×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Hi-altitude wind turbines

Hi-altitude wind turbines

Hi-altitude wind turbines

(OP)
I'm not exactly sure how these get power to ground level, or what happens when the wind stops, but well ... here they are,

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/saul_griffith_on_kites_as_the_future_of_renewable_energy.html

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Hi-altitude wind turbines

See discussions on Numberwatch:
http://pub41.bravenet.com/forum/3444295554/show/809937 , http://pub41.bravenet.com/forum/3444295554/show/808219 , http://pub41.bravenet.com/forum/3444295554/show/804620
The difference between flying kites and flying wind turbines is in where the generators are.
Of course, the enxt question is, how close can these kites be one to another? and hence how much power can be generated per square kilometer?

Interestingly one way kites can be really beneficial is where they are used to augement fossil fuel power for vessels where the power of the wind is again used to propel the vessel but his time, using kites rather than sails and for all the best reasons.... getting the kites to higher altitudes where higher wind speeds are possible.
  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Hi-altitude wind turbines

Interesting and innovative, but useless. As mentioned the area each one takes up is large, but also they become the same as a hose that is left on the ground and turned on full blast, you don't know where it's going to go next, all you know is that you don't want to be anywhere near it.

This idea basically puts it's entire swept semi-sphere of airspace out of comission, and the power they can harness is still only the area of the kite, so their ratio to power vs swept area is abismally low. This as opposed to the swept area of a wind turbine which is stationary and much more effective.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources