Hydrokinetics and Wind Energy Technologies

I just got off the phone with a fellow trying to raise investment capital for these guys.  I bring this up not to ridicule anyone, but to make a point about the energy industry.  The main technology featured here is a device for run-of-river hydro.  Will it generate electricity?  Absolutely.  Unfortunately, that’s not the issue, but rather, could it possibly do so cost-effectively and without major ecological consequences?  The answer there is: absolutely no.  In fact, this thing will be fabulously expensive on a dollar/watt basis, and would make an excellent sushi knife. 

It’s interesting that the same inventor apparently has developed a flying turbine that generates energy from the winds at altitudes of 1000 feet or so.  The video on the site celebrates the successful deployment of his floating turbine and concludes that this is proof that it can be done.  The problem?  Proof that it can be done has no meaning; we already know that this can be done; just put “high altitude wind turbine” into YouTube and you’ll be looking at this stuff all day long.  Again, the challenge is to do it cost-effectively, and there is no indication whatsoever that this inventor has made headway in that arena.

Even if I had any respect for either idea, I’d also be a bit skeptical that a single inventor could be on the very cutting-edge of R&D in both hydro and wind.  Of course, Linus Pauling proved to an extremely dubious world that one person can set the pace in both chemistry and physics – though this is an accomplishment that no one before or since has replicated.  So is it credible that this guy is a modern day Linus Pauling?  Nope.