TarynToo, Sorry, I can't help you with any vision of the Victorian or Scholastic scope of knowledge...
But I might add a few things on the wind and my idea. I got a package of wind data on the upper air from an Oceanographic office. This was a compilation of data for 10 years from all around the world. Quite a bit of stuff. They have sites around the world that measure wind speeds of the upper air at different altitudes. Then they look at different altitudes and connect the dots. Then they have a chart of what the wind speeds look like over California, for example. At 30,000 feet they say, for the 10 year period of the data that the average wind energy was 7.5 kW per square meter. They can also present this data month by month. So one can make up 12 graphs that say what the power levels might be for Jan thru Dec. In July, or in the summer months the data shows the wind to be much slower than in Jan and the winter months. Looking at that data in another way I integrated the power from ground to 60,000 feet and estimated the total wind power coming across California as about 1 megawatt per foot of coastline. Lots of energy potential. Other parts of the country are more influenced by the Jet Stream and have average energy densities about twice as high, or 14 kW per square meter. Over Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York and the New England states, would be the highest in the country, at 30,000 feet. My idea was for an 80 megawatt design. Solar One was about 30 megawatts thermal capacity. If you divide 80 mW by the energy density and an efficiency you can see the frontal area would be quite large. The idea was to have just enough lift from a helium filled portion to provide safety under emergency conditions. The unit would never crash into the ground unless it came apart. But the helium would not sustain it at 30,000 feet either. TetraTech was a company in Pasadena, CA and does provide tethers for submersible equipment. They had envisioned a tether system and equipment that I felt would meet the needs. Of course at altitude, wings on the device would have to provide the lift needed for the tether. The tether would provide the ability to create lift like a kite. Close to ground near touchdown conditions, one would not have to support much tether. The plan was to change altitude if wind conditions became too high. Under summer conditions or low wind conditions I felt some fancy flying would increase the effective wind speed of the device. Like a water skier on a tether behind a boat. He can go faster than the boat under certain conditions. The tether could be used to tack the device in a certain pattern and fly faster than the wind if the wind was too slow. Graz University analyzed a number of locations north to south and found, as one might expect, that the Jet Stream (maximum energy density of the wind) meanders over a wide area. By strategically placing stations over a wide area, a system of devices could overcome low wind speeds at a specific location. This means one would have to build stations with this overcapacity in mind to assure more consistent energy capacity during lower wind speeds for an electrical grid. At the time California was thinking of acquiring a maximum of 7 percent of its energy needs from wind power. With such widely spaced stations and this leveling effect, this number might be increased. Does this make sense to you, or is it too fanciful? I guess you folks can be the peer review I didn't have back then. Leon > [Original Message] > From: TarynToo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <Biofuel@sustainablelists.org> > Date: 9/13/05 1:53:18 AM > Subject: Re: [Biofuel] wind and current power > > On Sep 12, 2005, at 11:07 AM, Leon Hulett wrote: > > > I did a tiny proposal to Cal Edison in California back in the 80s on > > Wind > > Energy Systems in the Jet Stream to see if they were interested. I had > > visited their Solar One Site and thought they might like to do > > something > > with wind. > > > > What would you like to know? > > Well...uh...everything, really. But the prevailing wisdom was that > Victorian scientists were the last individuals able to encompass all of > human knowledge. Kind of eurocentric racism, I 'spose. > > As far as high altitude wind power extraction, we'd probably all like > to hear as much as you're willing to tell. Can the proposal or elements > of it be made public? I suspect JTF would be happy to host anything on > the subject that stands up to scrutiny. > > > Taryn > http://ornae.com/ > > > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
