

[@captainnutzlos3816]

Even the offshore baldes have much damage from the saltair , you wont put a steel cable in saltwater 😄

[@rklauco]

So this is Gravitricity in the sea. Interesting. I wonder how the density of water influences the energy return. But still interesting idea. For me, the biggest problem is durability of the cables in the sea environment - sea creatures tend to try to live on such semi-static locations and mess-up all the mechanics. But still worth testing.

[@ahaveland]

Indeed, and not good having the generators and cables on the sea bed. Generator could equally be placed at the top, and cables suspended below buoys. Performance would be even less than gravitricity because of buoyancy and available joules would be low.

[@stepheny7648]

If the weight was shaped right the drag coefficient shouldn’t be too bad but these weights aren’t moving too quickly anyways it will be interesting to see their data once they get a test rig out on the water.

[@JM-zg2jg]

@@scotteverett5932 The idea isn’t entirely unreasonable. They could always give the pontoons a ballast system, and sink them temporarily for storms. Not sure what the engineers are thinking, but that is the solution I would probably shoot for, since they are tethered to the surface.

[@bknesheim]

@@ahaveland The buoyancy is not a major problem, just add more mass. Magnetite mineral have a density of 5,6 and are low cost. An extra 20% will more then weigh up for the loss to buoyancy . The major problem is that wind speed 10 meter above the surface are a lot less then at 110-150 meter and it is also more turbulent. The result is that wind turbines like shown will only produce as small fraction of what large wind turbines. Lots of units with complex systems close to salt water is also a recipe for high cost when maintaining the system.

[@MarcoNierop]

@@ahaveland The sea bed is littered with electrical cables and internet data cables, so I think that is the least of the problems.

[@Eduardude]

How do they prevent stuff in the sea depths from getting all tangled in those cables extending to the sea bottom?

[@siral2000]

Don't worry they will spend millions trying to figure that out. Eventually coming to the conclusion that they need to spend millions more because they are sooo close to figuring it out.

[@nacoran]

Cables under a lot of tension are pretty much just poles. I mean, yeah, you'll get seaweed growing on them, but I suspect that's pretty low down the list of problems. You'd want to maximize the weight and minimize the water drag, deal with corrosion... unless you have trawlers trying to fish next to them I think tangling won't be too big an issue.

[@ZyxwvuTJ]

This made me think that standard windmills could take advantage of this same concept. They already have a ginormous vertical tube that would shelter the load being lifted/dropped. The height may be much less, but maybe with the correct gearing and weight, it could be feasible.

[@grahamlewis6777]

I wondered the same thing, and also the weight could be powered on shore. But I guess that ignores the other advantages of lack of wake and support for higher wind speed. I wonder if these are also more bird friendly? Certainly they would be less visible if grouped together well off shore, as that is a major concern in many countries

[@justayoutuber1906]

This has been looked at for over 50 years. They aren't efficient.

[@mccue2439]

I estimated the cost of this project to be 2500$ / kWh. Battery storage is already $400 / kWh and Pumped Hydro is $120 kWh..... It turns out that gravity is a really weak force and is bad for energy storage. Pumped hydro gets away from it because its moving a fluid and not a solid.

[@bknesheim]

If you lift a large weight up the shaft you make it very unstable for very little gain.

[@wimvanuytven7858]

Gravity storage just has disappointingly low energy density. If you would lift a 300 ton weight up a 100 meter tower, you can store about 84 kWh, which allows you to store only 1 single minute worth of production from a 5MW turbine. For the same reason the technology presented in this video does not make any sense.

[@messiermitchell4901]

I like the idea of combining generation with storage to balance demand, my only concern would be the build-up of aquatic life on the undersea parts of the turbine, like barnacles. Man I hate barnacles.

[@bruceconnor6535]

Could also be deployed alongside conventional turbines as they access wind at different heights.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

absolutely good point

[@stepheny7648]

I was thinking the same thing. It is a great way to fill in those gaps between the larger turbines and get more power output.

[@tims8603]

Yeah, and they could be tethered to the bases of the HAWTs.

[@michiganengineer8621]

Biggest potential issue with that is depth of the water they're anchored in. With this system you would really want it in as deep a water as you can get it.

[@davaguco]

Could also be installed over tide turbines, then you get power from below too. Both could help to store potential energy.

