Despite its previous association with a questionable wind turbine and its promoter, Clarkson University announced that the school in upstate New York has transferred ducted wind turbine technology developed on campus to a private company for commercialization.
It went by various incarnations, but it was founded as Windtamer by one Gerald Brock and it finally and officially is gone.
Gerald Brock, the “inventor” of Windtamer is back at it with a new company using the same Windtamer design.
The Windtamer turbine was still being promoted on Arista Power’s web site.
In retrospect, a little more skepticism would have been in order, because this is exactly the kind of thing you see constantly in hot markets. Revolutionary technology, lots of interest that will certainly turn into solid orders, and near-term financing needs that will be met, no problem, from excited current investors and down payments on the revolutionary technology. . . Nine times out of ten something goes wrong on the road from impressed visitors to massive cash flow. Like this: On May 19 WindTamer announced that its systems weren’t performing as expected.
William A. Schmitz, Chief Executive Officer of WindTamer Corporation, said that, “The decision of the Board of Directors and me to no longer have Mr. Brock head the research and development of the Company was the result of a difference of opinion over how to best address performance issues of the WindTamer turbines that have been installed and are operating in the field. It has recently become apparent to management that the turbines installed to date are not performing to product specifications, and we felt that a shift from Mr. Brock’s inventive approach to a more analytical approach was the best way to improve the technology so that it performs at the levels that we believe possible.
Poor Albert Betz, the German physicist must be turning over in his grave. He’s been beaten yet again.
The most important tip to keep in mind is that from Robert Gasch. If there is a new wind turbine, no one should pay the slightest attention to it until they “build it, measure it, and publish” the results. Until then, it’s just hot air–and nothing more.
2023 © Wind-Works by Paul Gipe