Wind Power - Now and Then

In other words, would an old windmill as was used on farms be as good as a modern windmill in generating electricity?

No it wouldn't, not even the old Dutch design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine

An interesting fact about windmills: from Wikipedia, "...the first practical windmills were built in Sistan, Afghanistan, from the 7th century. These were vertical axle windmills, ... used to grind corn and draw up water, and were used in the gristmilling and sugarcane industries."

Nah... Newer lighter stronger materials, blade shapes, positioning system, bigger sizes, control systems, better bearings, less friction, improved generators in smaller hubs, the number of improvements are countless. By positioning the mills faced or away to te wind, there's a good way of controlling it's speed if needed. An old mill with conventional blades would do just fine attached to a generator. But an engineered airfoil in a well designed machine does output something around 4 times the power a simpler one would do.

But 4 simpler ones would cost half as much as one complicated modern type

Same logic as saying that a pair of shoes costs four times as much a a loaf of bread, if you see what I mean...

What about the Dutch windmills? I don't believe they had any means of controlling the speed of the blades.

They used cloth sails so these could be released to control speed.

True ... the sails could be set or furled just like on ships; disaster was the consequence of not trimming sails and controlling speed. Trimming is also accomplished by turning the windmill with respect to wind...that's right, the entire mill...just like a wind mill/pump/generator (with vane). There are also "sails" consisting of wooden slats which can be set.

A major disadvantage of "old mills" involves weight and materials: gearing made from native woods (as opposed to iron...) must be quite massive (for strength and to allow for wear)...with a corresponding weight penalty. This brings up another advantage of modern (remotely controlled) wind generators: far less provision for "human access for operation and operation...construction of an entire building to support and "old style" mill is no longer necessary. (In this regard one sees a close parallel with light houses, which have gone the way of mills, to be replaced by unmanned, remote controlled buoys and structures.

Yep. All true. And while I don't like the idea of spending more time on operation OR maintenance, I still have to achieve that "Time I got, Money I ain't" balance.

And modern tech is heavy to the money side. So I have to look for the most cost effective ways to apply modern tech, while keeping the most cost/operation/maintenance effective of the old stuff.

Balance is ALL!!

Lets not carry this analogy too far. In the first place unlike the Dutch grain mills there is no need for a whole building to store a product and be able to pivot along with the wind mill. The discussion should focus on old style water pump mills. A water pump wind mill can easily weathercock since the down shaft is cocentric with the pivot bearing. Far less mass involved.

The only reason for bringing in the Dutch wind mills was to illustrate that this old technology actually developed a lot of torque as opposed to a lot of speed. So if torque instead of speed is desirable then the old style is not such a bad example.

Granted it may not be super efficient but if the alternative is to leave the wind power totally untapped, what is the gain? It is not like burning fossil fuels but not using the heat. The wind blows regardless.

And I believe they manually adjusted the direction of the windmill so it would face into the wind.

The only things in common really are the wind the idea of aerodynamic foil. and energy conversion.The rest is progress of technology, and the comparison is nostalgy...

The classic farm windmill was and is great for start-up torque, something you need for an old fashioned water pump to fill a cistern or water trough. They do not work so well for generators. Apparently, for the gearing up required for generation, there is too much loss compared to the gearing down for a pump. Combine this with the fact that these designs not only lose efficiency as the wind velocity increases, but can be damaged rather easily in "high" wind scenarios.

The Dutch windmill design I would imagine would work better simply because of scale; they must produce a lot of torque, but they also likely suffer from the effects of high winds.

I am familiar with the farm windmill because I had looked it over in the 70's for generating, but I am only speculating on the Dutch windmills.

One of the concepts that is getting increased attention is 'pumped storage' either compressed air or water tower type pumping. If the old farm style windmill has good start torque then the slower speed is not as relevant. Modern windmills with airfoil shapes than can achieve high speed ratios relative to wind speed is useful when moving a wire through a magnetic field. However if speed is not so important as in pumping storage, then the older style may in fact be quite useful.

The classic farm windmill was and is great for start-up torque, something you need for an old fashioned water pump to fill a cistern or water trough. They do not work so well for generators. Apparently, for the gearing up required for generation, there is too much loss compared to the gearing down for a pump.