[@johnparsons9620]

Interesting, but why not simplify the system and have your VAWT connect with a simple mechanical pump pushing sea water along a pipe to a central hydraulic accumulator/ accumulators with a central floating or land based generator. The hydraulic fluid then either powers a generating turbine directly or via the displaced air in the accumulator during the fill & discharge part of its cycle. London was dotted with accumulator towers & pre-electricity there was a hydraulic network under London powering lifts (elevators), machinery & theaters, Tower bridge's bascules were powered in this way. So this would not be a new technology. This would allow for there to be simplicity at the wind turbines, with the generating infrastructure centralized. You could still have your moving weights if you so desired but they would be in a centralized location.

[@blakebrown534]

That's not simplifying anything, that's adding one more huge inefficiency by converting power. You start with wind power spinning a turbine in order to convert it to hydraulic power to spin a 2nd turbine which converts that to electric power in your scenario. None of these turbines are anywhere near 100% efficient.

[@johnparsons9620]

@@blakebrown534 VAWT is converted directly by simple mechanical gearing to the hydraulic pump, no electricity is generated at this point. The pump might be a simple impeller or a reciprocating pump. So for a field of say 10 VAWTs you would not need 10 sets of electric motors/generators as this is all done at a central floating or land based hub. The intelligence & control for the system is in the hub rather than devolved to each VAWT.

[@ericmaclaurin8525]

@@blakebrown534 Efficiency isn't terribly important out in the ocean where the energy density is high and scalability is infinite. The key is the complexity of the equipment in the ocean that requires servicing. A bunch of floating mechanical pumps connected to a giant hose to shore lets you easily swap, shut down or service individual floating units and all of your other equipment is on shore.

[@robertblackburn9746]

Been waiting for years for the return of vertical axis rotors. They should have already been on many tall buildings for decades. Great ideas to combine weights for storage. Move to on land wind capturing and weights underground to eliminate water complexities and accelerated maintenance issues mentioned. Always think with the end in mind to make best, most efficient and elegant (simplest) choices best for future generations. Bravo! .

[@billblood5316]

Bingo!

[@tedmoss]

You will be waiting a bit longer...

[@angelagreen4708]

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[@stanleyleo1039]

Indeed times are changing fast, It's really not just about investing but getting the right assets and getting it early too, I heard the way to go now is getting in early on hydropower and solar.

[@EwanV]

Spam! Spam! Spam!

[@rogervondach1238]

Well, it all looks good on models. But what happens when there are large waves? What would keep that guiding system up straight? Didn't we fall for computer model videos often enough ?

[@siral2000]

If you think like that, how can I sell you a nuclear powered flying hotel?

[@emmanuelr710]

Wind turbines need a lot more innovative people if they just now figured out weight as storage of energy.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

sounds like you should take a look around!

[@dominiclavu193]

Yes! The more renewables the better!Keep them coming!!!

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

Agreed

[@siral2000]

I'm all for more renewables but only feasible ones. This one's maintenance would be a nightmare. All long term under ocean devices have as little moving parts in contact with the ocean as possible. This one has a bunch of pulleys and in use wires sitting in the ocean. This with a power system where every percent of inefficiency is usually accounted for. How in the "barnacle" do they expect this to work long term. Solar panels are considered scrap after they get to 80% efficiency after 25+ years, this would reach that in months.

[@kitemanmusic]

There can never be enough renewables. As they say, do the Math!

[@markreed9853]

... I think the idea has merit my only concerns are the durability of the moving parts especially at sea and how easy this would be to maintain. Also, the LCOE may be cost-prohibitive once you factor in the extra costs involved compared to standard wind turbines and other forms of energy storage.

[@voster77hh]

Just read into the facts about VAWT performance. Every certification body will discourage banks and funds from investing into such a devices power curve based on only 20 out of 365 days of operation. Where a HAWt would have 350 out 365 days to turn a profit.

[@michaellowe3665]

Another option is to use hollow piles and pump air into them forcing water out of the bottom. Wind energy can be stored as air pressure and tapped on demand. This puts more of the equipment and moving parts above the surface and not subject to corrosion.

[@bigdaddyof2007]

Make the piles into 2 separate chambers so you can fill and discharge them concurrently, alternating between them so at all times the given function is available.

