Flying windmills could provide limitless power

We're going to try not to get too excited about the idea of flying windmills as a source of power. After all, the idea of tethered 35-foot rotors, floating 35,000 feet in the air and drawing endless power from the jetstream at a cost of less than 2 cents per kWh seems pretty far-fetched. But as winter drags on and we take another glance at our heating bills, we're rooting for Sky WindPower Corp. and its dream of Floating Electric Generators. Here's hoping they aren't just tilting at windmills.

[Via BoingBoing]

[Brandon @ Jan 31st 2006 12:49PM]

this website is horrible. doesn't turn me into a believer...

[Jay Dub @ Jan 31st 2006 12:51PM]

It sucks just to get two kite strings tangled on the beach, let alone 35,000 ft long power cords attached to huge, expensive, power stations w/ 4 88ft rotors spinning in 200 mph jet streams. And how are planes supposed navigate the kite strings? Or do they just make the entire area a no-fly zone?

[Mack Swift @ Jan 31st 2006 12:58PM]

Interesting how our gas and heating bills are fly through the stratosphere; oil is close to $60 a barrel because of shortages; gas supplies are supposedly tight, and then there's this article on CNNMoney:

Exxon Mobil sets profit record
Nation's No. 1 oil company reports larger than expected jump in 4Q income to cap record year.
By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
January 30, 2006: 2:41 PM EST


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Exxon Mobil Corp. set U.S. records for annual and quarterly profits Monday as it easily topped fourth-quarter earnings forecasts.

The nation's largest oil company reported net income in the fourth quarter of $10.7 billion, or $1.71 a share, compared to $8.4 billion, or $1.30 a share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, Exxon Mobil (Research) earned $10.3 billion, or $1.65 per share, topping a consensus forecast of $1.44 a share from analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call. It also topped the record for quarterly profits it set in the third quarter, when it earned $9.9 billion.

Shares of Exxon Mobil gained 2 percent in early-afternoon trading, helping to take the Dow into positive territory.

[r @ Jan 31st 2006 12:59PM]

what if the cord(s)holding it in place breaks...
35 ft rotors won't be good for any city or town in it's path..

[ucif @ Jan 31st 2006 1:01PM]

I am a spammer: [e-mail]

[BRYAN @ Jan 31st 2006 1:02PM]

What goes up........must come down.

[Dave @ Jan 31st 2006 1:05PM]

What happens when something goes wrong and these puppies fall out of the sky from 35,000 feet?

[E-Rock @ Jan 31st 2006 1:09PM]

I'm not an eco-freak not an alarmist, but these wind/wave power systems worry me. Especially when they talk about "free" or "endless" power. When you get power from the wind or waves, you are taking it out of the system.

I've got to think that slowing down the upper atmosphere is going to have ripples. Big ripples at that.

[Timerider @ Jan 31st 2006 1:14PM]

This was in Popular Science a few months ago. It is weird, what if they did fall 35,000 feet. Boom.

[CajunLuke @ Jan 31st 2006 1:18PM]

I say that Engadget needs a post-length resriction. That press release is asinine. No wonder it took the page a minute to load, in Safari over a university T1 line.

[Revrant @ Jan 31st 2006 1:19PM]

Great, publicity, that always helps alternative energy.

*Waits for Bush Administration backed Snuffing of the project*

[Paul @ Jan 31st 2006 1:36PM]

As to number 3: There are no shortages, the only people that say that are those trying to guess at prices and make money themselves. The market will support what the market will support and the market supports 2.35.

I would much rather live around a nuclear power plant than under one of these babies... though I really wouldnt want to live around either.

[College Guy @ Jan 31st 2006 1:46PM]

Yeah E-Rock, if we put a few of these up in the sky we just might run out of wind. That would be scary, what if we run out of air too? We would all stop breathing! Very likely, and much worse idea than continuing to pollute with nuclear/oil/coal. Much more efficient ways of wreaking the planet.

