Kris Holland, Mafic Studios, Inc.
Posted on 08/17/2005 9:38:58 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Bryan Roberts, an engineer at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, has a solution: Instead of erecting wind turbines on the ground, float them in the jet stream, a screamingly fast current of air that circles the globe, fluctuating between altitudes of 15,000 and 45,000 feet... huge squadrons of airborne FEGs will hover in the jet stream like giant kites. Winds of up to 200 miles an hour will spin rotors on the FEGs, generating an electrical current that’s transmitted along superstrong tethers to ground stations linked to the utility grid. "You might have 600 of them, each producing 20 megawatts," he says. "They could generate enough power for two Chicago-size cities."
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
Kris Holland, Mafic Studios, Inc.
same guy, five years ago:
Plans to harness jet stream for power
Thursday, 21 September 2000
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_182107.htm
whoa!
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Flying_20wind_20generators
"According to [bing]'s link, thousands of the devices would fly 4.5km in the air. That means that to eliminate the chances of air collision, aircraft (including other flying generators) must stay further than 4.5km away. Assuming each full-sized unit would have a peak capacity of half a kW and operated at 85% load factor (Prof Mills: "flies six days out of seven") and occupied a hexagonal exclusion zone of 4.5km side-side, then the energy density of the power station = 500W / 4.5km 3¥sqrt(3)/2 = only 42 Watts per square km!!" -- FloridaManatee, May 27 2004
Problem #1 -- making super-strong tethers.
"You might have 600 of them, each producing 20 megawatts," he says. "They could generate enough power for two Chicago-size cities."
Or you could have 300 of them and power one Chicago-sized city. Just a thought.
Standard windmills work just fine, this is a silly idea.
Kind of a neat idea. They need to work on compacting the farm down. 200 square miles is a lot of space for enough energy to handle Chicago * 2.
If you put them far enough from major cities, so they don't interfere with anything, then you have to transport the electricity a good distance. Who would want to winch them in, when a storm comes?
From watching The Weather Channel I notice that the jet stream wanders all over the place. How would you know from day to day what state to put the kites in?
Yeah, storms are so darned uncooperative. And who wants a 23 ton monster from the sky crashing down on their house? Or elementary school? Or hospital? Or shopping center? Or WTC?
The stormy weather problem also kicks the butt of photovoltaics, due to the need for very large arrays of them required to meet power needs. And of course, the problems keep piling up. Besides a little thing called sunset, the grid runs on AC, while photovoltaics produce DC (AC can go a lot further by power line), so some of this lovely "free" electricity would be lost in conversion. That increases the needed array size. Average overcast increases it further. Maintenance of the arrays -- whether they're covering whole counties in underpopulated, arid areas of the SW US, or covering the sides of skyscrapers in overcast northern snowbelt states -- would become a nightmare long before the array was constructed.
Not to mention, sand mining would be necessary, and we all know how cooperative the Luddites are about that.
Gas hydrates on the ocean floor can supply our civilization for thousands of years. By the time they run out (and who's to say they will, being biological products) other sources will be available. And the Luddites will still be screaming about something, because that's all they know how to do.
"Not in my neighborhood!" ;') The oxymoron for this week is, "the integrity of the environmental movement".Windmills Sow Dissent for EnvironmentalistsSoaring above the treetops are 44 sleek white steel cylinders, 228 feet high. Churning on each tower are three glinting fiberglass blades, 115 feet long. Like quills on a porcupine, they spike the emerald spine of Backbone Mountain for six miles along the Allegheny Front. They have also generated huge turbulence within the environmental movement. Proponents of wind farms view those who oppose them as heretics, obstructing the promise of clean renewable energy, while opponents decry them as producing insufficient power to warrant their blight on the landscape... The growing industry has caused a kind of identity crisis among people who think of themselves as pro-environment, forcing them to choose between the promise of clean, endlessly renewable energy and the perils of imposing giant man-made structures on nature. To some environmentalists, the opposition to wind power from within their ranks not only stifles the growth of a new source of energy but also calls into question the integrity of the environmental movement itself... Windmill farms must be large to be financially viable... Another complaint is that wind farms can do little to reduce overall dependence on fossil fuels, because of the unreliability of constant wind and the inability to store its power... Similar complaints, coming from prominent environmentalists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have stalled installation of the nation's first off-shore wind farm, proposed for the waters of Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod. And they have forced the Long Island Power Authority to scrap its plan for wind turbines off the eastern tip of Long Island. But the utility has now proposed putting up to 50 turbines, each 488 feet high, off Long Island's south shore between Fire Island and Jones Beach, two immensely popular summer resort areas... Jerome Niessen, president of NedPower, which has received permission from the West Virginia Public Service Commission for a 200-turbine wind farm near here in Grant County, said he expected to generate 800 million kilowatt hours per year, for a tax savings of $16 million a year for 10 years, or $160 million — on a wind farm that will cost $300 million to build.
by Katharine Q. Seelye
June 5, 2003
Kennedy /= the environmental movement. He's just a movement.