[@eugeniobb]

in the animation they don't show a mooring system, unless thei intend to use the cables guiding the weight as mooring , which seem not very efficient: when wind is blowing at high speed the floating turbine would be shifted by several meters, so the cables would not be vertical anymore, and I believe that would stop the weight from going up and down

[@paulgracey4697]

I see two problems with this approach. VAWTs are best close to the ground or other surface, limiting their use to ridges on land or high wind regions at sea. The HAWTs being built today are more universal in their ability to use wind rights that are closer to populations. Second, there is no reason besides patent protections that this idea cannot be implemented inside the tubes of the taller HAWTs. or even beneath the ones being built floating in deeper water.

[@ThomasBomb45]

Exactly. If this energy storage system works for VAWT, it should work for HAWT. If HAWTs aren't doing it... maybe it's a bad design

[@matthewnewton9129]

well, I imagine that the weight would mean that the tower "tube" has to be much stronger to support the weight itself and also the swaying that a heavy weight at height could produce.

[@samuxan]

I'm curious about how this system will deal with strong undertow that usually comes with strong winds. Also about the potential energy loss if the system is discharge on low tides

[@rogerstarkey5390]

"The typical tid range in the open ocean is about 0.6 metres (2 feet)" Sometimes LOVE Wiki ..... . As for undertow, a long line with an "anchor".....?

[@jeebusk]

Most any current below the surface is not affected by wind.

[@shadowbanned5164]

@@jeebusk Correct but they are exacerbated by the wind as 20 years of windsurfing has taught me.

[@paulb9453]

Well done, you've highlighted some immense weaknesses in offshore wind that politicians in the UK and EU fail to accept. The hydro wind system is compelling, however, it is at risk of being disproved by the developers of traditional wind and solar, regrettably. They like disrupting industries, but don't like to be disrupted!

[@akyhne]

Yeah, this is very clever. Build wind turbines at sea level, where the wind speed is a fifth of the wind speed at 100 meters height. Brilliant!

[@benmcreynolds8581]

I really think finding the best way to harness tidal forces that are such predictable behavior, it's as promising of a natural energy source as geothermal energy

[@geoffreyofmonmouth9796]

Have a look at Orbital Marine

[@kimmurphy1683]

Sorry, wind may be a small part of the solution. However imo the only long term soluis safe nuclear. You should do a video on that. Just got an email from ERCOT stating wind is down (less Windmill generation than "anticipated") and solar is reduced due to "unusual" cloud cover. BTW, the anti-nuclear movement that started in the 70s was a Russian FSB operation. It succeeded better than they expected.

[@CUBETechie]

I think the solution is energy storage and management

[@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596]

With the development of laser drilling geothermal energy plants, which means that they can be built much cheaper and faster than today, and be built practically anywhere has rendered nuclear power plants obsolete. With a combination of wind turbines, solar panels, backup batteries, and geothermal energy plants, we no longer need nuclear power plants or hydroelectric power plants.

[@trnstn1]

Advanced geothermal needs a proof of concept and has potential- nuclear needs SMRs to bring the costs down and speed up its implementation

[@PetraKann]

Safe?

[@rogerstarkey5390]

Ok Ken, Start consulting to build the required nuclear NOW. When (if) it's ready in 15-20 years.... If you're lucky, tell the consumer that the project cost double the amount (at least) of a comparable wind project, plus it took 10 years longer to complete, plus the wind project (if designed correctly) could have supplied 40% output when only half built, (5-6 years?) plus the energy costs would have been about 40% of the nuclear energy..... Then explain why you're having to pump seawater to the plant for cooling because the river had a "supply issue", ironically, in part due to the time it took to build, which left more fossil generation on the grid......

[@Talon771]

Random comment for channel interaction.

[@G4MERtheGREY]

Your comment has been read, internalized and replied to.

[@beachcrow]

Non content answer for the algorithm.

[@ScottOstr]

Always great to see new green energy solutions. Fill it with air when it hits the bottom and let it float back up. 😀

[@DanteVelasquez]

It's just like cooking a sauce. There is never just one ingredient. Combining different technologies to compliment each other and revisiting older technologies and modernizing them is the way forward. The world is a big place with lots of variation and no one solution will work everywhere. Its great to see creative strategy being applied. Hydro in particular is so untapped and could be used in conjuction with wind and solar in many ways, we just need the research and development.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

Well said!

[@Critters]

Or, hear me out here, use the hollow tube of the tower versions to house a weight that you can move up and down to store and release energy, all above water and in a controlled environment. Doesn't solve for the narrower wind speed band, but would let individual and collections of them to smooth out energy production and be more responsive.