[Mills @ Jan 31st 2006 1:53PM]

They would probably mitigate the risk of failing/falling windmills and flying objects hitting them by having them offshore......hang on this sounds like I'm a believer in this complete tosh.

Me thinks this is a startup after a bit of cash from the "shit we're running out of energy" financial bubble.

[TheChaz @ Jan 31st 2006 1:57PM]

I don't really think it would be that hard to develop a workable fail-safe for a system like this. Several altimiters and parachutes in a redundant array would suffice for safe landings if something went wrong. Obviously the company would be insured to the gills for anything it damaged on its (comparitively) soft parachute landing.

[Phil @ Jan 31st 2006 2:05PM]

To #12:

There are shortages, why do you think we are over in Iraq (for oil). I think the bigger problem is that the general public will never know how much oil is really left in the ground until the last field has been sucked dry. Last time I checked, oil is not a renewable energy source (i.e. you can't grow new oil).

[Noah @ Jan 31st 2006 2:09PM]

You know, this isn't too far-fetched. There are some glaring details that need to be worked out, but its possible. You guys are such nay-sayers. I bet you'd say tidal energy is rediculous, but scotland is trying it. Looks to be very effective too. Geothermal energy? Rediculous! Iceland gets a lot of energy from its natural hotsprings.

Look, you'd need to get super-strong, super-light tethers, carbon nano-tube ought to do. They don't exist yet, but the tech is there and being worked on furiously. To keep it from hurting people if it comes down, put it over water or wide open spaces and put parachutes on it. Put it out of the way of air-traffic and other traffic.

Anyways, I doubt it will come to fruition b/c there are probably better ways of getting energy, but don't be such wet blankets.

[SoulEaterWChicken @ Feb 11th 2007 12:32PM]

So to make this all we have to do is use things that don't exist yet?!? Why hasn't it been done before then? OH yeah... it dosen't exist.

[D W @ Jan 31st 2006 2:16PM]

So is this windmill in the sky capable of creating enough lift to hold up the heavy guage wires required to actually supply electricity, or are we expecting this to charge batteries and return to Earth every day? Or is this an inflight battery charger???

Any investor who thinks this is a good idea deserves to get burned.

[Matt @ Jan 31st 2006 2:22PM]

Jeez, everyone's so negative. The question about alternative energy sources isn't "could anything go wrong?" It's: "How do the risks involved with this thing compare with the risks of current solutions?" Obviously, you place something like this 1) outside of commercial flightpaths, and 2) somewhere where if it falls it won't be on someone's head. The other objection had to do with slowing down the jetstream. I wouldn't worry about that one quite yet. Otherwise, if it's cheap enough to be competitive with other energy sources, and technically feasible, then what's not to like?

[Lee Gibson @ Jan 31st 2006 2:30PM]

Why would you need a parachute? It'd be a simple matter to have the thing auto-rotate to the ground, just like a helicopter without power. Hell, it wouldn't be much of an issue to have it fly itself back home, assuming home is within a couple miles of the tether point. (Which it would be.)

[srl @ Jan 31st 2006 2:31PM]

What a bunch of nitwits trying to sound like the smartest kid in the classroom. "Oh, it could break the tether and take out a town! Look at how smart I am class!"

Using your logic, we should immediately stop drilling for oil, since a spark could make it explode, and then it could be connected to an oil field underneath a city and everyone could die!!111!

Please start thinking before you respond - these wouldn't be placed on the outskirts of a city. In fact, many of the best places hypothesised on their site are sparsely populated, if at all.

That being said, I don't think this has a better than 30-70 chance of suceeding in the next 10 years.

[david @ Jan 31st 2006 2:31PM]

Ya, boohoo you bunch of scaredy cats. Look out, weep, weep, the sky is falling! What a bunch of know it all belly aching naysayers. "Oh that'll never happen, because I'm the biggest know-it-all on earth; and I didn't think of this." "I'm scared of big kites. I prefer a nuclear plant in my backyard." Ya right, toolbox. "This would be horrible if everything went wrong....boohoo hoo? Ya, well petroleum? can you say "destroying the environment on all continents of earth as we speak." Let's just spend more money and innovation to drill every last un-filthed corner of the earth... then burn every last ounce of oil we can find. Then we should think about being innovative.

