Meanwhile in the Real Energy world...

[Digital_Trucker]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

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]

Originally Posted by Digital_Trucker

From the article:

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]

Originally Posted by Mikhayl

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

You might be interested to read some of these

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...401209_pf.html

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

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...260&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.

[Digital_Trucker]

Originally Posted by Mikhayl

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 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. 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 kitesMy 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.