[@timogronroos4642]

The poles of conventional wind turbines could also house a gravity weight to make the power more constant. Maybe if the wind turbine would have 10min storage as weight it would help. Wondering if anybody has tested that idea. The weight could spin the same generator. It would be like a hybrid car making constant energy in gusty winds

[@ProjectPhysX]

No. 1) You would have to build the pole much stronger to hold significant additional weight. 2) The stored energy capacity is abysmally tiny. 3) The additional cost is not worth it. There are hundreds of engineers who have thought through this exact idea already and concluded it is not worth it, otherwise we would have seen gravity weights in the poles since 25 years ago.

[@ThomasBomb45]

@@ProjectPhysX Yeah, and you can make a system identical to offshore wind with this underwater gravity storage, so this VAWT design needs to stand on its own

[@hydrowindenergy]

@@ProjectPhysX Yes the economics for adding gravity based systems to current offshore wind turbines just don't add up. Also the depth isn't there

[@bknesheim]

To store 10 minutes of production from a 6 MW turbine in a 100 meter high shaft you will need a weight of 4000 tons that even if you used lead the volume would be nearly 400 m3.. That would be like a weight with a diameter of 10 meter and a height of 5. Or a solid lead weight the size of a house.

[@SilentShadow]

i work in onshore wind, in the planning application stage, we are currently encountering similar problem in relation to supply and demand synchronisation, the solution to this is always some form of energy storage. this can be achieved through battery energy storage system (BESS) that charges from turbines and releases to grid on demand. where grid connection is not feasible, either due to lower scale, remote locations or lack of grid capacity, localised hydrogen production can be used. A possible alternative to this system could be offshore platform locations for Battery Energy Storage Systems or Coastal locations.

[@edwardboylan4187]

Fascinating concept. I just wonder about the cost/benefit analysis of installing, and after that, the upkeep. The practical cable management for the weights, removing/deterring barnacles, wear and tear, not just from use but also from salt water corrosion...

[@ThomasBomb45]

If VAWT turbines can store energy in undersea weights, so can HAWT. We haven't seen any HAWT designs with underwater gravity storage, what reason would there be that this design works but those don't? It seems to be combining 2 sub-par technologies to make the other appear better. Unless the LCOE is low, I'm going to remain very skeptical

[@jeebusk]

I think the conventional ones are being anchored to the seabed, he mentioned a 50ft depth. these hawt appear to be floating

[@claudiaroy9455]

Great explanation. Nice job guys! ❤

[@clavo3352]

I helped a guy hook up a VAWT to the grid in 1981 +/- . One advantage you didn't mention is that they catch wind from any direction and do not have to turn into the wind . Another advantage is that the power take off is at the bottom; so, not climbing inside to do maintenance. Yet another advantage is; no need to avoid the base by elevating the blades. Still further; a VAWT can multitask. It can turn a generator while lifting a heavy weight; or, do either one by itself. Yet another means of energy storage a VAWT is easily adapted to is turning a piston type air compressor to store compressed air. This last one is so important it needs a video all to itself.

[@EvilScot]

So you take a less efficient windmill, put it lower down out the wind to save on the cost of cables and water space. Then you take a gravity based potential energy recovery system, decentralize it and make it more expensive than it would be on land because you also need 'counterweight' buoyancy and to service it off shore.... Yeah I don't buy it.

[@lephtovermeet]

Looks like a great concept. I hope the get to install some real world sites and get real data and make real improvements. Maintenance looks like a nightmare though.

[@siral2000]

Scams don't worry about maintenance. They just need to sound convincing enough to a 60+ government employee that wants to check a box or an eco nut without enough sense to come in out of the rain. Thunderfoot will likely debunk this soon.

[@lephtovermeet]

@@siral2000 Yeah man. That'd suck if we invested in clean renewable energy that doesn't actively destroy our environment without having an immediate financial return mapped out. Money is way more important that air or food. I also can't wait for my favorite youtube to confirm my predetermined viewpoints!

[@siral2000]

@@lephtovermeet This won't have any financial, scientific, or ecological return. I'll be surprised if they even design the prototype. They're just trying to siphon off money from viable solutions. All they're doing is taking two different technologies that are already considered subpar and putting them together badly and expecting a better result. Vertical wind turbines work but they're worse than horizontal. Gravity batteries work but the material costs are enormous. Even without maintenance costs this design wouldn't work better than what we already have. It also isn't anything new technology wise.

