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Google Acquires Kite-Power Generator

Posted by samzenpus on from the blowing-in-the-wind dept.

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."

6 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Makes perfect sense by jmulvey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Join this power-generating capability with Google's recent initiative to provide internet access to sub-Sarahan Africa via blimp: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/26/google-blimps ...and you've got a robust, uninterruptable combination for internet access in the poorest, and the most corrupt nations in the world. Under such circumstances, Google will have great communicative and, perhaps most interestingly, surveillance power over the people under these oppressive governments. It should be interesting how such absolute power, so closely aligned with government interests, affects Google's behavior.

    Of course, it could be that Google simply feels these citizens represent a huge market for targeted advertisements for tablet PCs and Lexus vehicles.

    1. Re:Makes perfect sense by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Of course, it could be that Google simply feels these citizens represent a huge market for targeted advertisements for tablet PCs and Lexus vehicles.

      Or it could be that Google believes that everyone in the world should have access to information, with all of the benefits it brings, and is looking for ways to make that possible, in sustainable, self-funding ways.

      Nah, couldn't be. We all know corporations are utterly incapable of doing anything beneficial for humanity.

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  2. Good idea but you need to go higher! by F34nor · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1248068.stm

    It is old ass news but the concept is correct. The jet stream is better than the surface. Don't worry about commercial airlines they run 10k feet lower.

  3. Re:or by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:or by tibit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  5. Re:or by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3

    I'm pretty sure it's squared, not cubed.

    Nope. Energy is equal to mv^2/2, but that assumes m is constant. With wind, the mass of the air passing through the blades increases linearly with the velocity. So the energy collected is proportional to v^3 not v^2. Here is a more detailed explanation.

    Also the captured energy is related to the square of the diameter and these turbines are tiny.

    That is a prototype. I think the plan is to scale them up.