Google Acquires Kite-Power Generator

garymortimer writes "Google has acquired a US company that generates power using turbines mounted on tethered kites or wings. Makani Power will become part of Google X – the secretive research and development arm of the search giant. The deal comes as Makani carries out the first fully autonomous flights of robot kites bearing its power-generating propellers. Google has not said how much it paid to acquire Makani, but it has invested $15m (£9.9m) in the company previously."

Comments

Re:or

[ShanghaiBill]

you could put your turbine on a fixed pole, so it doesn't come down when the wind stops blowing.

A length of string is much cheaper than a pole.
Go up high enough, and the wind never stops.
Wind power goes up as the cube of the velocity, so the stronger winds at high altitude are a big win.

Re:or

[tibit]

Their way of doing stuff shouldn't be called a kite. What they have is a tethered airplane, not a kite. They started with a kite-based approach and dropped it. Their flying wing can hover under its own power, for example. Look at their videos. It's pretty damn impressive top-notch engineering. I'd probably hire any of their engineers sight unseen, except that the projects I work on may not be as exciting after you've worked on a flying wing wind energy harvester.