A Scottish Engineer's Quest to Design a Kite That Can Power the World
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- Опубликовано: 29 янв 2017
- Rod Read, an engineer and stay-at-home dad, lives on the remote Isle of Lewis in Scotland. For the past seven years, he’s been designing a kite that he thinks could revolutionize wind power.
Read's rotary kite turbine prototype is small, but he imagines a big future for kites--he’s created computer models of large arrays of connected kites, all generating power in unison. A network of kites, Read says, is safer and stronger than a single kite--if one kite fails, it’s held aloft by the others. He’s released several of his open-source designs on his website for anyone to use. More testing is needed to show the design can be scaled up, and Read is raising funds to help a PhD student at the nearby Strathclyde University test the design.
There are other kite-driven turbine designs in various stages of development around the world, including Google-funded Makani Power in California. Scottish Kite Power Systems is building the UK’s first kite-driven power station this year.
Whether kite power takes off on the utility level is yet to be seen. For Read, his next goal is to build a kite large enough to charge his electric car.
Makani ran out of investors. They have posted all of their work online in hopes others will pick up from where they left off and use their research to advance kite wind technology.
Source?
@@noiJadisCailleach Makani wikipedia page
@@noiJadisCailleach Makani themselves.
@@noiJadisCailleach google
@@noiJadisCailleach The Archaic Records.
It's 2021, this video was made in 2017. Can we get an update? Did this actually come to fruition?
Makani was closed down.. Too much risk for alphabet
Do they ever?
r u serious? This is a youtube news story from an activist organization with 600 subs, 99% of the "scientific breakthroughs" and "engineering revolutions" that happen here are just some dads messing around in the backyard. Did even 1% of you believe that this guy who made a kite machine was actually moving onto changing the green energy industry? jeez
@@iminumst7827 Nobody was talking about engineering revolutions. The idea however is not bad. Which is why multiple companies were founded around the concept. In their current state these concepts are still not economically viable.
However, just because something is on RUclips it does not have to be a bad idea. It was a valid question.
@@olmkiujnb video description "Rod Read, an engineer and stay-at-home dad, lives on the remote Isle of Lewis in Scotland. For the past seven years, he’s been designing a kite that he thinks could revolutionize wind power."
And again, a lot of the problems with these ideas is that although on a base scientific level they make sense they have no logistical sense. And the reason there are multiple companies founding around these type of ideas is because the science start up scene is a profitable business, where people make dozens of companies that plan to fail, but make enough social media buzz that they get bought out by a hipster tech company before their business plan fails.
If you can use the kite to power the ebike and it packs into a backpack, i say its a viable product.
Yooooooooooo, thats some next level thinking, the generator itself has to be as light weight as possible so its actually worth it to pack it
@@komrad822 The bike can be the generator. An electric generator is pretty much the same as an electric motor
@@Schradermusic I completely forgot about that at the time of the comment lol
whats the point of a bike that should only go against the wind to work?
@@guramegoreng7352 noooo. The kites would be used to charge the ebike.
imagine trying to relaunch a field of those after the wind dropped and they all dunked in the mud
You just need to get them high enough - isn't there a certain thing called "Jetstream" ;)
@@NicMediaDesign yeah, and it's about 6 miles up... Good luck transmitting torque down a tension line that long. Actually the tension line would have to be closer to 8 or 9 mi long because it wouldn't go straight up.
@@NicMediaDesign You don't need to go that high. 3or 4 hundred feet should be fine.
@@Unmannedair well at that point you wouldnt transmit the torque, you would just use a generator at the top and transmit the power electrically.
@@NicMediaDesign XD Imagine seeing a bunch of planes with them attached because they were up to high lmao
Wow!
Thats amazing!
So much more easier to build than a normal wind engine!
We need people like him.
Prone to line entanglement.with itself and to other kites... specially lots of kids' kites.
Need to relaunch every after the wind has stopped and is picking up again.
Even if this doesn't scale into large uses efficiently, i could see this absolutely having a market for camping and excursions, fitting into a compact carry case.
finding the right conditions might be difficult. you may want consistent wind and you can't operate near trees, where people tend to like to camp. I was thinking maybe for rural or isolated homes.
@@forrestl5597 Just climb the tallest tree near you and set it up in the uppermost branches.
@@evannibbe9375 that's a good idea, but i bet it would get tangled with the slightest shift in wind.
