Go fly a kite..literally!
Posted by changmai on June 1, 2009
Saul Griffith is an inventor, that presented the video clip on TED.com. His company Makani Power (Makani stands for wind/breeze in Hawaiian) will assemble large kite turbines that generate clean power. Google has already invested $10 million USD into this firm. They expect that a proper placed kite would be able to generate up to 6kW of eletrcitiy per 1 sq-meter kite that has large wings to harness the power of high altitude wings. They expect to use kites that go high as 10km up. This would allow it to generate the most energy per sq ft compared to other renewable technologies. Griffith believes that it is possible to power the entire world’s population needs using this technology. A university in Netherlands has already succesfully achieved 10kW of electricty using a 10 sq-meter kite.
It is quite exciting the potential for this. Seems like people think that Griffith is crazy but only time will tell if this type of technology is feasible in the long term. I just hope airplanes won’t get distracted with all these “wings” just hovering around in the air.
mattbaril said
Hi there!
Nice blog, I really like your topic as well! I saw that video when it first came out and I was astonished. I used to live in a city in which Quebec has its only nuclear power plant and I was curious to compare green energy with nuclear energy. I know some people consider nuclear a green technology, but I don’t think it should qualify because of the radioactive wastes. And I found out it would take between 60 and 100 kites to replace that power plant. 100 might seems like a lot, but I don’t think so, we already have wind farms with hundred of traditional wind turbines which people complain about because they are big and too obvious. I haven’t got the chance to do much research, but it seems like it would be a lot cheaper and definitely much safer. Since most Canadian provincial governments are already opened in investing in green energy, have come across anything that suggest that we will have this kind of technology in a near future?
changmai said
Thanks for your comments, Matt.
I agree with you about the green “neutrality” of nuclear technology. I was watching a documentry ( I think either BBC or National Geographic) about what a fictional situation in which all humans suddenly fanished. In one of the segments, all power is lost and there is nothing left to cool the radioactive wastes. And eventually, the radiation kills all animals in the surrounding area. Although extreme, it does create the sense that there needs to be a lot of careful handling of these nuclear wastes. That said, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere within a 50-km radius of a nuclear plant.
If you were referring to basic wind power, we currently have a lot of wind farms across Canada. Take a look at the Canadian Wind Energy Association website. There is enough power currently to power up to 750,000 homes. Regarding high-altitude wind farms, I am not too sure if Canada itself is pouring research into it. I feel that its still a novel solution that needs to be refined. But with our vast land, creating several of such wind farms, especially further up north, is something that is very feasible.