[@deanrittenhouse611]

Wind and solar are very sustainable especially when paired with production of clean liquid ammonia NH3. Utilizing the overproduction to manufacture NH3 that is used during nighttime or windless days as a clean zero emissions fuel to create electricity

[@MarcoNierop]

A NH3 factory is utterly complicated and you lose about 70% of the energy in the process, you would be better off just installing a bunch of LFP battery arrays (like Tesla Megapack).. and this IS already happening on several places in the world.

[@jlsc4125]

I would imagine building inverted turbines would be a best idea. Ocean currents are constant and consistent. Make a turbine that uses ocean currents to turn their blades in conjunction with an external wind turbine so you have two sources for consistent use, and the current based blades can be used when the wind gets too heavy.

[@paulstubbs7678]

Congratulations, finally a good thumbnail, (as opposed to other's click bait rubbish), "a picture is worth a thousand words"

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

🙏

[@markwalsh9883]

Just wondering how the mass is lifted? If it's with an electric motor it would probably be better to run a cable to land and lift a mass there. Way easier to maintain.

[@enmodo]

I assumed it is mechanical for efficiency. But since it sends electricity ashore there has to be generation capability in the unit. Far easier to convert to high voltage, send it ashore and combine it with one of the mass lifting energy storage projects (moving trains of concrete up a mountain or lifting concrete blocks into a giant tower structure). I guess though their thought is to offshore - literally - the place where the mass lift storage happens because real estate at sea is cheap. If you really want to do that all at sea then why not have a central dedicated mass lifter and have the nearby turbines send their power to it. Another solution could be to pull a big buoyant structure to the bottom and release it. That way you aren't reliant on the buoyancy of the turbine structure to keep whatever mass you're lifting afloat. But as with the original design putting complex mechanical structures in the ocean... you're going to have a hard time making that work and keeping it working.

[@anwargaida3355]

Sounds great, but I would be concerned with corrosion especially on the life of the cables.

[@dosgos]

And principal mechanical systems will be in rough salt water environments. Difficult operations and constant maintenance.

[@Vasator]

Interesting, why not do the same thing with a traditional turbine but encapsulate the weight inside the tower? This way it would be somewhat protected from the elements. Or have a cable going to an underwater battery bank. The only issue I see with the weight being anchored and being directly in contact with the water.

[@siral2000]

It isn't designed to work, it is only designed good enough to get money for "research" that never amounts to anything. If they wanted it to work they would junk the weights in the ocean and put them in bore holes in the ground. Functioning completely separate. But if they did that anyone could calculate it's in/efficiencies. That makes it harder to scam people. They make it over complicated so you can't see the forest for the trees.

[@craigarveson8756]

I am so glad people like you are spreading the word. I have a couple of companies you should check out and do a video on. CATL is a company that is producing sodium batteries (lithium, copper and cobalt free) also Quaise Energy imagine using sea water as their water source equaling more fresh water then the last one is Kiverdi Inc. just check them out I will leave it there. Again thanks so much for what you’re doing.

[@rallekralle11]

i remember a record from an old guinness book i have, from 2005 i think. the world's largest wind turbine; it had 2 50m long blades. that's nothing compared to these modern turbines

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

Crazy right?

[@kennyclement2823]

Seeing how they're anchored in place, I think they should put a linear motion wave generator on the anchor lines, for cogeneration, which will also help level out there highs and lows

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

interesting

[@Deveonn]

Those are way too high maintenance. Better fit a human on a Peloton..

[@samwinstanley6820]

This looks great, but you could do it the other way around as well, and submerge something very light/buoyant and rigid pull it down to let it's buoyancy lift it up. This seems like it would use a lot less material and be able to provide an exponentially large battery with depth. That's because it is the ratio of the internal and external pressure that does the work. So something at 1 atmosphere at a depth of 2M is pulling up 2G, but something with 1G pressure at 90M with a ratio of 10:1 will pull up at 10G

[@CarlAlex2]

The only kind of gravity storage that works is pumped hydro because its easy and cheap to move and store large amounts of water. I did the math for using a 500 ton mass in a 100m mineshaft and a typical Danish 2MW land based windmill that on average produces 5000 MWh in a year - it could store about 15 MINUTES of average production of the windmill. If you think this scheme is better do the math - and dont forget to reduce the energy stored in the mass by its flotation.

