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Harnessing High Altitude Wind Power
jakosc writes "The Economist has an interesting article about increasing the efficiency of wind-powered generators by turning them into flying wind farms. These tethered generators would harness high speed jet stream winds above 15,000 ft and in theory could give outputs of 40MW per generator (PDF). The developer's website has more details of some of the safety, technological, and economic issues."
Taking out 40MW of wind energy per wind farm from high altitude winds may not be such a good idea; that energy is doing something right now: mixing the atmosphere, generating heat, etc., and chances are that whatever it is doing is probably important for keeping the atmosphere the way we know and like it.
That's like saying we can raise sea levels by pissing in the sea. Just do the math ffs...
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
The problem is that the people who find them unattractive or noisy (noisy?? I live near one, i've never heard it. The highway on the other hand...) are the same people who want to get rid of coal (because of the soot), oil (because of the carbon), Hydroelectric (because of the fishes), nuclear (because of the bomb), solar-dynamic (because of the 7-years bad luck), and probably have some kind of cockamamie objection to geothermal, too.
These are the same people that move in near airports (because of the low-prices) and then complain about the noise and occasional fuel dump. THAT'S WHY THE PRICES WERE LOW. The airport's been there for 80 years, so you had to know what you were getting yourself into.
I'm a GW skeptic, but I'm all about buying efficient devices and trying alternative energy, especially if a non-governmental organization has found a way actually make something profitable. I get disheartened and disillusioned with "environmentalism" when the very people clamoring for alternative energy are the ones shooting down the projects.
We should have some kind of survey, and have people check off the kinds of power they don't want near them, and if they check off too many items, they're not allowed to talk.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
If the discussion were about substituting current consumption only, I would agree wholeheartedly. But first, we are talking about a growing number of people, and second, most of these people would like a better standard of living, which means a higher energy consumption.
If the rest of the world had the same standard of living as the upper middle class of the USA, the world would consume at least ten times more energy than it does today. Any discussion about alternate energy sources must consider that we need a supply that's much bigger than the current level.
And let's not get lost in that "reducing usage" argument. A considerable fraction of mankind today has such subhuman energy consumption level that's impossible to reduce it further, no matter how efficient you get. Yes, by all means, let the rich Americans share subcompacts instead of each driving an SUV, but there's very little that the peasant that walks from his hut to his field which he digs with a hoe and a shovel can do to reduce energy use. And these are the majority of the people in the world, we must both increase energy production *and* use it more efficiently at the same time.