You intrude on my airspace, said the neighbor.
nice! just need some kind of stiff structure to keep them up while there's no wind.
And that's how wind turbines were invented :)
Ya let's make it spin then attached a hard structure to keep it up. Ok. We'll call it a tower ok .
Oh wait isn't that a wind mill all ready. . you gonna hire kids to run with them first lol
Maybe a telescopic spar to raise it away from potential hazards, a strength being that the cable can take up even higher than if the spar simply had a bladed turbine, I think it would work fine on the small scale
Or use a balloon
This could be a better alternative for Native Indian tribes who don’t like the idea of giant windmills. Decorative coloring could also incorporate tribal colors.
That’s very specific lol
Valuable imagination
Ingenious!
Excited to see the future of wind energy.
Could be a portable thing like using this for RVs or while camping.
There is a portable one but it's not with wind but with water.
It's the size of our head and like a jet turbine.
Place it in a river and you can charge your phone on land with a long cable
I don't know what it's called but it's pretty handy
@@doubleblocks3446 sometimes you don't have flowing water nearby, this covers that. My main thing is that this looks cool and who doesn't like cool looking things? Both are good, each have their pros and cons
This is honestly a really great idea
Here you find the reason why the Enterprise counts on a Scottsman as the chief engineer.
you do realise that's just a story, doc ??
It's not always windy everywhere. Just sayin
so good thing they don`t make any more Enterprise star trek
Yep, he must be able to operate and repair a ship capable of interstellar travel; because he made this abortion of a bike attached to a kite. 🤣🤣👌🏻
Love the design :)
actually its great I think your idea is great,the turbine,better than mine,looks loads more efficient,,and looks great,my grandmother I believe lived in Stornoway for a while before ww1 but her surname was Telfer.
I remember once sitting on my automatic moped and she twisted the handle bar and I shot into a hedge,her remark"what a silly place to put an accelerator!"
It's an interesting idea and works in model form. Scaling up? 450watts from a makeshift bicycle contraption is more than enough to charge a battery so even a small scale could be refined into a practical product
450 is prolly max, and needs a force 6 gale to acheive
@@raymondo162 ot looks that way, maybe using as an auxiliary to current turbines during storms or gales when they feather off to prevent overspeeding?
The Wind Mill says: easy for that kit, its not trying to spin a motor!
😆
All the boys in green
keeping the planet green!
Well, I'm all for it being enough to boil a pot of tea, but how many to deep-fry that Mars bar?
The biggest problem facing wind power is the wear of the turbines. The edge of large wind turbines reach sustained speeds of 200 mph. Obviously these smaller ones would be going slower but are also made of less durable material.
Actually, in some ways I think these kites could be considered to be made out of more durable material as far as having the strings within them using far less than 1% of their maximum tensile strength (the amount of force necessary to break them) and in not having any parts which would rub themselves away.
@@evannibbe9375 how do you figure these are more durable than traditional wind turbines made from fiberglass? I don't know if you've seen what the wind does to the leading edge after only a couple of years, but it basically sand blasts it to oblivion. These kites would only be very short term energy, as anything that light will get torn to shreds in months possibly even days of continuous operation. There's also the issue of having to get them flying every time the wind picks up, rather than them just being static.
! WOW !
Super design !
It's a cute concept that would make for a fun science exhibit or learning center display.
Absolutely outclassed in all manner way, shape, and form to the raw power of geothermal and nuclear. One of those produces roughly half a kilowatt. The average house uses 11,000 kilowatt-hours per year in the US. We need to stop beating around the bush with pet projects and shrug off our fear of commitment to plans of a grander scale.
Aye Scotty, great work!
Absolutely Love This !!!!!!!
Beats Makani into a cocked hat! I watched the full video of THAT project and thought it was over complicated. It looks like your method is inherently stable and needs no control system to fly. The fact that it worked with a bike was really impressive. I think that although engineers will want to make the wings solid to squeeze more efficiency out of the system, the advantages of a fabric sail arrangement is that no one on the ground will think it's unsafe. How about stringing 9 high performance paragliders together?
Yeah, i saw that documentary too, absolutely insane that Makani decided to go with a giant 737 sized solid quadcopter-kite instead of just using 3 of the soft kites they started with to turn a turbine ^-^' It was definitely an interesting concept worth investigating for science, but not for wind power. this is an immensely more practical concept for actual power generation.