[@MS-ie1gs]

OMG! What about all the fish that will be smashed!!!

[@bruceconnor6535]

Man the ramparts!

[@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596]

😂😂😂 Oh! Wait! You're serious! Let me laugh even harder! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@MS-ie1gs]

@@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596 😟😕

[@MS-ie1gs]

@@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596 what about the tiny 🐟

[@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596]

@@MS-ie1gs how fast do you think the weights are falling? Sheesh! Use your head!

[@Pats-Shed]

There is a reason why VAWT's are not in widespread use, they are at such a disadvantage from a power generation point and their self destructive nature. Being close to the water surface would only accelerate the wear and damage to the rotor . Also the effect on fish, whales and dolphin's would be significant due to harmonics generated by the anchor and winching cables .

[@goranjosic]

They haven't made anything, they just have beautiful 3D animations (like every startup), and some hidden and scaled-down demo models (again, like every startup). 🙄 The big question is whether this will work - how it will withstand huge waves, how the mechanical moving parts will withstand salt water, etc. Tidal turbines have a lot of problems with seawater and are not yet commercially viable - so I wouldn't put too much faith in this. _Also, efficiency would probably be quite small, but that can be overcome if they are cheap... (If they ever start to produce electricity for real)_

[@dfjab]

thank you youtube for suggesting not only a channel that is given me a long ass ad of something thats only CGI, but also doesn't even want to tell me that.

[@EZEvans1]

Great video as usual! I really appreciate your communication style, production values, and suBject matter.

[@alb9472]

one problem with this type are the dont get the higher and more constant windspeed that are higher up. The storage can be solved better with batteries when they come down in price.

[@drakekoefoed1642]

on the high wind thing, i thought that out decades ago. the blades have springs that hold them in place. as the pressure increases, the pressure itself feathers the blades by working against the springs. with the right preload, the springs begin to feather at marginally excessive wind, and go all the way to fully feathered when the wind is dangerously fast. you might be able to be 95% feathered in a hurricane, still generating power. take some played out oil production platforms. instead of tearing them down, put these wind turbines on them, and use the energy to pump sea water through the existing pipelines that used to carry the oil, and on shore, run the water into a storage pond well above sea level if you have the spot. then the generators run off the pond water.

[@devroombagchus7460]

I love breakthroughs. There are so many of them from especially the USA, that’s is easy to forget the ones from yesterday.

[@Xero1of1]

This same idea could be used on the ground, out of water. A large central hollow tower with a weight suspended on cables within it, and a vertical wind turbine extending from the top of the tower to the bottom for some massive wind catchability. You could then support them by having multiple towers close together with framing connecting the tops of each tower, stabilizing each other the more that are connected. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about the sea salt corroding things. The only thing you miss out on is buoyancy... but just as buoyancy helps lift the weight, it also impedes the weight as it falls.

[@rockdog2584]

Brilliant take!

[@mattjones1232]

There reason for placing them offshore is that 80% of wind power is offshore in deep waters

[@Adam-pt3cb]

Has any work been done on how the vertical turbines perform in turbulent air? It sounds like they should do better and also smooth out turbulence down stream. This could allow joint wind farms with vertical turbines allowing for greater density of horizontal turbines. Has any work been done on it?

[@Justwantahover]

A good idea for conventional turbines. Have the weight inside the tower. Good for land based turbines too. But NOT in water, it would be a maintainence nightmare.

[@onebronx]

This is a bad idea for conventional turbines, because lifting any sensible weight would require a tower of enormous strength, increasing its cross-section and hence its wind shadow area, thus affecting efficiency of turbines downwind.

[@yggdrasil9039]

Good idea, but the thing is, if you pair the intermittency of traditional offshore wind turbines with a stabilising energy storage device (like onshore pumped hydro, gravity storage etc.) then the same effect is acheived. The vertical turbines just do the whole thing in one place. But the capacity to handle multiple windspeeds and to be clustered closer together is a definite plus.

[@davefoc]

One thing not mentioned in this video is that higher altitudes have higher wind speeds, so besides lower efficiency the vertical wind turbines will operate with a lower wind speed than the horizontal rotor turbines.

[@waynes7739]

The upshot of all this is that we need a diverse portfolio of clean energy production and storage to wean ourselves off of dirty fossil fuel energy.

