Jet Stream Kites Could Power New York City

Damien1972 writes to tell us that researchers from the Carnegie Institution and California State University claim that a fleet of kites could harvest enough energy to run New York and other major cities, especially if they are affected by polar jet streams. "Using 28 years of data from the National Center for Environmental Prediction and the Department of Energy, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology and Cristina Archer of California State University, Chico compiled the first global survey of wind energy available at high altitudes in the atmosphere. They found that the regions best suited for harvesting this energy align with population centers in the eastern U.S. and East Asia, although they note that 'fluctuating wind strength still presents a challenge for exploiting this energy source on a large scale.'"

Comments

OMG Think of the planes!

[mcrbids]

I see comment after comment like "What about teh airplanzes!?!" but such comments come from a severe lack of understanding of controlled airspace.

See, while it's true that the Eastern seaboard is one of the busiest airspaces in the world, it's also one of the most tightly controlled. Airspace is commonly restricted to 18,000 feet, above which *all* airspace is controlled. (It's called "class A(lpha) airspace at/above 18,000 ft) The only effect this would have on air traffic is that ATC would redirect commercial flights around the kites, which isn't particularly hard to do.

As a pilot myself, I've many times been diverted around hazards such as other planes, mountains, and even UAVs. (Un-manned Aeronautical vehicles, being tested by the military)

And obviously, these wouldn't be assembled on the instrument approach path for O'Hare airport. This makes the whole "Teh planezes are fallingz" as exciting a story as "Teh Internetz iz failingz" due to lack of router memory.

In short, it's just not a significant issue.

Re:Major side benefit

[jmorris42]

> Um, they could have threatened nuclear war for violating the UN charter.

Another poster has already ridiculed you over the silly notion that the UN has the capability to nuke anyone. I want to ridicule you over an even more obvious problem. We have a veto. That is the problem with the UN, it was designed to ensure nothing actually got done. The fricking French have a veto.

And besides, Saddam was in flagrant violation of an sackful of UN Resolutions and they couldn't be stirred to react. So the worst case scenario is they could have attempted to pass a sternly worded Resolution against the US... which we would have vetoed. And had Bush been in a mood to demonstrate the uselessness of the UN he could have instructed our Ambassador to let em pass their silly Resolution and then walked to the nearest lectern and said "Screw em, they refuse to enforce the decade old Resolutions against Saddam so they can sit and spin while I ignore this one as well."

In the end that is the problem with the UN, everyone designing it knew they were designing a Parliment of Tyrants so they made sure it was toothless, thus turning it into a mostly harmless masturbatorium. Yes, really. Do the math; Far more than half the nation states in the UN were and still are obviously unfree but political correctness demands one nation one vote thus Evil must carry the day. Thus it was rendered ineffectual.