@@xymaryai8283 Makani demonstrated the hubris of software control. The concept was inherently unstable (in the literal sense) and they just dropped down the Rabbit Hole into a Wonderland of adjustment upon adjustment. Rob Read has got it right because if something fails (fabric etc.) it's not un unthinkable expense to replace any of the parts. I would like to see an explanation of the translation of rotary motion from the kite into power output. Eg. what torque can be applied from a given wing radius.
@@xymaryai8283 dude, its the state money they want. Not help planet ¿or you are so innocent?
@@bobprince1472 the problem with fabric is longevity. There is no fabric light enough that could withstand a few month of flying. UV exposure, mechanical stress.
Imagine if you installed small turbines up and down all the major rivers in the world. Near the bends where the current speeds up. Oh well, just a thought. Nice work Rod!!!
wow so beautiful. i want this for my garden
Amazing idea!
I do wonder how wear and tear would be any better than wind turbines. Maybe there will be some transferable ideas to make a better turbine.
I don't think it will be as durable or long lasting (except maybe the actual generator part as that's just hunks of metal) but I can at least say it will be significantly cheaper to maintain and repair, for the short run that is but I don't think it should replace permanent fixtures and that's probably the idea
This sounds great for emergency, but it goes against st the economy of scale.
Big Hero 6! Those sky Blimps were generators
Wind is a lot more consistent and powerful at higher altitudes, this guys a genius
i made a kite for my house like the house with the faeries next door the other day ^_^ kites are so fun! Scotland! I know a girl called Alli who went to Isle of Skye and she loved it so much! I love Ireland myself ^_6 cool kite design!
It might be more feasible on a long axle mounted on posts. It could stretch for meters, acres, miles if needed.
So do they get themselves into the air when the wind picks up or do you have to constantly set them up yourself? What about wind shifting? What does it do when that happens?
This version looks like it needs a lot of setup, with enough engineering it could probably eventually need little to no or at least have need less preparation (discarding sabot out of an air cannon sounds cool, this is just a far out and mostly impractical design though). I don't know what you mean by shifting winds, if you mean changing direction than maybe the generator can swivel to cope with that, the main problem I see would be constant dramatic changes as it might not have the time to adjust and so, stall. But I am not someone who has studied engineering or certified in anything similar so I might be (and most probably am) wrong
Maybe a balloon on the end of the tether.
Amazing bro.
Yet another great idea for cost effective renewable energy! Now let's never use it and make sure word never gets out.
Fantastic!
Cheers m8!
Amazing stuff 👍😀
Very promising. Good luck with the design 👍😎🇦🇺
The only problem is thunder and lightning during a storm can channel down via the string and not to forget that lightning can strike twice at a place it strikes before
Nice, these can power a flashlight
Not even to mention the biggest advantage that it may save hawks
I hope this catches up and this man earns his Britishness
Lightnigns gonna love them as well
Why are so many people in comments aggressively shitting on this idea? It's an innocent little invention that hurts no-one, not a plan to construct The Perfect New Man from cats and snooker tables.
Genius!
something like the spinners in rushing water that turn gennies..
i like the vertical wind turbines
Unfortunately they have rather bad energy conversion rate so at the most we may see them at some point in urban environments or as mobile stations. Since fast changing wind directions are not a problem.
And they have a much higher maintenance requirement than the regular wind turbines
Fascinating one
So amazing
Makani was nice, but building smaller and perfecting it seems safer, going after camping and remote towns first, Makani is awesome, but losing a big prototype because we hardly know how to fly such a monster unfortunately broke them.
Much easier to set up. Nice idea.
great idea
And they align naturally and efficiently with wind unlike wind turbines.
"Revolutionize" wind power... I see what you did there.
That's a great spin on the phrase.
this reminded me of BIG HERO 6
This seems like something that will collect a shit ton of subsidy money before never actually going anywhere.
Attach a helium filled section to keep it floating thank me later😄
The helium will eventually escape the balloons 😀
@@Time-cc2qb Will not in case if we plug it right
Or just put it on a tower and *shocker* we’re right back where we started at a typical wind turbine.
Imagine a field full of these in the countryside providing them with backup electricity
I could imagine a flock of curious birds absolutely ruining everything like usual.
