makani power

[Morning Sunshine]

you seen this?  looks interesting.

http://www.makanipower.com/

[archer]

interesting idea, i'm curios how they plan to scale this enough so it gets enough power out of it.

[Morning Sunshine]

they say it is like a kite.  well, what if the wind dies totally, how can you get the wing back up?

[Nicodemus]

they say it is like a kite.  well, what if the wind dies totally, how can you get the wing back up?

The power transmission line goes both ways. You send power to turn the props in order to get the AWT airborne. When it gets to a sufficient altitude, you take power from the props which are now driven by the wind.

[LdMorgan]

Check out this video from the Makani guy speaking at TEDS.

http://blog.ted.com/2009/03/23/inventing_a_sup/

You can get more power out of a wing than you can out of the largest land-based windmill--at probably 20% of the cost, or less.

Between this and the Wind Sail Receptor, mega-windmills are in the process of becoming extinct.

They will probably wind up using very large wings that are basically aircraft, able to take off and land autonomously. That solves the loss of wind/bad weather/broken tether issues in a single stroke.