I appreciate the reviewer’s effort in providing a reply to my Comment. However, it is immediately clear that this “reviewer” is in fact an editor, because only an editor would know which deficiencies in the original peer review “should have been addressed.” The reply, therefore, reads less like an impartial scientific review and more like an editorial defense of the decision to publish.

The reply dismisses my critique as “opinion,” while itself expressing many opinions about physical realizability, engineering usefulness, the scope of momentum theory, and the novelty of the calculus of variations approach. This is a double standard. I am told that I cannot raise questions about the practical or scientific value of the paper because such remarks are deemed “opinion,” yet the reply itself offers opinions on precisely those same matters in defense of the article.

The issues I raised remain factual and verifiable. In the high tip-speed ratio limit, the analysis forces the swirl factor to vanish, which also forces the torque to vanish. Since power is the product of torque and angular velocity, this implies zero power in the very regime where power is claimed. Whether the reply describes this as “zero” or “approaching zero,” the contradiction remains, and the result is physically unrealizable. In the low tip-speed ratio limit, the paper presents exact integrals, yet turbines in this regime are dominated by stall, separation, and unsteady three-dimensional flow. The assumptions of momentum theory, namely steady and axisymmetric flow with a uniform pressure jump, do not apply. Presenting closed-form solutions in conditions where the governing theory breaks down is misleading. These are not opinions but inconsistencies between assumptions and applications. The published article also contains problems of transparency and reproducibility.

It is also legitimate for a Comment in an engineering journal to note that extreme limiting cases add nothing to turbine design. Modern turbines are not operated at very high or very low tip-speed ratios. At one end, the geometry becomes impractical, and at the other, turbines idle or feather. To point out that the published results provide no guidance for design or performance optimization is not “opinion” but recognition of engineering practice.

My Comment identified contradictions, misapplied theory, unexplained constants, mathematical mistakes, and unacknowledged duplication. These are matters of fact. The reply does not rebut them but reframes them as subjective judgments. That is not a scientific response but an editorial attempt to shield a publication decision from scrutiny. The original reviews were superficial at best, and the record now contains results that are inconsistent, unrealizable, and duplicated from prior work. Post-publication commentary exists to correct such oversights. To deny these corrections by dismissing them as “opinion” undermines both the journal and the integrity of the scientific record.

I appreciate the effort in providing a reply to my Comment. However, it seems to me that the response did not come from an independent referee. Only an editor would invoke what “should have been handled during review” or state that issues had “already been addressed by the board.” This is not a neutral evaluation but an editorial defense of the journal’s own decision. That is a conflict of interest. The responsibility lies with the journal, both for allowing superficial review to miss obvious flaws and for permitting the paper to be glorified in the popular press without correction or context. Remarkably, more time and energy have now been spent attempting to dismiss my Comment than appears to have been spent reviewing the original paper. The result is that apparent contradictions, errors, and duplication were overlooked during superficial review, while my effort to correct the record is met with exhaustive resistance. This imbalance confirms the problem: the journal is investing effort in defending a weak publication with obvious errors and inapplicability rather than in safeguarding the scientific record.

Line 9

I wrote that the authors introduced no new physical interpretation and that their integrals have limited relevance. This is not an opinion but a statement of fact. The paper provides no new physical insight beyond Glauert’s original work and focuses on extreme tip-speed ratio limits that are irrelevant to turbine design. Dismissing this as “opinion” while offering judgments of your own on novelty and usefulness applies a double standard.

Line 18

I pointed out that the analysis implies power extraction without torque. The reply insists torque merely “approaches zero.” This rhetorical shift does not resolve the contradiction. In the published formulation, torque vanishes while power is claimed. Without torque, there is no power. This is not an inherent feature of actuator disk theory; it is a flaw in how the limit was handled and published.

Paragraph starting at line 26

The reply claims my critique of the low tip-speed ratio regime is a general criticism of momentum theory. That is incorrect. My Comment identifies a specific misuse: publishing closed-form integrals in a regime where the assumptions of momentum theory collapse. That is a direct critique of the paper. Superficial review allowed this to stand.

Line 36

I wrote that the analysis offers no guidance for turbine design. This is not subjective. Modern turbines do not operate in these regimes. To deny this is to deny engineering practice.

Line 40

The reply concedes that the calculus of variations treatment reduces to a trivial restatement of Glauert’s result with a redundant multiplier. That concession proves my point that the claimed novelty is minimal.

Lines 42–46

The reply says there is no “math problem” in the paper. Yet the authors themselves, in associated publicity, pasted all over the internet, claimed to have solved a 100-year-old problem and to have unlocked new possibilities for wind turbine design. This is entirely false. The so-called “problem” never existed in the first place. Glauert did not see his formulation as a problem but as a solution, and it has long been accepted as such. The methods presented in the paper, therefore, add no new physical insight. The closed-form integrals in extreme limits have no practical relevance and cannot improve turbine design. The fact that such exaggerated claims were repeated in press coverage without correction is damaging. The journal bears responsibility as well: by permitting superficial review and then allowing the article to be publicized as a breakthrough, Wind Energy Science helped lend credibility to a false narrative.

Paragraph starting at line 48

The reply admits the constants were unexplained but insists this “should have been handled during review.” Precisely. This is proof that the original reviews were superficial. The journal cannot now dismiss the problem by acknowledging that its own review process failed.

Line 62

I wrote that the work falls short of novelty and relevance. The reply answers only that two reviewers and the board approved it. That is circular reasoning. Approval by superficial review is not evidence of novelty. The fact that errors, duplication, and contradictions slipped through demonstrates the weakness of that review.

Line 66

The reply objects to my reference to a press release. Yet that release, based on author interviews, declared that the work “unlocked new possibilities.” The journal allowed those claims to circulate without correction. That is an editorial failure, not a problem with my Comment.

Line 70

The reply asserts that overlap with the authors’ earlier AIAA paper “has been addressed.” It has not. The Wind Energy Science article still does not cite that earlier paper, which contained the same derivations and conclusions. That earlier paper has since been deleted from public access, which is troubling in itself. The absence of citation conceals duplication, and the deletion removes the evidence from view. Readers are left with no way to know that much of the analysis had already been published elsewhere.

Mathematical errors

The reply acknowledges errors in Equations 33 and 47. This is further proof of the superficiality of the original reviews. Obvious mistakes passed unchecked into print.

In summary, the published article contains physical contradictions, misapplied theory, unexplained constants, mathematical mistakes, and unacknowledged duplication. These are factual issues, not opinions. The reply has not rebutted them but has reframed them as subjective to shield the journal. The journal bears responsibility for permitting superficial review to miss these problems and for allowing exaggerated publicity that misrepresented the work. Post-publication commentary exists precisely to correct such failures. To suppress it undermines the journal and the integrity of the scientific record.

Please see the attached PDF file.

It is refreshing to see a review from someone who has clearly studied both the article and my Comment in detail. Yet again, there is an admission by a reviewer that the original article is mathematically incremental, modest in its contribution, and of limited practical value. These reviews all reinforce my central point: the results have no design relevance because both limits treated are non-operational for wind turbines. Publishing exact integrals in limits where either the physics is invalid or the operating point is non-existent does not advance rotor engineering.