[@paulburney7250]

It looks like you can put both types of WT interspersed with each other to extract more energy. If the wind speed gets too high, by careful positioning of the VAWT, you can put the HAWT into its "wind shadow" and protect the HAWT from damage. Under even higher wind speed, you can pull the VAWT under the surface of the water, where it would be protected. When the normal wind returns, let it pop back up above the surface.

[@Dragonorder18]

What an interesting solution to the Energy storage issue. I wondered what they were thinking with Wind power that was less efficient. But it is very interesting how it will use weights in a way as a sort of power storage.

[@NickCombs]

Cost is going to be the deciding factor. Wind turbines are the cheapest option, so the new model needs to competeon cost/kW.

[@daroniussubdeviant3869]

loving the 'anything but metric' conversions for the merryguns.

[@Cspacecat]

The concept seems to be correct. Stable power is what you need. That means you will always need a storage device. A gravity battery would be the most cost-effective means of doing that. All you have to do is cut a round slot, lining the inner and outer edges with steel and concrete as you go down. Once reaching the desired depth for the amount of mass you desire, run cables through the bottom center, back up to a pully on the other side, linking all pullies in a circular geared system. To feed the grid, let the weight settle by spinning the connected motor/generators. To add generated storage, lift the weight. This eliminates the need to "dig a hole". This should be dramatically cheaper than a chemical battery. You could replace a cable without shutting down the system.

[@michaelclement1337]

This approach reduces the conversion losses between capture and storage, as with a traditional wind turbine produces electricity which can then be stored somewhere else, pumped hydro for example. There's a energy loss between converting electricity into storage that this process avoids as it is capturing the wind energy directly into potential storage

[@5thdymension]

There are factors missing: - !. The available energy in the wind increases with altitude above the surface. 2. There will need to be considerable sea bed infrastructure to support the generation and transmition. 3, Can these be pitched among existing HAWT to scavenge and store more energy on an existing grid ? 4. Maintenance on the sea bed is very expensive in deep water. 5. The sea depth varies 2 cycles a day so engineering for that is complex. 6. What is the down wind power reduction of these VAWT and therefore the spacing needed ? 7. Things installed at sea corrode and foul up quickly. 8. All moving machinary will degrade, fail and need maintainance and replacement. Just a few issues :-)

[@PlumberStacker]

Just can’t get enough of these videos. Love learning about it. Thanks!

[@glennr9913]

I really like the HydroWindEnergy design. Hopefully, they will be able to actually produce these. It seems to only be in the design phase. The images are just renderings, not actual units. I checked out the company info, and they have zero employees listed and only a small amount of startup capital, as of the posting date in 2021. Perhaps they have more funding and/or employees now. I'll keep an eye on this company for possibly investing in the future. Wishing them luck.

[@davidlittlefield2483]

This doesn't change anything until it has proven it works and is cost effective. It is currently an unproven concept. I hope they find enough money to make it work. Thanks for the slick dog and pony show. I like your videos and your enthusiasm. Keep them coming.

[@bartekltg]

On thier site we can read "Energy Storage Capacity 70 kWh per cycle". On a 100m drop, we need a weight of 260000kg, it is 38m^3 of steel or 180m^3 of dense concrete (I already included buoyancy). Seems realistic. But one omni has also "Rated Power: 1 MW". So, the storage is enough for 4 minutes. It may be OK for smoothing short time fluctuation but it seems far from being sufficient to fill the role of daily storage.

[@alphonsobutlakiv789]

I was thinking of weights on wind turbines years ago, and like this, it stored the power in weights, but rather than giving each turbines a weight, I set them to use a set of 3 central weights by moving cable. The goal there was to use less copper by generating in one generator.

[@da_SpiffR]

Very exciting. I wonder what kind of materials are used in salty water and how more expensive it is? I also wonder how much maintenance will be required because of seaweed, plastic, etc. clogging up the lifting works and how much of a potential impact on sea animals both large and very small?

[@danielfeyerabend904]

Here is a feasible proof of concept experiment for this. The proposed height in their illustration is 100 meters. Many wind turbines are mounted to towers that size. Mount their vertical windmill on top of an old one with the weight, generator, and cable apparatus inside to raise and lower the weight in an enclosed environment. No corrosion or currents to affect the equipment. Plus you have a height advantage to get the better wind speeds.