The bird will be happy about this one
Beautiful 🇧🇩
So how would this compare to the spooled kite generator? Because I see simplicity and a smaller scale with this one but I think the other generates more power (probably because they're usually also bigger)
Hoping that this eventually goes and succeeds.
We Should Name that Kinetic energy 😂😂😂
Hey this is pretty smart!
If this works when raining it also supplement for solar . While no sun , raining and night charging possible
From what I've read there is always more wind at night, so it is the off-set of daily solar.
Wow awesome
2021: It's a prototype. We are working on it.
very nice. probably it's a fly thinking, but what if it stops blowing or the flow is not steady (gusty)?
and the scalability of these kites can be hindered due to risk of line entanglement.
I want to see the lightning version.
If providing torque through a long line would become a problem have two kites spin in opposite direction and send electrical power down. I dont know if possible bit maybe theres a lightweight generator that can make high voltage right away.
Genius 👍
I want this to work
This is certainly very portable and seems like it has solid uses for some people, in some places. How good of a long term fixture will it be though?
I don't think it's capable of replacing permanent installments, like you said, portability is it's strength. I see it working well with convoys, disaster relief, and personal use, at least with light vehicles. I remember watching another video a while ago where instead of a rotating cable to generate power, it uses the drawing motion instead (like a spool), that variant is probably better for heavier applications but like many things I say a combination is the best solution. Here's how I think convoys could operate them (uses may very, such as off grid construction, military, or as mentioned earlier, disaster relief and personal use): Have small vehicles and portable generators use this rotating kite mechanism as it only has one thing in the air to power the lighter appliances, the spool will be the main backbone, as it's heavier (both in function and literal weight) and also more complex as it uses two (essentially) parachutes but has the capability of powering more demanding or more less hungry equipment, link them together into a grid and now you have what is essentially an almost self sufficient temporary town/camp; and to bring more obscure tech, they could even use mechanical batteries as energy storage
Здравствуйте, спасибо. Отлично и Замечательно. Разумное применения в эффективности малых форм особенно в энергетике ("меньше размер = меньше цена ошибки в применении" + "не складывать яйца в одну корзину" = найти Гармонию цели, интересов, задач и результата). Извините
Can you please translate this into english?
@@sayanjitb just use google translate and you'll atleast get an idea of what they are saying
Haha, pretty good idea I also had. But why don't they write in English in the first place so that internationally everyone can understand, at least?
Blessed by this man, who makes life easier for poor people.
Um... no he doesn’t 🤣🤣🤣 wtf kind of comment is this? Did we just watch different videos?
@@dexterdouglas 😂🤦♀️
yeah my friend, totally agree!
The only problem to me is the blades seem too short can you increase the fabric rotor blade length so you can harvest more power at lower flow speeds ?
In coastal regions with no air traffic, a home could have this charging up batteries. It'd be completely off-grid.
Yeah. But the kite would be worn out fast i think
@@kaelthunderhoof5619 Good point. Fraying would be quick.
Yes this is it. I was looking at other AWE's and was thinking something is not right. But this seems logical. Not to complex and only one step from wind to driving the generator.
this is so great
Well it was shutdown.
@@kaelthunderhoof5619 There's now a news article on rod read only 5 days ago as of this reply. About how he plans to scale up his kite turbines
www.shetnews.co.uk/2021/06/15/kite-turbine-developer-looks-to-take-testing-to-new-heights-at-scatsta/
good for camping power. but thats it
Also your generator is on the ground for ease of maintenance.
More than enough to heat a pot of tea would be either ignored or significant if you could mention how long it takes to produce it.
biblically accurate kites
What happens when the wind stops, and the kite ends up laying on the ground? Wouldn’t it become damaged or torn ? Seems like decent idea but I can definitely think of a few problems
Good for you let me know when its done
"more than enough to make a pot of hot tea" is seriously a understatement to anyone who doesn't know much about energy consumption. 450W is a lot of power. I've seen entire house hold that consumes less than 500W at a time.
"Quite amazing, aye?"
The is Amazing idea!
Quite amazing *EHh*
I think the font is too big, but it's really nice info
Has the kites, haze bore now.
This is so amazing! Where can I get one?
we aleready have machines like that - they called WINDMILLS
1:10 yea 450 watts... and you would be waiting half an hour for the the water to heat up
There is already a firm doing this Altaera