Ah think I think if I orient the dana alxe housing from the old 1955 chevy one ton this can be overcome, yep I'm thinking so.

You might be right about that Dana. And it sure beats the price of a new high-tech setup. Even at the expense of efficiency. We can get a lot of work on the cheap out of old truck or car parts!

I can think of two examples of gearing up in old farm equipment that worked just fine. The centerfuge of the milk seperator and the hand cranked blower on a small forge used by farriers. Nobody talked about how inefficient they were because they did work and did a job as intended. Maybe we are just getting too high tech and outsmarting ourselves.

I'm thinkin we might be. And I'm fixin to quit bein.

After reading all the commentary so far, I am struck with this thought. Since wind-speed damage control is a necessity in a modern windmill, and the Dutch windmills did this with cloth "sails" which could be slacked, or even "crash" luffed, to avoid the damage, could we come up with a simple, relatively foolproof (yes, I know all about the better grades of fools available now, and how they improve over time, but still ....) method of handling that requirement? If so, then the Dutch style of windmill, big as it is, and permanent as it is (after all, they were mostly either LARGE timbers, or stone construction, towers) might be a better answer for any of us who could spare the space, as opposed to the high-cost and relative fragility of a higher-tech modern windplant.

All that said, is there also a way to eliminate, or at least limit, the maintenance issues involved with cloth sails? What about Mylar sails? Or Dacron? How UV resistant are those? Would they stand up to long-term, constant exposure? Or would you have to put up new sails every 12 months? Every 3 years? Where is the break-even point for cost if you a)replace them yourself, or b)hire someone with high-wire expertise to do it? How about if you make them yourself from purchased sheet goods, rather than buying them pre-, or custom, made?

Anybody with Textile experience want to weigh in on this?

Also, and last, how much wind does it typically take to get one of those turning? If high startup torque is the advantage, then high-(horse)power output follows, as long as the torque stays high at relatively low RPM. And if that is true, gearing up to drive a generator, or maybe even a rolling-UPS flywheel might allow for a very long-life low maintenance lower end to a windpower setup, in the right place.

Or maybe I'm just dreaming and letting my imagination run wild. Anybody want to comment on one or more ideas presented here? I'm looking on.

Micah

You bring up some interesting ideas I hadn't thought about. Modern wind machines are quite expensive. One other thought I had was for a wind turbine/generator that is mounted in a slipstream of a motor vehicle that can supply current to charge batteries/run accessories. Would the added drag offset any additional power generation?

Well, Over Unity arguments come to mind, and one particular aspect which would seem evident is that the structure of the mill, the inert ingredients, so to speak, would add drag. No amount of power generation, even if the mill itself were 100% efficient, could add the power to replace what is lost to that drag. Add in the mass of the additional structure, and you have another power user with no concomittant gain. Then, since we know NO man-made machine can be 100% efficient, you start on the loss side of the ledger, so those two subtractions alone just add to the slope of the decline in power and efficiency.

Don't think there is any way, no matter how, to do it with the structure mounted on a moving vehicle. And unless the slip-stream was being generated as a power-losing subfunction of something ELSE the vehicle was doing while stationary, and the mill was just situated in its slip-stream WHILE it was stationary (i.e., not mounted on a common, mobile frame) you just ain't gonna regain what you lose in the process.

But, if you have a fan being used, say, to winnow chaff from wheat, and you put a mill down-wind from the fan, to capture some of the energy lost in the process of shoving out that wind, you might have an efficiency RE-gain, or recapture, going.

I like the idea of daisy chaining energy conversion devices to reuse what is currently being lost. But I'm always faced with the problem of when the recapturing of energy results in the originating process being hindered because of the lost energy.

A good example of this would be when the heat scavenging sleeves that used to be sold (still are, and still are safe, when applied carefully and properly) to reuse the heat that went up the chimney from wood-stoves sometimes resulted in the flue being too cold to adequately carry away the combustion by-products, in which case, creosote would build up over time, and the chimney, maybe months later, would flash-ignite internally. No one would know about it, until something catastrophic happened, like the internal wall temp rising high enough to light the wall from inside, which then would smolder awhile, and finally burst into flame, most often when either a) the family was away, or b) the family was asleep. Chaos, damage, loss, and sometimes fatality resulted. All because someone was trying to scavenge a little lost energy, but without understanding the whole "down-stream" implications of the energy cycle.

