News Flash: New Concepts in Renewable Energy Need To Offer Improvements Over What We Have Today
Part of my career involves looking at new ideas in clean energy, which enables (forces?) me to look at some really wild stuff that couldn’t possibly work. The inventor of this concept in wind energy called the other day to explain how effective his invention will be. What he apparently doesn’t understand is that the energy extracted from wind is proportional to the swept area, and that this device will cost hundreds of times more per square meter than our current technology.
Like so many others, he wants to raise investment capital to build a prototype. Won’t happen.
As I’ve said before, physics should be a required course in high school. And, to get a degree, physics should also be a required course at the college level. There is constant evidence that most people lack even an elementary understanding of physics and don’t even realize how important it is to understand physics.
Frank, I am not even sure that would be enough. As I was growing up I had a very through grounding in the physical world. A video gaming generation has a very different perspective. Many times I read about the advantages of gaming but also wonder at what is being lost.
I was walking down a street and remarked to someone walking alongside that the ball being tossed in the air was traveling in an arch rather than a straight line. Until I told them to stand still and look from the side they refused to believe that I was not lying or trying to kid them.
Similarly, in physics I can recall a difference between the few who understood the subject and those who memorized all the formulas. Both might arrive at a correct answer for a test but the few would just derive the needed formula for the exam rather than memorize it.
I don’t think it is necessarily a problem if someone does not understand the subject. What is a problem is that so many erroneously assume that their understanding is correct and universal. Then we get to the problem that people will not pay attention if they feel they know the answers.
You may be right.
When I took physics, I had to understand the principals because I was incapable of memorizing a bunch of formulae without understanding them. In high school I had a physics teacher whose understanding was marginal. I stated that I didn’t believe that discrete “lines of force” actually existed and that they were simply a way to visualize magnetic fields. He insisted that the lines actually existed. In college I asked about the possibility of using a heat engine instead of an expansion valve for a refrigeration system. He insisted that it could not be done and gave reasons which made no sense to me. Years later I discovered that it had been done successfully for refrigeration systems that used air as the refrigerant gas.
So, even some people with academic credentials lack understanding.
Craig,
It’s always sad witnessing earnest. well-intentioned people promoting impractical inventions and schemes with no possibility of success.
I’m always impressed by the imagination, passion energy and dedication displayed by the inventors, but all too often this is accompanied by self delusion and tunnel vision.
Not all inventors lack qualifications in engineering or physics. (although a surprising number lack even the most basic knowledge of physics). I think the saddest are those who seek commercialization of projects based merely on a belief that people “should’ want to purchase the benefits of whatever they are offering.
Commercialization of any new product is very difficult, and the chances of success are very small. Even practical, worthwhile well engineered inventions find market place acceptance very difficult.
Success stories like Elon Musk are rare. The dynamic of success is not easy to define, but it requires a complex combination of skills, knowledge and personality.
Nor is success in a previous enterprises any guarantee of success in a different field of endevour. Shai Aggassi is a great example. Like many others in the heady days of the dot com boom, Shai Aggassi amassed a fortune as a software entrepreneur.
He then attempted to ride the next investment boom,(green technology) with a product based on an old 1950’s “Popular Science ” type magazine article.
The Better Place battery swapping concept for electric vehicles was never practical or logistically feasible, yet because of his reputation and the euphoria of the boom, some normally serious minded people suspended commonsense and invested heavily in what turned out to be a $1.5 billion disaster.
These are the sort of risks Venture Capitalists and commercial enterprises must accept as part of the price of making profits.
It get more difficult when governments are involved. For political or ideological reasons governments sometimes find it difficult to admit mistakes, resulting in resoting to coercive methods to prop up inefficient or bad investments with taxpayer funds.
After nearly 40 years as a merchant banker, I still remain passionate about funding and commercializing new technology.
What keeps me working is the inspiration I derive from witnessing the degree of human ingenuity and optimism present in even the most outlandish inventions and schemes.
Good points here. All I would add is that certain ideas are simply so bad that that they need to be abandoned. I often tell people, though I try to suggest it gently, “Why don’t you take your idea to a science teacher at your local high school and get some feedback?”
Craig,
Ah, maybe it’s my British upbringing prevents me being so, .. direct !
But you are quite right, I have a colleague in Australia who believes in being forthright to stop people wasting their time and energy on useless, (often barking mad )concepts.
Without a doubt, I can be blunt. I don’t go out of my way to be so, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.
Whilst I recognize that the above concept is hopelessly impractical, it is interesting that Vestas are currently testing a 4 rotor wind tower.
The reasons for this are
1. To bypass the scaling rule – double the length of a turbine blade, and all other things being equal, the weight goes up 8 times for only 4 times the swept area.
2. Smaller rotors are easier to transport and hoist into position – especially to remote areas without access to heavy duty cranes.
Vestas believes that it may be possible to reduce the levelised cost of wind power in some areas by adopting this 4 rotor approach – possibly putting 4 x 1 MW turbines onto a single tower rather than a single 4 MW turbine.
That could make sense.
One of the problems with the current extra huge wind generators is that over time the forces cause damage to bearings and other parts. Presumably that would be a lesser problem for smaller units. On the other hand, smaller units would complicate the electronics. The units could not simply be connected in parallel since the higher mounted ones would often see higher wind velocities.
Basically it’s a matter of cost accounting. Having an excessively large number of units per tower would be too expensive. Probably there is an optimum number.
I forgot the links
https://www.vestas.com/en/media/news#!company-news
https://www.vestas.com/~/media/files/multirotor%20fact%20sheet.pdf