We are often approached by people with ideas that seem a little far fetched at first about new clothing or safety equipment that might be useful to the montaineer / hill walker / outdoors person. Most of these ideas are tackling subjects that have been well visited before but with the current and long overdue ecologically minded revolution taking place an idea for renewable energy for the mountaineer seems interesting enough to mention.

The concept is straightforward enough - a portable electrical generator based on a small ultra efficient wind turbine which can be used to generate power enough to preserve life in the most threatening of environs. Where better than to dep[loy such a device than where the wind is .... ie whichever mountain one happens to be on at the time. But would it actually work and be practical for mountaineering ?

Most expeditions already use simple wind turbines and solar cells to recharge electrical equipment at base camp and some higher altitude camps but since wind power is not constant it is not practical to use it for cooking / lighting without battery backup hence traditional gas/oil fueled stoves tend to be most practical. I imagine the target application for the device would therefore be best aimed at a mountaineer to carry as a survival tool although a larger capacity model for use in camp could be of use too if more efficient than existing designs.

There is often a delicate balance between life and death in emergency situations and the choice is typically between carrying more survival equipment and not carrying anything not considered 100% necessary (which might actually precipitate disaster by slowing the climber or creating excessive work carrying the additional equipment.) Nowadays, most climbers aim to get to the top and back down in as short a window as possible and use sophisticated means to get good weather predictions to minimise the chance of being caught away from the relative safety of camp in poor weather, so light weight for fast movement is considered essential. However there are some times when situations arise and the three issues that have the greatest bearing on survival are : oxygen, warmth and water roughly in that order. Potentially, a reliable source of electrical energy could help provide all three of these essential resources, particularly assuming that water, snow or ice is plentiful.

In a storm when pinned down at high altitude and oxygen runs low because of the delay then there would be an advantage to having a system that could extract oxygen from the surrounding ice or air, however I suspect the required O2 flow rate to sustain life would be far in excess of what could be reasonably produced from a small portable system.

Various manufacturers make heated clothing using electrical heating systems and many motorcycle gloves and some disable persons clothing feature similar systems so perhaps there is some milage in a wind powered clothing ! Although for high altitude climbing, it is loss of fingers/toes due to frostbite that concerns the climber most vividly it is of course maintaining core body temperature which prevents hypothermia and death.

As for water, this is heavy to carry but so is a stove and fuel with which to melt snow/ice en route, but how could a wind powered device be reliable enough without heavy batteries to replace either of these traditional solutions which work equally well when there is no wind.

For all three applications my feeling is that any system small enough to be portable would be unable to sustain life but may well aid extending life in a challenging situation but the effort of carrying it and the ease of deployment would be the main factors as to whether it is a worthy device to carry into the teeth of a serious storm. Perhaps with the backup of a suitable battery or manual cranking system and suitably efficient devices such as body heaters some of the issues could be addressed.

For such specialist equipment, cost is a far less important factor than functionality - a climber going to a serious destination is usually spending several thousand Pounds on clothing, training, transport and guides and will be unable to work for the duration of the expedition so the financial commitment to these projects is immense for most. Also, assuming the system is reusable and not damaged or lost in service then its cost could be spread among several expedition members or even over several expeditions. On that basis low weight and high levels of functionality are the key factors for the design to meet.

If it works well enough there could be a multitude of other uses too... for example one could strap a unit to the roof of a battery powered car and help re-charge the batteries on a long journey (or is that tantamount to a perpetual motion concept ?)

I look forward to your comments