Meanwhile in the Real Energy world...

[Zachstar]

While the usual suspects tout fantasies of 100 years of clean coal and oil.. Serious research goes on on how to harness forms of energy that does little to the environment and little to the nations pocketbook...

While a fantasy spreads about "If you just reduce energy we can sustain with what we have" Data comes in about china demanding more and more energy..

While some demand .gov action to pay part of the expensive Li-ion packs for their cars.. Others are researching cheaper and higher energy density storage mechanisms.. A great example being EEstor who managed to even interest Lockmart with its technology..

There is a simple fact of life.. As population grows the energy required to sustain such population grows rapidly.. There is no getting around this with existing technology and any talk of population reduction or reduction of growth is usually an elephant in the room.. Are you going to be the one that mandates birth control?

So while the fantasies get shot down quickly thanks to the internetz people are out designing ways to power the future..

Who likes kites?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/03/renewableenergy.energy

I would MUCH prefer a bunch of kites in the air than gizillions of windmills.. Kites are fascinating to watch and power generation kites have plenty of room for a number of different uses (Yes I know it will be 100 percent ads but atleast they can make the ads pretty)

[UnderseaLcpl]

Interesting idea. But, I bet we see fusion before kites ever work on a large scale.

[Zachstar]

What? The article stated the ability to power 100 thousand homes with these things.. That is more homes than some cities..

Besides with kites getting them back up after a failure is much easier.. And not to mention deployment when it takes upwards of 10 rigs to haul a single Wind tower into place...

Fusion will take decades to come online with any seriousness.. And because there will be nutjobs that will claim they spill radiation as well. Politics will keep them offline for years..

I like this because this has the ability to turn large areas into power production zones without destroying the environment.. And may even be tourist attractions as many will come to see these things flying..

[UnderseaLcpl]

Well, zach, you mention one of the things that will keep them offline when you mention politics.

I would also love to see kite plants and clean electricity generation.

However, given the nature of the media and the fact that the greatest potential of this device still lies in its developers claims, I don't think we will ever see it used for mass power-generation.

How much power can these generate per dollar spent on research and implementation? What happens if the wind stops or the kites get tangled up? How much land would have to be devoted to such a facility? What happens when there is a storm?

While I share your optimism that all these issues may be resolved, I don't have enough faith in this to invest a dime in it, and even less to support it with my tax money.

[Zachstar]

Edit: Now in first line = No... sorry about that

No power generation is 100 percent. Even Fission...

That is why energy storage research is so important.. So you can use extra kites to charge the batteries to keep from having to move the coal plant to 100 percent to power the 100k homes..

I can understand the concern about using tax dollars for this.. I agree that unless a full plant to provide a local community with power is constructed for a less than half of what it would take to construct a coal plant in the same location.. It needs no tax money.. Prizes will more than pay for it..

Edit: However tax going to this is much preferable than to rich oil companies claiming 100 years from local oil..

[Digital_Trucker]

What? The article stated the ability to power 100 thousand homes with these things.. That is more homes than some cities..

From the article: The experiment generated enough electricity to power 10 family homes, and the researchers have plans to test a 50kW version of their invention, called Laddermill, eventually building up to a proposed version with multiple kites that they claim could generate 100 megawatts, enough for 100,000 homes.
Key words there being "test" , "proposed" and "they claim".

I also wonder, at a height of 800 meters, how many private aircraft are going to end up flying into the kites and how many animal activists are going to complain about the possible impact on migratory birds.

[AVGWarhawk]

What? The article stated the ability to power 100 thousand homes with these things.. That is more homes than some cities..

From the article: The experiment generated enough electricity to power 10 family homes, and the researchers have plans to test a 50kW version of their invention, called Laddermill, eventually building up to a proposed version with multiple kites that they claim could generate 100 megawatts, enough for 100,000 homes.
Key words there being "test" , "proposed" and "they claim".

I also wonder, at a height of 800 meters, how many private aircraft are going to end up flying into the kites and how many animal activists are going to complain about the possible impact on migratory birds.

Your very last sentence was the very first thing that came to my mind. The studies on the effects of the local environment and habitat to animals where these will fly will take at least 5 years. There is so much red tape to get anything done I often wonder how anything is done at all.

[Digital_Trucker]

Something is getting done? I didn't know that:rotfl:

Seriously, safety does need to be a concern as well. I wasn't kidding when I wondered how many planes would fly into them or the tethers they are atached to.

[Zachstar]

Well I highly doubt these would fly in any IFR populated areas and you have to be able to you know.. See to fly VFR...

And I HIGHLY doubt something so powerful and without pollution will be easy for the nutjobs to shut down for even a year in the courts.. It would be hypocritical after they spend years touting wind and solar instead of nukes..

[AVGWarhawk]

In all reality, it is great that some are delving into other ideas for generating energy. Sure, there will be some hills to climb in getting solid working kites, turbines, sea wave electric generators. But all in all, without this ideas getting throwing around and making some tests, nothing will get accomplished.

[Zachstar]

Bingo!