Something to think about in the general case, but I don't think its too much of a worry if you use the stationary-mill-in-a-stationary-system's-incidental-windstream application.

Unless the chaff is so heavy it windrows in front of the downstream mill and clogs it up. In which case, how would you winnow it with a fan, anyway?

Micah

Thanks. This is useful input to the conversation, and clear. As all good CR4 inputs should be.

GA from me. I never thought about that Lift-vs-Drag design consideration, tending to lump drag in as a power loser, counting on straight wind pressure ( with the blades acting like a tacking sail, "sliding" off of the wind-stream to produce torque) and ignoring lift as a feature of mill blade design.

How does lift apply to aircraft propellor design? How about in Turbo-Props?

Under the heading of cost /benefit ratio, if you have an existing old windmill tower that is still strong it may be just as cost effective to use the old style multi blade windmill to use pump storage. High speeds is only necessary when spinning loops of wire through a magnetic field.

If the old dutch windmills were so bad why did they not just use horses to drive the grindstones around. The reason was it was still more effective than using straight horse power. I remember seeing those old wind mills in a nearby museum. By that time everybody was so enamored of 'modernizing to oil and electricity there was no way anybody would even look at considering an old fashioned wind mill. Today we can expect to get 10 years out of a suit of sails made of Dacron. Old style canvas lasted 3 - 5 years. By far the biggest damage is from ultraviolet degradation. The old mills furled the sails and or trimmed the vanes that supported the sails. If you look closely at some of the old paintings it clearly shows the sails partially furled and then only a triangular shape showed. From what I have seen two ways were used to furl sails.

Feathering by rotating the wing slightly or removing the canvas or the spoke type wheel with the sail rolled around the pole.( triangular shape when partially furled) Granted the old style was cumbersome but today we have much better roller furling designs. In most cases these old designs fall into the 'drag' type of motive power category.

What is the difference between a modern day wind powered generating system and the windmills of old?

Torque.

milo

There is a big difference between these kind of windmills, in fact modern wind machines are better called wind turbines. The blades as a rule are more aerodynamic. The old fashioned machines were slow speed fairly high torque and were basically used either to turn millstones to grind grain (hence name wind MILLS ) or to pump water. they were not really designed to turn an electric generator). I suggest you google various wind turbines to see the difference ( you probably could set one up for under 10,000 dollars)

Good luck

Am thinking to go slow and use as much inefficient cheap energy as I please the old way. I'll use them new sail materials and with the money saved by not using those high dollar turbines I'll set in the rocker undeterred by flicker too.

I like the rocker. I don't mind the flicker. But I can avoid the flicker (from big high-tech turbines) AND enjoy the rocker if I do some of the heavy labor myself, and avoid paying too much time, attention, OR money to the bank, or to the high-tech turbine installers! I like that option best! Making money on the high-tech turbine company's rent is also OK, but not if I can't live with my country neighbors, and not if I'm constantly fighting with the bank or my county licensing agents. I'll take less income, more wildlife (I like hunting deer on MY property), more control over MY property use, and more leisure, in my retirement years. I don't need more income, or want more reliance on outside sources of anything, with its concomitant stress, when could be I rocking happily on my own porch, with my own neighbors.

"I suggest you google various wind turbines to see the difference ( you probably could set one up for under 10,000 dollars)"

Been there, Googled that! I keep seeing most everyone denigrating the idea of doing it the old way, using MY OWN labor, and saving money. Seems to me what's needed, by me, is a balance between the new ways, and my wife's "time I've got, money I ain't" philosophy, which suggests looking at how I can do it WITHOUT more debt. Too many people seem to want me to go more in debt, but as I approach retirement, I don't want to owe more people more money, and I care less about feeding my excess output into the grid on spec (taking more financial risk) than I do about saving myself more money, while having fun learning and applying new stuff without the stress of figuring out how I'm going to make the payments. As a result, I'm leaning more and more to figuring out how to do it myself, for less money. I might LIKE a Savonious, despite all the arm-chair theorist's decisions that they aren't efficient enough. OR, I might like the idea of building my own "MILL", and gearing up to drive a genset. Or, maybe using the mill to do actual labor, like pumping water, and using a Savonious elsewhere to drive a genset. Haven't decided yet, but Googling seems to have run its course. And I'll guarantee Ronseto has googled till he's blue in the face. He doesn't ask questions he hasn't already googled all the available info on. And Ronseto and I think alike on a lot of subjects. Wholesale flying into the new tech, while throwing out the old is NOT the only way worth pursuit in all cases.

say if you want to build a windmill to pump water from a lake up about 100ft to your cabin. how would you go about designing a windmill to do that? could you provide info on how to take the wind and turn it into a pump.

