Do not be confused, this is not a video on solar
panels, you clicked on the right thumbnail. But, solar panels are a marvel, right? One
of the neatest things about them is that they can be used almost anywhere,
from big farms, to residential spaces and anything in between. If only we could
make other renewables, like wind power, as versatile. Well that’s exactly what a company
called AirLoom Energy is trying to do, they claim they’ve developed a radically different kind
of wind energy device. One that’s much cheaper, more flexible, and has the backing of Bill Gates.
Given his cleantech investing success rate, I’ll let you decide if that’s a badge or honor, or
a sign that this device is all hot air. How does Airloom work? And is their radically different
wind turbine design going to change the game? I’m Matt Ferrell … welcome to Undecided. This video is brought to you by
Incogni, but more on that later. Have you ever loved a really bad b-movie?
Like it's one of your favorite movies ever, but you recognize that it's got serious flaws ...
or that all your friends hate it? I've got quite a few of those on my list. Now, I'm not saying
that what AirLoom is doing is on that level ... at all. But as drawn as I am to what AirLoom
is doing, there are a lot of open questions to their approach. Before getting into those
questions, what are they doing in the first place? Inspired by his time windsurfing, AirLoom Energy
founder Robert Lumley began sketching out this novel wind energy generator almost a decade ago.
The result is a wind power device that looks more like a clothesline or kinetic sculpture than the
turbines you’re used to seeing across the country. But how does it work? A cable runs in a track
on top of a series of 25-meter (82 foot) tall poles arranged in an oval. Put a pin in that oval
idea for later. Anyway, the vertically oriented, 10-meter (33-foot) blades are attached to the
cable. They intercept the wind as it travels down both the home and the backstretch of the
cable’s track. The blades move around the track, generating torque which is then translated into
energy and sent to the grid. You know the drill. Now, an 82-by-33 foot track sounds massive, but
it’s small compared to a standard horizontal-axis wind turbine. Most horizontal access wind
turbines operating at the moment are taller than the Eiffel Tower, and China just launched
an offshore turbine 50 stories tall! Why so big? Simply put, bigger blades capture more energy,
and taller towers allow for bigger blades. Plus, they elevate those blades up to where the
air currents are strong and consistent, which is very important for energy production.
However, the AirLoom device side steps those big parts — it’s long, low to the ground,
and transportable. They also claim their device is modular, with the length and height
of track being customizable. These features should allow their device to be deployed to
places where bigger turbines just can’t fit. That said, the most exciting part of the AirLoom
device is the alleged cost savings. Large turbines are expensive to manufacture, ship, install and
maintain, making for a large levelized cost of energy (LCOE). That’s a calculation of an energy
producer’s lifetime costs measured against how much juice it makes (but I’m not talking orange
juice). If the AirLoom device works as promised it could radically lower wind energy’s high LCOE
costs, maybe by as much as 66%. For reference the current LCOE on a wind farm is about $0.038/kWh,
AirLoom claims they can do it for $0.013/kWh. Of course, that’s a pretty big “if,” accompanied
by some “too good to be true”-sounding numbers. How does this (relatively) small device make as
much energy as a horizontal access wind turbines? With a little bit of airbending trickery. By
running their airfoils in that oval rather than a circle, AirLoom claims they alter the math
behind “swept area,” that’s the area that the blades of a turbine sweep through as they extract
energy from the air. As we mentioned earlier, the bigger the area, the more efficient the
turbine. However, that necessitates bigger turbines and bigger blades, which limits where
turbines can be deployed. AirLoom’s swept area is a function of track length, as opposed
to the radius of a horizontal access wind turbines’s blades. Where your average horizontal
access wind turbines gets maximum torque from the fast moving tips of its blades but not much from
the bits closest to the hub, the full length of each of the AirLoom system's blades contribute
to hauling the whole loop around. Essentially, instead of a few large blades on a vertical
structure, that energy capture potential is distributed across many smaller blades
moving horizontally, or so AirLoom claims. Neat, but has it been tested? Does it actually
work? The answer is a very, very tentative “yes.” AirLoom has a 50-kilowatt testing device setup
in Wyoming, and though testing has just begun everything seems to be going according to plan.
