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

All other considerations aside

[sbeckstead]

Seriously what would happen if we start removing all this kinetic energy from the atmosphere. I know we have been doing it with windmills but have we studied the effects of those windmills? Up till now we have been removing a trifling amount of energy and all we draw may prove to be a trifling amount but what if it isn't. Do we start having fewer and gentler storms causing currents in the ocean to not do what they do or do we lose the ability of that wind somewhere else to pollinate a field? Seriously I don't think it's been thought out any more than "What do we do when the oil runs out" was 100 years ago.