I could, but the simplest way would be to couple a crank arm turned by the windmill to the arm of an old hand-pumped piston style water pump set up at the top of the hill, with a line running down into the lake. Those old piston pumps did a lot better job at sucking water up from way down deep than they did at pushing water way up high. That's why they were installed on top of so many wells in rural areas. The only thing they needed to stay in action was occasional priming by pouring water on the gaskets in the pump head (which was another reason they were installed up where the pump operator could reach the pump proper). Alternative to the crank arm, you could do the same thing with a chain drive from the base of the mill to a gear with an offset pin set into its face and welded or otherwise attached to the piston shaft of the pump. The purpose in any case is just to turn the rotary motion at the base of the windmill into a vertical motion at the head of the pump. And there must be a million ways to do that with "junk" parts. But you'd definitely need chain drive, if you use some kind of flexible "line" connection at all, because the torque requirements to move water with those old pumps would wear out a strong man's arm in a hurry, and that much resistance would cause a belt to slip too much.

From what I remember the well rod pumps had leather flapper valves every thirty feet. Suction can't work beyond that lift. So multiple flap valves were spaced along the well rod if the well was deeper than 30 feet. but that style pump cannot push water up very far. However a gear pump of positive displacement will push a certain height. I seem to recall a CR4 discussion on fire main pumps in high rise building also having an issue with lifting water beyond a certain height. Physics limit the height you can push water before another booster pump is required.

A crank converts the rotary motion of the wind mill to reciprocal motion. but if a gear pump is driven direct from the wind mill shaft there would not be any losses in the bell crank. The down side being if the water contains sand the wear of the gear pump would be high. Leather flap valves are somewhat more tolerant of grit.

Nothing wrong with a two stage deal.

One windmill lifts the water to a cistern for ground level storage and another windmill with a gear pump pushes the water up to a high storage location. Gravity will then let falling water spin a water turbine at high RPM to generate electricity if that is needed. This is the point wher some high tech design could yield an efficient electric power generator.

In fact this also means the two pumps need not be synchronized as to pumping capacity. Float valves in the cistern can regulate when the gear pump is active. The e gear pump would only run if and when sufficient water is there to prime the gear pump. Proper sizing of the storage containers can then regulate the rest of the system.

Great answers. Especially since a) they use low tech, at relatively low cost, and b) you could divert that (falling water) energy, or the lift energy not currently driving the gear pump, to other work. I like the ideas tremendously. Now if only I could get some land, and some breeze. And a well. (Tanks should be easy.)

We are starting to see bureaucratic red tape that prevents setting up wind mills for electric power generation unless all sort of conditions are met. There are no such restrictions on water pump windmills.

True. And its the ability to generate power for my own use I want. I really don't need to sell it back. Everyone seems to want to first figure out how to make money on it. I want to make independence on it. And red tape has a hard time taking that away.

Careful now! bureaucrats don't like the idea of independent people. Such people don't need bureaucrats and then those paper pushers will be out of a job. So they create systems that keep us tied to them and requiring their permission to do anything.

Stayin under the radar!! Low Crawl, now!

This is the point wher some high tech design could yield an efficient electric power generator.

Could be a screw would do well too, some are used to dig holes in earth and some use them for anchors but a screw will spin in a tube when fluid runs through it too

Guest, you could use an old-style farm windmill pump to do your work quite nicely, provided you locate the pump cylinder below the lake surface, which necessitates locating the windmill tower near the shore and opening a channel between the lake and the pump. vertical piston pumps (like those inside the wells beneath windmilltowers) don't always remain "primed" if they are above the static water level, and in the best of circumstances will only "draw" water about thirty feet by vaccuum.

The pump, in this case, must push the water uphill and there could be a problem sealing the gland where the pump rod exits this pressure line. In most farm situations this was not a problem because the water was left to flow by gravity into an open tank from the well-head. Substituting a modern piston pump for the original might be the better course.