AirLoom just secured $4 million in seed funding, spearheaded by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. With
the early tests going well they’re preparing to move forward with a 1MW prototype, with plans to
eventually scale up to the 2.5MW ‘real deal.’ But, at least at the time of writing this video,
I can’t find any evidence or even claims that third party tests have been conducted, which
certainly is a reason to raise an eyebrow. We’ll return to this lack of
outside assessment in a moment, but first, theoretically, let's assume
AirLoom really has cracked the code, and made a wind energy device as powerful as a
horizontal access wind turbines for a fraction of the initial cost and LCOE. How are they doing
this, and why use it over a regular turbine? Speaking of harnessing powerful forces and putting
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Icogni a try. The first 100 people to use code UNDECIDED at the link below will get 60% off
of Incogni. Thanks to Incogni and to all of you for supporting the channel. So back to why you
may want to use AirLoom over a regular turbine. AirLoom proposes using readily sourced
materials and parts to make sure there’s minimal supply chain, shipping or manufacturing
headaches. These parts are small and are made from widely available materials, so they can be
manufactured in non-specialist factories. You’re talking about small airfoils, metal structures
and tracks versus aircraft carrier sized wind turbine blades. Combine that with their device’s
relatively small size and they claim manufacturing their device will cost just 10% of an equivalent
horizontal access wind turbines’s price tag. Then there’s the shipping costs. This one is a
big one. The sheer size of wind turbine blades mean it can be a logistical nightmare
to physically ship them (usually from China) to their final destinations. Plus,
it's very expensive to ship heavy things, like, y’know, giant carbon fiber blades and
steel pylons. And goofy as it might seem, tight turns, tunnels and bridges can all become
huge turbine transit problems. It can take over a year of planning and 10 separate loads to
move just one turbine into place. Meanwhile, AirLoom can fit an entire 2.5 megawatt
track inside a standard tractor-trailer. The smaller, modular size has other alleged
benefits too. We mentioned previously how the device can be adjusted in both length and
height to fit a larger variety of sites, including places where traditional turbines
just can’t go. While we usually mean places other turbines physically can’t
be deployed, it might also allow us to build wind energy generators in places
they aesthetically can’t be deployed either. A lot of wind power projects get canceled because
people REALLY don’t want a big turbine in their line of sight. For example, New Jersey just
lost two offshore wind farms because residents didn’t want the turbines to ruin their beachy
views. And they’re far from the only example, despite wind energy’s broad support and
approval ratings, people hate having 'em in their backyard. The smaller, shorter
profile should make AirLoom’s device — how to politely say this — NIMBY-resistant? And
while we’re talking about offshore wind, AirLoom claims their device works great for
both on and offshore purposes. Though again, they haven’t presented any information
about what this might look like. How much more feasible is it to build a long wind track
instead of a single platform? I have questions. Back to cost savings. Taking into account the
cheaper materials, manufacturing, shipping, and installation, Airloom calculates that its
wind farms can be built for less than 25% of the cost to build a conventional wind project,
just $0.21/W compared to the standard $1.25/W. Add in the lower maintenance costs, and you
start to see why AirLoom’s projected LCOE is so low. LCOE varies from site to site,
but with an LCOE at just $0.013/kWh, by some accounts wind could surpass solar
as the cheapest form of energy generation. This is the point where we have to get real. Call
me cynical, but the lack of third party testing is a stark and serious red flag for right
now. AirLoom has only recently come out of “Stealth Mode,” so it’s possible these tests are
on their way (I would assume they are). However, until some national labs have vetted their
work and some economists who know their way around greentech have given them a thumbs
up, we just won’t really know how well it works or how cost effective it is in
the real world. That’s a bigger deal! And I hate to say it, but historically speaking,
there’s good reason to be critical of AirLoom’s device. They’re not the only group to try
to revolutionize the wind energy sector with smaller or cheaper devices: there’s Sheerwind
Invelox, Saphon Energy, Transpower, and many, many others. All of these options looked good on
paper (more or less), but so far none have proved to be viable. Disconcertingly, Transpower’s
device looks an awful lot like AirLoom’s, and they fell apart in the 1980s. But that may
have fallen apart because the time wasn't right, and the technology is here now to make it
viable. We'll have to wait and see on that one. There’s also some conventional “wind engineering
wisdom” reasons to doubt AirLoom’s design. As we touched on earlier there’s a lot of reasons
turbines have been getting taller. Tall masts and big blades give you a certain kind of
efficiency and consistency that anything lower to the ground is going to struggle to match.
Turbulence is a major issue for wind turbines too, especially small turbines, since it can
reduce a turbine’s annual energy output by 15% to 25%.. How do you get away from turbulence?
Unfortunately for small and low-lying turbines, you go above it. The general rule of the thumb
is to install a wind turbine on a tower with the bottom of the rotor blades at least 30 feet
(9 meters) above any obstacle that is within 300 feet (90 meters) of the tower. So, even if
AirLoom truly can make radically cheaper turbines, it won’t matter if the turbines aren't able
to consistently and effectively generate energy due to weak winds or turbulence. I
haven’t even touched on some questions that came up with my team around things
like dirt buildup and friction with the track system over time. How will that impact
performance? There’s a lot of open questions. To be fair, AirLoom is in the early stages, so
third party tests are likely to come. And with the backing of Gates and a promising round of
seed funding, AirLoom has a solid financial base that might help them navigate some of the
upcoming challenges. They say they’re going to build a pilot project in 2025, with plans to
build a commercial demonstration connected to the grid by 2026 or 2027, so we shouldn’t
have to wait very long to see if their device actually works or not. Despite some of
my skepticism, innovation does happen, and maybe AirLoom really does have the magic
formula for cheaper, better wind power. At the same time, the sector is also littered
with devices that sounded good on paper but just couldn’t work in the field for whatever
reason. Often a device passes every test, and almost makes the leap to commercialization,
only for some small detail to ultimately prove that it’s just not economically viable. As a
science and technology communicator, I have a Carl Sagan quote quota I gotta meet, so here
goes: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” And a device that could transform the
energy sector? That’s definitely extraordinary, so I’ll be watching AirLoom closely.
Fingers-crossed, that they live up to the hype. But what do you think? Is AirLoom onto
something or is it just hype? Jump into the comments and let me know. And be sure
to check out my follow up podcast Still TBD where we'll be discussing some of your
feedback. Thanks to all of my patrons, who get ad free versions of every video. Your
support really helps us to keep delivering you these videos every week. If you’d
like to support the channel and get in on early videos, check out the link in the
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