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."

Comments

rather old news..

[laggist]

the article's dated 3rd april 2007. what happened to slashdot being at the forefront of news for nerds?

And what about the environmental impact?

[lquam]

Changing the flow of high altitude winds by clogging them up with wind generators sounds like yet another "green" energy fallacy, Following in the footsteps of hydro-electric power and tidal/wave power, two of the most environmentally devastating energy technologies ever conceived. So they're carbon neutral; they ain't green. California has already seen local environmental changes around large surface wind farms. Probably a good bet the farther up you go the more far-reaching the effects will be. I hope the VC community and energy companies ignore this one, because while it doesn't sound as scary as carbon sequestration (where we kill ourselves 100 year from now in a cataclysmic release of CO2), it doesn't sound at all smart.

Re:People with mod points will believe anything.

[alienmole]

I'm happen to know that mine dad can beat up you're dad.