What if the US navy had not invested in fusion research? They would be tied to oil until someone would be kind enough to suddenly make appear free energy...

What if Lockmart said "Screw it" "We can depend on existing battery technology despite the lack of energy density, the cost, and the danger.." Instead of getting involved with EEstor?

[Mush Martin]

Of all of the energy schemes Ive seen the best so far is the
marriage of solar optical and steam technology.

the focal point of a sun tracing solar mirror is superheated
at its centre is a conventional high pressure steam boiler
it in turn pipes hp steam through a turbie/generator combo.

simple mature available in homebuilt even if you want and
able to produce way more power than wind or solar photo
voltaic. or even wave generators.

some times the simple solutions exist in mature not exotic
technologies, good ideas arent always complicated just the
problems they solve.

I could see small versions replacing diesel emergency genertor
systems. not only that but its a compact enough thing to fit
atop an apartment building and power it I think. local power
for the building making the condo off the grid a high market
advantage in an ever greener and commercial world crushed for
space.
M

[Digital_Trucker]

You'll see there will be more concern about the risk of kites than nuclear plants :shifty:

You might be interested to read some of these

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209_pf.html

http://physics.isu.edu/radinf/np-risk.htm

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D7173CF933A1575AC0A9669582 60&sec=&spon=

Better yet, google deaths from nuclear power plants and see how many you find

Deaths from other forms of power production far outnumber deaths related to nuclear power.

Guess what, though, driving is more dangerous than living next to a nuclear reactor and I don't see anyone suggesting that cars should be outlawed or that no new cars should be built. The odds of being killed in a car accident are far better than those of dying from a nuclear power plant failure.

[Fish]

Edit: Now in first line = No... sorry about that

No power generation is 100 percent. Even Fission...

That is why energy storage research is so important.. So you can use extra kites to charge the batteries to keep from having to move the coal plant to 100 percent to power the 100k homes..

I can understand the concern about using tax dollars for this.. I agree that unless a full plant to provide a local community with power is constructed for a less than half of what it would take to construct a coal plant in the same location.. It needs no tax money.. Prizes will more than pay for it..

Edit: However tax going to this is much preferable than to rich oil companies claiming 100 years from local oil..

I think that project doesn't need much tax money, in stead of, I think it's very cheap.

[Digital_Trucker]

LOL, what's with the comparison with car accidents ?
I'm well aware that nuclear plants are quite safe, but still I can't see how they could be less dangerous (potentially that is) than kites or wind turbines. And yet politics (at least here) make much more fuss about the latter, pretending that they care about things they never considered when it came to build a nuclear plant or the like.

For example, you say "I also wonder, at a height of 800 meters, how many private aircraft are going to end up flying into the kites and how many animal activists are going to complain about the possible impact on migratory birds."

For nuclear plants there's simply "forbidden zones" for aicrafts and it has never been a problem, so it shouldn't be an issue for kites. As for animals, it's good to be concerned about it, but how many small species get covered in concrete when a nuclear plant is built ?

Not having a go at you, just trying to make myself clearer :)
No offense taken:lol: The comparison with car accidents was to point out that something that many of us do each day is more of a danger than something (nuclear power plants) that many view with extreme fear.

My remarks regarding airplanes and birds was partially a joke at folks that worry about that a lot. Your analogy of "forbidden zones" doesn't work for wide areas of objects 800 meters in the air, though. Nuclear power plants have forbidden zone above them to reduce the possibility of aircraft coming close enough to the ground to strike them (and the obvious, to attempt to reduce the chance of a terrorist attack on one). I'm sure that those "forbidden zones" are violated more than we like to think about, but there is no calamitous result because the plane has to be pretty close to the ground to strike the nuclear power plant. People take private planes in lots of places they shouldn't go (like into buildings in New York City, and into power lines and cell phone towers, etc......) so I don't think it's unwise to think about "what if" a plane ends up somewhere it shouldn't be when you are talking about something as far in the air as these kites would be. It seems to me, that the closer you get to "civilization" (as we like to call population intensive areas), the less safe these things would be, so now we're talking about having them in sparsely populated areas. Helpful in areas of low power usage, certainly, but not the solution to large power needs.

As for small species being covered in concrete when a nuclear power plant is built, I would hope they would be intelligent enough to run when the cement truck showed up. :D Again, I was more poking fun at the folks that worry about that type thing, so we're on the same page.

To make myself totally clear, perhaps I took your comment about more safety concerns over kites vs nuclear power plants incorrectly. I felt that you were more poking fun at folks that thought that nuclear power was safe than at those that worry about birds flying into kites:oops:My bad if I came to the wrong conclusion (it happens, especially in print vs. face to face).

Edit : I totally forgot to take in the "(potentially that is)" part of your post. I'll be first to agree that the potential for disaster is there with nuclear power and on a scale much greater than anything a bunch of kites could cause. So far, due to many factors, nuclear power has been safer (in terms of life lost) than older forms of power generation. Considering that, in this country at least, there haven't been any deaths (that I can find) caused by nuclear power production it would be hard to have a better record.