[kendrew @ Jan 31st 2006 2:56PM]

so... what happens when planes decide the fly by it... or under it... there goes the wires...

[Eric @ Jan 31st 2006 3:00PM]

As to # 12: There are shortages. We will be out of accessible natural formations of energy by the year 2075, some say. Other estimates suggest that we will be out of our reserves by 2150. Get your facts straight. In addition, with a projected 11 billion people on the earth by 2100, there is no way we can sustain life on earth for another 150 years.

Instead, alternative energy is the only viable option. And ideas like these will come to fruition. Those windmills are a great idea. While the cable idea is a little odd and seemingly rotten with potential problems, there are scientists who are capable of dreaming up and developing completely safe and much better designed ways of keeping the windmills up there.

Gosh, you think people would be floored by such an amazing idea. I know I am.

[granny down east @ Jan 31st 2006 3:04PM]

Flashback to Boone, NC, twenty-thirty years ago.
Big-ass windmill on top of Howard's Knob, 90-foot long blades. The thing was as loud as hell, but when cranking, generated enough electricity for the entire town AND Appalachian State University.

Now why aren't we doing that? I am puzzled.

[Ben @ Jan 31st 2006 3:28PM]

I'm all about the ideas of natural energy sources that don't involve the destruction of said resourse. And I'm the other conservative republican who reads engadget! However, with the world's dependency on air travel, I can't see this being allowed. One would be placing essentially invisible obstacles in the sky that could cause crashes and cost lives. Nice thought, but too many kinks, methinks.

[furtim @ Jan 31st 2006 4:22PM]

There won't be any problem with these falling out of the sky, really. I mean, they're designed to stay aloft by the power of the wind. It's not like there are any engines on them to fail. That would defeat the purpose. They'd only really fall if the jet stream suddenly stopped running, in which case we've got bigger problems. Besides, they'd just autorotate on the way down and land fairly gently.

[bhauth @ Jan 31st 2006 4:45PM]

1 - Website design doesn't make the idea better or worse.
2 - Commercial flightpaths are very limited. The tethers can't get tangled if they're angled apart.
3 - Your comment is irrelevant.
4 - Something would have to hit it or cut it - a hurricane or a tornado, for example, in which case the damage this thing would do would be minimal, even in populated areas - where it wouldn't be. Also, simple "what if" questions are pointless.
5 - Your comment is pointless.
6 - Ditto.
7- See #4.
8 - Not a problem for a long time.
9 - Yes, Popular Science appearances are a bad sign. No, no boom.
10 - Keep it out of the thread, and it's probably your computer.
11 - A new high in comment quality, sadly. Anyway, they don't "snuff" projects - they just don't encourage alternative energy, and the average consumer goes for the cheaper option, as long as there is a solution on the horizon, which industry provides the illusion of with fusion and hydrogen boondoggles.
12 - You don't understand oil markets. Also, would you want to live next to a coal plant?
13 - They would probably be placed in empty areas or farmland. Your comment is pointless and has no insight.
14 - Pretty much, although putting it somewhere empty is easier still.
15 - 1st paragraph is OK, though tidal energy is not economically feasible. Nanotubes, however, are unnecessary and irrelevant.
16 - A COMMENT WITH NOTHING WRONG WITH IT! CONGRATULATION!
17 - DITTO!
18 - This is a rant.

In review - I will never again read a comment in engadget.

[Mills @ Jan 31st 2006 5:13PM]

Ahh the joys.... actually number 23, if that is your real name, I was joking.

They would station them in existing no fly zones, irrelivant of where they are geographically. Farmland gets flown over just as much as cityscape.