One plan I'd love to try is to move an air compressor with the wind mill. Air compressors can be bought pretty cheap. An old propane tank could be used to hold compressed air up to (correct me if I'm off) about 300 psi. A solenoid valve could then provide air to a turbine (tesla?) to generate electricity. As well, the turbine could pump water into the air tank, compressing the air and give compressed air driven water. There would be energy loss from the hot compressed air cooling, but it is all pretty low tech, can be build in any city (I'm thinking here in Mexico), has a small foot print, and the system could be modular (using many tanks and turbines.) I'd like to combine energy storage with solar power, but going from solar energy to compressed air a somewhat difficult (PV to air pump=inefficient, or Stirling/Rankin engines are difficult to make.)

I don't see what problem you have with the modern wind turbine blades. They are far lighter, more efficient, and can take far higher average wind speeds with out failure. The old wind mill type do have high starting torque but are very inefficient over all and only get worse as the wind speed picks up.

Coupling the high torque they do make to a big gear box in order to get the needed speed out of it to turn a generator is just using up more power. Simple physics dictate that the less gear ratio used the greater the power transfer efficiency.

Starting with a old wind mill blade set that tops out at 100 RPM turning a 1800 RPM generator will have far more looses with its 18:1 ratio then using a wind turbine set up that spins at 600 RPM and goes through a 3:1 gear box. The gear box for 3:1 is much smaller and lighter too even with the same power capacity.

There are full fiberglass wind turbine blades available now online (Windmax is one) that are going to be far cheaper than what you will design or build yourself. If you cant afford a set of high efficiency fiber glass blades 10 feet in diameter for under $200 you certainly cant afford the gear box and the crane required to lift it in order to handle the same sized wind mill blade set either.

Good luck cutting down a truck axle and getting it up on a 40 foot tower without spending a dime! I want a video and time chart relating to the real cost involved in doing it also!

I have been building home made wind generators since I was in my early teens some 20 years ago. If you want electricity cheap and reliable you will not beat a three or four blade wind turbine with a direct drive of a large low speed permanent magnet DC motor working as a generator.

The cloth sails system is a novelty at best. I give it a week before your sick of it and park it permanently. There is a reason wind generators don't use the big old style windmill blades. Reliability and cost.

What makes the new modern wind turbines expensive is not the materials, its the politics, bureaucracy, lack of competition, and manufacturer greed.

And every old pump jack system I have ever seen that raised water more than 10 feet pushed the water not pulled it. Vacuum does not move water though pipes well at all. The old mechanical pump jacks are very inefficient. My dads old system needed a 3/4 hp motor and could only pump at best 2 gallons a minute from 80 feet down.
The new deep well submersible delivers 10 GPM from 175 feet down while maintaining 50 PSI system pressure. I know this for a fact because I just replaced a 50+ year old pump jack system for my dad last week. It used one pumping cylinder 80 feet down the well and still produced 35 PSI system pressure.

The only vacuum based hand powered pumps I have ever seen were the ones that drew water out of a basement cisterns a few feet below them.

I can appreciate the do it yourself approach more than most but still do it right or don't do it at all. Wasting your time and effort knowing that what you are building is basically overly complicated inefficient junk is just fools work. (and the work of government and big business)

And I personaly think you are better than them!

Coupling the high torque they do make to a big gear box in order to get the needed speed out of it to turn a generator is just using up more power. Simple physics dictate that the less gear ratio used the greater the power transfer efficiency.

Yes, yes correct but efficiency isn't exclusive when favoring winds provide with little expense excessive power for less.

High aspect ratio "wing" vanes is of course the preferred wind harvesting choice. However, following your logic chain; high speed is likewise counter efficient in two ways. Noise production makes set back real estate distances for homes and humans to be at least 3,000 feet; and environmental safety for birds and other critters in close proximity as well as the shutter effect of large wind turbine towers is a real health issue.

I'll dig around on CR4 and find a picture of a horizontal axis wind generator that has very high aspect ratio vanes, but they are twisted somewhat around the central hub to ensure smoother, quieter operation when wind speeds above their start up threshold are available. Two major advantage to this type of turbine is that they are relatively quiet and low RPM's make them much safer for living beings to be near them. They are likewise able to handle the types of induced down wind turbulence one finds in cities near or on buildings and tall structures such as water towers, in particular when winds are cranking.

