[The_Media_never_lie]

One drawback: it requires a whole lot of electricity to power something like this

25 megawatt of power is enough to light a city.

On most windy and sunny days that aren't too hot or too cold, we should have plenty of electricity to power it from our wind and solar farms. It is so important that it consume renewables.

[mountainlion]

It is so important that it consume renewables.

The only problem is getting the electricity form the windmill to the ship. Using radio or microwave transmission of the power could kill more birds that all the windmills combined and half of the people in the transmission path.

[DaxtonBrown]

“25 megawatt of power is enough to light a city.”

You guys are confusing watts with joules. Watts is a measure of power, energy per second. It may require a 25megawatt generator that only operates a second or two.

A 10kg projectile requires 35,000,000 joules to get it to 45000 mph (double that for inefficiencies = 70,000,000 J). Sounds like a lot, but if you are charging a capacitor bank, that’s only 2.5 seconds if you have a 25 megawatt generator (that’s a 33,000 horsepower plus engine)..