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Getting Power From The Jet Stream

Posted by timothy on from the danger-to-birds dept.

An anonymous reader pipes up: "Here's some cool news about actually using the jet stream to generate power." Nutshell: aircraft-mounted windmills that lounge in the jet stream. I'm imagining a huge area populated by these aircraft, each held up with a 4.5km electrified tether, and staying on North America for a while.

4 of 12 comments (clear)

  1. hmmmm by jbridge21 · · Score: 2

    Let's see, this couldn't be another repeat article, could it?

    Lame.
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  2. longer days by peccary · · Score: 2

    naturally, one side effect of this technology would be slowing the earth's rotation, resulting in distinctly longer days after, oh, a million years or so.

  3. Gyro Effect... by HerringFlavoredFowl · · Score: 2

    Any spinning object has a gyroscopic efect that impeads the objects rotation about any axis that is not the same as the objects rotation...

    In a nut shell, every time we spin a wheel that is not perfectly aligned with the earths axis of rotation we are slowing down the planets rotation.

    The Fan in your computer, the wheels on your bike, the motor in your car, the generators at the local nuclear power plant. They are all slowing the earths rotation.

    Funny thing is the cumlative effect of this is so small we are unable to measure it.

    Just goes to show how tiny and puny we really are...

    TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

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    TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
  4. Re:the earth's rotation is alrready slowing down by mcwatts · · Score: 2

    Tidal friction is already causing the earth to slow its rotation. It's a lot more dramatic than a few wind generators.