Siemens and GE both now have cost effective inverters targeted at commercial applications such as wind turbines that make it feasible to use DC generators (direct driven) in wind turbines. With that boon comes the reduction in cost and efficiencies tied up in planetary gear "infinite speed" drives.

If one mounts horizontal helix vane turbines on structures such as in cities, they have to mount them on so called anti-gravity thrust mounts to insure that vibration from the turbines does not induce noise and destructive forces into their structures. The anti-grav mount arena is also seeing much improvement and unit costs are going down for these all but off the shelf devices, as well. Scales of economy are almost ready for market and they should be available at competitive prices this year or early next, near as I can tell. In experiments I have conducted, even my hand wound rod and winding anti-grave mounts induced no vibration from a home made scrape parts wind turbine project I had on my roof which just charges all battery powered tools that I use. My neighbors have never complained about noise and we cannot feel it in the house when the winds are at speed at night, either.

What this antigravity-mount-system, technical improvement means is that construction of electric grids from wind farms to cities does not have to be factored into the cost of alternative, renewable energy such that cities in wind zones 3 and higher can realize the benefits of wind turbines in inner cities, directly. And why that is significant is that electric grid builders have not satisfied the problem of the fact that the greatest demand for transporting electric energy from wind farms to urban areas is done during mid-day when wind velocity in most areas is weakest or none existent. The greatest or most useful wind speeds are most reliably extant during sun down, night time and sun up when most generation plants are idling, just to keep their fire bricks hot enough not to crack from shrinking. A national grid is just not justified in practical fact, if power from green wind-farms to cities is the argument.

Inner city, low RPM, High Aspect Ratio, horizontal helix generators make more sense, as a result of these improvements and technical advances, in my opinion. In fact, solar panel systems, leased from the utilities and electric co-ops offering them is probably the next small step toward solving the inner city, peak load problems; not wind-farms on the other end of a utility grid, at all.

Wind and water are two of the most basic forms of energy available. Solar, tidal and thermal are other basic energy sources, but the former two mentioned were the first to be harnessed by man to do useful work and cause the advance of technology. An energy source as basic as wind seems to me to have not attracted large enough numbers or researchers. Wind power made possible the powering of other machines like pumps, but it seems to have come to a stop there. Society opted for other forms of energy that presented greater challenges and efforts to reach reality, even though the technology was so much more complex. How much thought was put into harnessing wind vs getting a rocket into space? I think more research should be given toward these basic types of energy.

I plan to do some of it, Ronseto. I have been thinking about the issue of lift vs drag/thrust in the blade design, and want to look into creating a Savonius foil with a lifting body shape to it. I don't know if I can make it work or not (and you naysayers can just stay away, for now) but I work with a great group of Middle- and High-School Science Fair competition students, and I think I can get a particular one of them interested in this, enough to do some real research on it, for his Sr. High project. He has designed and built several fairly large wind-tunnels (biggest I know had a 5 ft/sq cross-section, which I think could be used for this) and he is very savvy about instrumentation for things like lift, thrust, rotational velocity, air velocity, etc., so we should be able to get some good ratiometric data comparing air supply velocity to turbine speed. Should be interesting.

And useful. I'll bring back some conclusions and data, though it may take a year to get results that will satisfy him.

...I'd like to toss "...friction..." into the discussion ring too!

...there's [i]much[/i] LESS in today's wind-machines than those of old.

Sharpen your point...

There seems to be a missconception that the old mills were low maintenance reliable machines.
I recently read a great old book 'The Village Carpenter' The wooden teeth of the gear wheels could be stripped, and you couldn't simply replace one, they had to all be done which was a time consuming precision job as any one tooth which didn't run true wouldn't 'bed in' as you might expect, it would simply get worse and worse.

Del

Well, Del, I think both Ronseto and I have said we'd take the best of the modern in favor of a creating a good working hybrid, so that we could 'get er done with what we can afford' rather than wait around forever to get something higher-tech, but currently beyond our budgets.

