Company Wants To Put Power Plants In the Sky

Zothecula writes "Harvesting power from the wind and the sun is nothing new. We've seen flying wind turbines and solar power plants that aim to provide clean renewable energy. UK-based New Wave Energy has a bolder idea in the works. The company plans to build the first high altitude aerial power plant, using networks of unmanned drones that can harvest energy from multiple sources and transmit it wirelessly to receiving stations on the ground."

Comments

Re:Wake me when it makes more power than it consum

[Joce640k]

But what if the power plant is run by incompetent Ukrainian communists, didn't think of that did you!

That problem has a known solution.

Re:Wake me when it makes more power than it consum

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pronuclear but I think it's pretty well demonstarted that TEPCO can be called anything but truthful.

Whilst I understand your desire to downplay events we do need to accept that nuclear does have one very real and dangerous flaw: People.

Yes the tech, especially today's designs, are safe.

But, as long as you have penny pinching arsehats running the show, things are going to go wrong.

Re:Meh

[compro01]

There's really no point in flying solar cells, they don't work any better than down on Earth

Actually, they do. Solar irradiance increases with altitude, at a rate of about 8% per 1000m.

Re:Wake me when it makes more power than it consum

[Noughmad]

I say we harness the power of the atom from a circular trajectory. It's the only way to be positive.

Re:Wake me when it makes more power than it consum

[Joce640k]

Yes the tech, especially today's designs, are safe.

They're still designed on the same principles as the bomb-making reactors of the 1950s. There's still a danger in a really really bad screw-up and they produce an awful lot of very nasty waste product (this is by design - they were meant for making bombs, remember).

We've got newer designs that are inherently safe (ie. they fail to a safe state) and don't produce all the bomb-making residues. Trouble is, governments want no part of funding the R&D costs these days and financing them through private investors makes them a hundred times more expensive (it's a long term project so they won't bother investing unless they get a return on their money 20 years from now which is a hundred times their initial investment).