[@tomarmstrong1281]

I am impressed by your channel. You ask for comment, here's an observation. a) EV's are big batteries on four wheels, b) there are millions of rooftops, c) roof tops are on buildings which are connected to the grid. Ergo; there is already an embryonic collection, storage and distribution system to potentially handle massive amounts of electricity. In order to realise the potential there would need to be a scheme to incentivise roof top solar and EV ownership on a grand scale. Roof owners would need to sign into the scheme, which would have clever algorithms at it's heart. They would be required to agree to sell an negotiable amount of their electricity from their EV batteries to the grid. Problem solved. There is a lot of detail to be worked out, beyond my resources. However, 'I had a think' and I think that on the face of it, what could possibly go wrong?

[@Joe-lb8qn]

Tesla is already trialling such a system though using separate house-based batteries, not in cars.

[@jan42725]

You forgot to address why the storage couldn't be integrated into conventional windmills As well as how the storage+production costs compare to other storage+production options Since storage like this likely won't be compared against non storage

[@solapowsj25]

A joule is amount of work done when a force of 1 newton displaces a mass through a distance of 1 metre in the direction of the force applied. This achieved in a second is a Watt if work done. Example: A 2-ton vehicle going down a lift into a parking slot 3 m below would generate 60 kW power for a second, which in practical terms is 1kVA for a minute, or 1000/6 W for 10 minutes. This is useful power in large parking areas with multiple floors.

[@LostLk2hi]

Pretty cool with a couple of what ifs; 1 Will tethering with moving parts work? 2 Maintenance on anything in, under and at the bottom of the ocean is not easy. 3 On-demand only where they are placed. 4 Emergency recovery if they get away. Along with all the valid thoughts in comments.

[@mikebrant192]

One plus is that the machinery is essentially at sea level, not at height. That makes maintenance safer and easier.

[@HenrikMyrhaug]

The boyant force from water would cause a huge loss in the energy storage capacity. The system would be much more efficient, as well as much more durable if it was encased in a sylinder of air extending from the turbine down to the ocean floor, since air is much less dense causing less efficiency and storage capacity loss, and does not cause nearly as much corrosion as salt water and marine life.

[@Grz349]

It’s important to note that the reason wind turbines are built high up is because wind speeds are higher, so the KE =(mv^2)/2. These turbines would be able to access less of that energy in addition to all problems other people have listed.

[@tomkelly8827]

This is a really fascinating plan! It looks better to power an off grid location near the sea than a full on grid though. It looks like an ocean adaptation of the old rusty water pumping wind mills that you see in the deserts of the world. Certainly maintainence is needed with any wind mill

[@homunculous007]

A very interesting variation on the grandfather clock. There is no reason to confine this technology to the sea. Every farm and backyard could have this.

[@Kapalek84]

Big batteries can store energy peaks and can be installed near windturbines to save transmission losses. Also for high instantaneous power management it is also a big battery that can solve that problem. For long term energy storage a hydrogen electrolysis and then conversion to methanol is quite a good solution in my opinion ( this all sounds complicated and expensive but installing 300m of metal wires in the deep water and then making sure that it will not degrade and allow the heavy mass to move up and down sounds like quite expensive and not easy option). Let me know if I am wrong.

[@judgeomega]

it seems to me the biggest overlooked aspect of offshore energy is the transmission of that power, which requires expensive and costly to maintain infrastructure. one work around is to instead use that energy at its source. floating wind powered processing plants; desalination, waste processing, etc. perhaps with a battery recharging station for electrically powered shuttles which go to and from the rigs.

[@wavesAndBerms]

Wait until Thunderfoot gets ahold of this.

[@albolinger8374]

The Omni Wind Turbine system seems awesome!

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

cant wait to see it out in the wild to see it in actual application!

[@jeffbrunswick5511]

You only ever hear about the problems of new technology on this channel, when he's reporting about a 'breakthrough' that solves it. Until that day arrives, the problem is never to be mentioned! 😆

[@carsonc1272]

Interesting concept... They could also run an air hose to the sea bed and pump a bladder or "diving bell" full of air to raise the weight. Or they could compress air into the weight while it was on the surface and when the weight hit the bottom it would be released into a bladder. I'm not sure which method would be more efficient. Pumping the air to the bottom wouldn't be free but I'd imagine that it's less energy to reach buoyancy and then take a free ride to the top rather than pull the weight up the entire way.

[@ThomasBomb45]

Pumping air down is equivalent to pulling a weight up. There is no free energy. The question is the efficiency of the pump vs the efficiency of the motor