There IS the old saw about the first 90% of the project taking the first 90% of the budget, and the other 10% of the project taking the other 90% of the budget. I know that's a hard mathematical concept for us engineers to grasp, especially since its supposed to be humorous, but plug in "efficiency of the design" for "project", and perhaps, through this analogy, we can all grasp Ronseto's main point.

Given how blamed MUCH wind and water power is available, created by abundant gravity on one hand, and abundant wind, evaporation, rain, etc., on the other, extracting the Nth degree of efficiency from it at the expense of not doing it at all seems to be very counterproductive.

Sort of like you requiring your box to be self-cleaning, when a scoop can get it done for you well-enough, if its only done often enough. Self-cleaning is nice, but if waiting for that means it doesn't get done at all, well, I know which one I'D opt for!!

I assume you use a box, but of course you may be one of those better trained cats. I would certainly believe that of you! Nonetheless, my point still stands.

Wooden peg cogs would have been high maintenance issues along with the rest of the predominantly organic structure that would all suffer from excessive forces. Modern turbines are driving electromagnetic generators that incorporate huge losses in converting energy but at least operate due to lesser forces. But nowadays the power impact of a few turbines is significantly reduced per head because we add significant infrastructure as standard whereas a small dutch community could have eaasily met all of it's milling, pumping needs with it's fewer windmills. And then farmers generally went to bed most nights unlike more modern requirements!

So, dump the wooden peg cogs in favor of something in the middle between them and high-tech, like a bicycle chain drive, with the derailleur if you really want to adjust the gearing for wind-speed (pretty manual operations, though, most of the time), and sleep well, knowing that everything that can be brute-force strong and maintenance light is, and everything that should be modern (the generator, the control panels, the switch-gear, the ..., well, you get the point) ... is!

I think that is where Ronseto was probably headed. I KNOW that's where I was headed. And I thank Ronseto for giving me the forum to get there.

A belt with variable clutch (mechanical) drive seems a winner to me. Differential drum to drum unit from pickup truck is worthy too imagine that. I recall being called benchmarking give credit where due.

Well I had a lesson in self suficiency this week-end. We visited my wiife's uncle who runs a fishing camp up north. Nearest power line is more than 20 miles away. This is not unusual in that area. When guests are present, he runs a 25kW air cooled genset for power from 7:00AM to 10:00 PM usd to be 6:00AM 11:00 PM until fuel got expensive. He also charges a couple of truck batteries. During the night an inverter powers the water pump. I did notice that every day catabatic winds blew up or down the long narrow lake. This despite a weather forecast of zero wind. Hmm? All cooking is done using propane. Heat is either propane or wood.

This wind could be used to pump water into storage tank and gravity would feed it to the various taps in the camp.

It may be foolish in some folks' eyes to eschew green energy, but the sad truth is that conversion from fossil fueled energy sources is pretty universally capital intensive up front, and savings generally occur very slowly over an extended life of the project. We desperately need tax breaks, subsidies, and other (incentives) to offset this expense that most folks can't handle easily.

Simply put, when my gas-fired water heater goes bust, I can usually afford to replace it in kind, but can't come up with the $2500 for a solar heater.

Carver35 you hit the nail right on the head. Probably 90% or more of the people are in the same situation. There is good reason why propane or natural gas is used so extensively for such things as water and home heating. It is conveniently available, doesn't cost excessively to set up and despite complaints about cost the price was affordable to the average working person making an average wage.

And we have learned over the years how to make the systems safe. We have 'standards' that tell us what makes for a safe installation and what is not. The minute you get into something new liek hydrogen, it is a brand new ball game. How do you handle a gas with molecules so small they can literally sneak through a lot of materials. How do you handle a gas that actually make the steel containers brittle?

When we built fuel handling equipment for a nuclear reactor we were allowed to use helium for a test gas. The reason being it was safer if there was a leak and helium molecules are amost as small as hydrogen so the safety factor during test of a possibly leaking pipe system was deemed an acceptable trade off.

We learned the hard way how to handle gasoline when refuelling. Right now the cost of hydrogen fuelling systems is prohibitive. The rules dictating how a hot water system must be set up is also excessively strict and that makes it expensive.

AS someone else said. the cost of compliance may well price many alternatives out of reach. Question being is the existing compliance rules realistic? And finally why do we have the same standards applied to a 1 megawatt wind turbine and a 1 kilowatt turbine. That seem to be the case in some juristictions.