'Sailing'?? Directly to Windward

[SpiritAmsterdam]

Originally Posted by P Flados

As expected, I assumed that the traditional 85% - 90% efficiency motors and generators would have a real hard time beating a mechanical transmission. However, this all changes when you get to the 94% to 98% range you quoted.

I think I understand that when combined with an advanced computer control system, the electric option maximizes your ability to extract energy from gusts and/or just variable wind speed and direction.

A very small amount of storage (capacitors) can absorb any gust surge power and then you put this smoothly and efficiently down at the wheels. The controls and power conversion device act as a very efficient wide range automatic transmission to allow you to keep the turbine speed and/or pitch optimized. It is also much easier to automatically achieve optimization of wind turbine aiming.

Another part of your discussion is also no surprise. Yes there are high tech devices, but they are really not readily available in sizes that make it easy for a DIY or prototype effort. Considering how much energy is wasted on standard efficiency electric motors world wide, it is a real shame that large production facilities are not being shifted over just because it is the right thing to do.

You are completely correct in your statment here. That is exactly why we are going electrical.

Originally Posted by P Flados

I did get a little lost in one area. Are you planning on using two drive motors in addition to a turbine powered generator, or are you planning to use one wind turbine powered halbach array generator and then a separate halbach array motor for power to your wheels?

We plan to build 2 halbach motors for both rear wheels. The generator already has an efficiency of 92%/94% so optimizing this is not a top priority yet. But it will probably be replaced aswell in the next few years.

[SpiritAmsterdam]

Originally Posted by P Flados

On a separate note (just to be honest, this is has only minimal boating involvement), I have some ideas that may be of interest to a student playing around with harnessing wind energy.

Interesting ideas. The world could certainly benefit from a project like this. And it looks like the idea has sparked some interest from others in this forum.

[P Flados]

Storage is just about the biggest pain in any discussion of improvements.

If you are a small shop owner looking for a shop air source, I would envision a couple of large but normal low pressure tanks. In addition, you would have a small bank of high pressure bottles. About the size of oxygen bottles on a normal oxy-acetylene rig used for a cutting torch or slightly larger.

When your low pressure storage is fully charged, the computer stops running the low pressure compressor and starts running a smaller volume but much higher pressure compressor (2500 psig max or so) to charge the "reserve bank"

During your business day, the initial use is coming from the low pressure storage. If the wind is blowing, the computer shifts back to low pressure compressor mode. Depending on air use and outside wind, you may or may not keep up. More limiting is lots of air use and/or no wind. In this case, when the low pressure tanks get to minimum, a regulated supply from the high pressure tanks starts delivering air.

Driving the low pressure compressor is much more efficient, but the high pressure tanks can store much more total energy. The real beauty of this scheme is that the computer that you need for turbine control can also monitor and regulate storage equipment. That plus the electric drive allows use of off the shelf compressors if you can tolerate their efficiency.

If you are talking about boating needs where you are looking for stored energy for propulsion, you would probably go with non-metallic high pressure storage and high efficiency / high pressure air motors that drive props. Unless you invest in a lot of air tanks, I am not sure you will get much range if you use stored only. If your turbine is big enough, it can be supplying an electric drive unit while you are using storage just to boost speed.

For the live aboard boaters, the available electricity at anchor is probably a bigger plus. If you are not moving any time soon, your high pressure air storage can be put back into electricity on the calm days.

[P Flados]

Originally Posted by SpiritAmsterdam

Interesting ideas. The world could certainly benefit from a project like this. And it looks like the idea has sparked some interest from others in this forum.

Yeah, but it all hinges around some smart kids getting together, building wind powered carts, and then using what they learned to fill in the gaps that some "old guy" dreamer comes up with.

Seeing the opportunities does not enable a person to develop the computer controls that allow a wind turbine automatically and efficiently put the energy where it is needed.

Back when I was in college, there were lots of little projects where a team of kids learn some really neat stuff, However it usually did not go anywhere because the potential real uses were never followed up on. The Internet has a real potential to change that.

Engineers and scientist typically drool at the though of having their ideas contribute to something that makes life better for everyone or possibly even just a segment of society. For many, just being a part of something real would be plenty of reward, and we would be content even if any financial reward ended up with the guy that actually made it work.

I actually kind of resent when people scramble to patent little pieces of something and in the end just slow down things like getting wind power in a position to deliver on making life better for the entire world. Many patents end up with the first guy that happened to push through the paperwork on an idea that many would have been independently arrived at. Patents should be reserved mostly for the cases where a real innovation was achieve through a long and tedious development with no help from any collective community.