When power lines get damaged in a storm, it may take up to a couple of weeks to get fixed (depending on how many were damaged; usually it's done within hours or a day or so). Should a hurricane tip over a $150 million, 260 ft tall wind generator, on the other hand...Blowing Out to SeaA Yarmouth, Mass., company plans to build America's first offshore wind farm by the end of 2005. Cape Wind Associates has slated construction of a 420-megawatt wind project on a shallow sandbar known as Horseshoe Shoal, located five miles south of Cape Cod between the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. It would be the world's second largest, after Ireland's recently proposed 520-megawatt farm... Project developers claim that at peak operation the farm will satisfy almost all the electricity needs of Cape residents -- a critical selling point in a region that suffers increasingly from air inversions and smog... If successful, offshore wind farms could solve many problems encountered with land-based wind technology in densely populated regions. Ocean winds are stronger and steadier. Land acquisition is unnecessary. And, perhaps most important, the huge turbines are out of sight and earshot of most people. Initially fishermen worried about their catch volume decreasing, but several European studies suggest that the heavily anchored turbines act like shipwrecks and in fact improve fish numbers... Cape Wind, having already invested several million dollars in planning studies, expects to spend a total of $600 million.
by Wendy Williams
March 2002
Scientific American
UC Berkeley-led research finds way to use dirty silicon,
could pave way for cheaper solar energy
Nanotechnology Now | August 14, 2005
Posted on 08/15/2005 9:14:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1464123/posts
It's a nice exercise, but an impractical idea.
Down in MotownA gritty section of Detroit surrounds one of the city's oldest electric power stations. But the technology that Detroit Edison is installing at the Frisbie substation is pure 21st century—underground superconducting cables that can transmit immense currents of electricity with near perfect efficiency.
by Peter Fairley
July/August 2001
While increasing energy demands are putting more and more stress on the nation's long-distance power transmission network, cities are suffering their own version of electric gridlock; in many locations, underground transmission lines are fast reaching capacity and are literally burning up. Superconducting cables, like the ones being installed in Detroit, could safely triple the power moving through existing conduits, avoiding the need to dig up the streets—even making room for fiber-optic communications lines.
The Frisbie demonstration marks a milestone in electricity know-how—one of the first commercial applications of high-temperature superconductors. These ceramics, first fashioned by IBM researchers in 1986, now transmit alternating currents with nearly zero resistance at temperatures as high as -139 °C (the materials can be cheaply cooled to that temperature using liquid nitrogen). In contrast, conventional copper cables dissipate as much as 10 percent of the power they carry because of resistance; that lost power escapes as heat, which limits just how much juice can flow before the cable melts.A Smarter Power Grid"European engineering giant Siemens has just installed the world's most sophisticated high-power switch. If things get really hot this summer, the ability of the specialized chips inside the device to route electricity exactly where it's needed just might save New York City's cool."
by Peter Fairley
July 2001Power to the People"Systems like these 'microturbines,' along with fuel cells that extract electrical power from fuel without burning it, are changing the rules in the power game. No longer must you rely on a monopolistic utility that can take you -- and your power needs -- for granted."
by Peter Fairley
May 2001
Putting turbines 4.5 klicks into the air, and catching the jetstream?
My idea for harnessing the wind coming off millions and millions of honeybee wings is much more efficient!
| Elevator Into Space ^ |
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| Posted by nuke rocketeer On News/Activism ^ 02/21/2005 4:38:48 AM PST · 67 replies · 1,113+ views Space.com ^ Bradley C. Edwards, president and founder of Carbon Designs Inc., is the driving force behind the space elevator, a purportedly safer and cheaper form of transporting explorers and payloads into space. Although the idea has appeared in both technical and fictional literature for decades, the drive to bring it to reality belongs to Edwards. A cable extending from the Earth’s surface to outer space is kept under tension by the competing forces of gravity on Earth and the outward rotational acceleration of the planet in space. Once the cable is aloft, the elevator will be ascended by mechanical means. |
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| Space Elevator Climbs at MIT ^ |
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| Posted by Brett66 On News/Activism ^ 11/17/2004 8:02:57 PM PST · 89 replies · 1,379+ views Space.com ^ | 11/17/04 | Leonard David Space Elevator Climbs at MIT It was one small climb for the space elevator last week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. From high atop the roof of MIT’s Cecil and Ida Green Building, a tether was lowered to the ground as curious onlookers watched the display in suspended belief under snowy conditions. A scale model of a robot lifter successfully made its way up the lengthy ribbon, under the watchful eye of Michael Laine, president and founder of LiftPort Incorporated. Based in Bremerton, Washington, LiftPort is a for-profit company devoted to the commercial development of an... |
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| Posted by KevinDavis On News/Activism ^ 10/12/2004 7:16:20 PM PDT · 109 replies · 1,396+ views MSNBC ^ | 10/11/04 | Alan Boyle SEATTLE - If the space elevator dream comes true, robo-cars powered by laser light will roll on a carbon-nanotube ribbon stretching up tens of thousands of miles from Earth's surface, carrying cargo and passengers on a monorail to the sky. |
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And the first time a thunderstorm came through?
Lightning strikes? Wind shear?
Nice idea. Scary execution.
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