Alternative Energy Alternative: Flying Power Plants
San Diego, California-based Sky WindPower proposes to harness wind power for electricity -- without cluttering up the landscape. The solution? Fly giant kite-like wind turbine generators into the jet stream, ten kilometers high. That's right: FLYING POWER PLANTS! The rotors turn fast enough to generate electricity, but slow enough to maintain lift. Aluminum cables both tether the generators and convey the electricity to the ground. The company claims they can generate electricity this way for two pennies per kilowatt hour, which is cheaper than current technologies. The company plans to send a prototype aloft within five years.
1:45 PM * PERMALINK * 4 comments
Comments:
It's tethered at 10km? That's about where airplanes fly. I wonder if they're factoring in the cost of the thing getting destroyed if a plane hits the cable or the device itself?
Air traffic does seem problematic -- it's not just airplanes at altitude but all altitudes below the powerplant (because of those pesky cables).
Mike
Air traffic shouldn't be that much of a problem. Just as peaks and other planes are mapped and skipped, the flying farms would appear on the maps -- I guess. I just wonder what's the weight of a 10km long metal cable, the real amount of energy required to keep it up (hehe) and steady (hehehe) and what happens when one of those flying things, which will be quite sizeable objects, I reckon, malfunctions and falls down on someone.
Good point. On the other hand, it's another thing for uncareful pilots to run into.
Mike
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