[JCA @ Jan 31st 2006 6:14PM]

#25's intelligent comments can cure cancer. Too bad he has never had any.

Keep it up flamebait!!!

[Bamboo @ Jan 31st 2006 6:26PM]

All you folks crying about the devistation this will cause and you completly forget all the people that die from the coal we are using now!
How many miners in west Vir. have died in the past month? It has been in the news almost everyday.
If you don't like it, come up with a better idea to solve the problem!

[Zviper @ Jan 31st 2006 6:36PM]

that photo looks like a concept photo..

[leandro. @ Jan 31st 2006 7:27PM]

am no part of this proect but i know these kinda things r ever more reliable. cable will probably be made to resisit high strain as well as sudden tension.

the state of the chord can be measured simply by the ammount of energy they recieve. if the choer begins to wear off, the energy that it allowsto travel trough it will be reduced in which case it could be reeled in to be fixed or replaced. now the thing doesnt jsut ramly fall generators can be used as motors if you just run some power trough it. so in the even that all wind sudenly dispaears, cz at 35000 feet theres plenty of shit to block the wind right? energy can be forced up the chord causing it to keep itself aflight until the jetstream is replaced. now, it IS concept, u dont just build these things while u take a dump. u gotta design n test a thusand times, many of these tests r actually run n simulated and demonstrated trough 3d sofware so they dont even have to try to make concept art of it, models of it come up during its development.

[Mike @ Jan 31st 2006 7:31PM]

Well it might not happen in near future but it will sure happen down the line in 50/60 years. When some one thinks something new out of the box, people will say it can't be done but history has proven us wrong all the time. What is wishful thinking now will be tomorrow�s greatest invention. Every thing begins with a dream!

[Doug @ Jan 31st 2006 7:48PM]

Instead of sending electricity down a wire, why not beam it down using microwaves. That way, there are no wires to break. How will then it be kept in place? Perhaps it will use some of its power to drive propellers?

[iTodd @ Jan 31st 2006 8:08PM]

Sounds impossible right? Try watching any episode on Modern Marvels (on History Channel) on how the oil, gasoline, and natural gas industries got started. I swear they STILL seem impossible let alone what they were doing with them 80 years ago. Don't underestimate engineers with a market drive behind them.

[leandro. @ Jan 31st 2006 8:27PM]

i dont think microwaves would do it tho, they DO heat stuff up, heat is energy,and at 35000 feet thats a lot of energy los to energy, not ot mention the power used stabilizing it. a rotor that is stabilizing the thing cannot be harvesting enerhgy at the same time, because those two functions require it to spin in oposite directions.

i definlythink wind and solar power r the way to go. altho as someone mentioned earlier up were still taking power away form earth.

[cstray @ Jan 31st 2006 11:03PM]

I'm surprised no pilots have posted in this yet. As plenty of people have already mentioned, these would most likely be 'hung' out at sea, where there would be no damage if something did go wrong. As far as 'does it work' smarter people than us have done the modeling on it. As for all those people worried about these conflicting with air traffic, you'd be amazed at how many restricted areas there are that contain high-altitude weather balloons, laser light hazards, etc. Aircraft routes over the open ocean are very defined, so there's lots of open space. And there's no civil traffic to be concerned with. So the only real questions are 'how well would it work in real life' and 'how much would it really cost?'

[ScottytheMenace @ Jan 31st 2006 11:26PM]

If this isn't the single dumbest energy fantasy ever dreamed up I don't know what would top it.

[ScottytheMenace @ Feb 1st 2006 12:17AM]

We are nowhere near "historically high" gas prices. People seem to forget a silly little thing called inflation. Yes, the "current price" is a higher dollar amount than ever before, but so are salaries and everything else.

The economic reality is that, measured in 2005 dollars, the average price per gallon of regular gasoline is currently 20 cents below the historical average and about equal to the average since 1946. Crude oil prices are higher than normal (though not highest ever) but last year was clearly an anomoly compared to the previous decade.

GAS Source: http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/2005/fcvt_fotw364.shtml

OIL Source: http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp Source: http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp

[soundboards @ Feb 1st 2006 1:51AM]

Nice concept idea, but releasing this own the world could be quite tricky. That reminds me, I'm still waiting for my Moller Skycar!

[Mick @ Feb 1st 2006 2:51AM]

There is no energy shortage folks; none at all. Don�t believe the hype � do some reading and come to your own conclusions.

Look up, look down, look sideways - we�re bathed in energy. In fact there is so much energy surrounding us, that it could power all of man�s needs thousands of times over.

What we�re seeing is a tipping point, where the cost to extract Dinofuel, like oil (stored solar) is approaching the cost harnessing renewable sources (near real-time solar like light, wind, waves, and rivers).
I should mention that there�s a few more sources of stored solar that we are also tapping, and could increase our use of if needed: nuclear (like Chernobyl), tidal, and geothermal. These are remnants of the previous star(s) in this area.

Yep, we�re running out of Dinofuel, but that�s a good thing. Better that Mother Nature stops us before we drown ourselves in CO2.

Like I always tell people when preaching �alternative energy� (read: �inevitable energy�): If digging up dead lizards to power our cars were smart and sustainable, plants would do it!

For part two of this rant, and an answer to many of your technical questions, please see:

http://www.magenn.com/

[deslock @ Feb 1st 2006 9:52AM]

Re #8.

> I'm not an eco-freak not an alarmist, but these wind/wave power systems
> worry me. Especially when they talk about "free" or "endless" power. When
> you get power from the wind or waves, you are taking it out of the system.
>
> I've got to think that slowing down the upper atmosphere is going to have
> ripples. Big ripples at that.

Definitely. It will most certainly cause the Earth's core to slow down, and then "static discharges in the atmosphere will create superstorms with hundreds of lightning strikes per square mile."

Seriously, my hunch is that even hundreds of thousands of these things in the upper atmosphere would have a negligible affect.

[jeffroward @ Feb 1st 2006 10:41AM]

Sure. This will work. No-fly zones, flying death traps... whatever. What's wrong with terrestrial-bound windmills? They usually run almost all the time, too. And they're here, on erf. How about a hell of a lot more of those? I would rather look out my window and see a windmill as opposed to some whirling death trap falling from the skies and wiping out my neighborhood.

[Wind Power Blog @ Feb 1st 2006 11:00AM]

A link to full full article at WorldChanging would have been nice:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004052.html

I blogged about a variant of this technology in 2004:

http://alt-e.blogspot.com/2004/12/wind-power-laddermills-high-altitude.html

Some keypoints to remember are:

Winds at 30,000ft are 20 times more powerful than at sea level.

&

They should operate at peak capacity 70-90% of the time.

Our energy problems need innovative solutions.

James
Wind Power Blog

[Johnny XCellent @ Feb 1st 2006 12:59PM]

Necessity is the mother of all invention, enough said

[jsk @ Feb 1st 2006 2:52PM]

What about birds? Will the windmills be in flyways? Will they be visible at night so the birds will not fly into them? Did anyone take into consideration anything other than human beings? I think the energy generated will be terrific, it just need some safety features for birds.

[Benjamin @ Feb 2nd 2006 2:33PM]

I have read through a lot of the comments, and the majority of them are really off base. Rather than knocking a new innovative idea, let's explore the possibilities of it. Remember this is a concept idea, and most of the ramifications will be worked out as it progresses. I do not think that most of the concerns mentioned on this post would not be well thought out before implementation.

[Lonnie McClure @ Feb 3rd 2006 3:49PM]

#46:

Check the altitude mentioned in the article. I think you will find very few birds flying at 35,000 feet (over 6.5 miles up).

Notice I didn't say "no birds". If you search for "highest flying bird" on Google, you will find the highest recorded altitude for a bird was actually 37,000 feet. One of the articles notes the species involved is rarely seen above 20,000 feet.