Kite styled wind turbines offer seductive power source

Wind whips through Earth’s atmosphere at speeds ranging around 92-398 kilometers per hour and that would easily pump out megawatts of electricity. The kicker? To harvest that wind power you’d have to fly a device 7-16 kilometers above the surface because that’s where jet streams of air make their gusty home.

Scientists have developed technology to fit that need in the form of airborne wind turbines that look similar to oversized kites. That technology even in its current state could generate 40 megawatts of energy and future iterations could power the world’s energy 100 times over by using 10% of Earth’s available land space. So what’s holding us back?

In a nutshell it’s the inherent fickleness of wind. Even with the strongest jet streams scientists realize that sometimes the wind will fail:

While there is enough power in these high altitude winds to power all of modern civilization, at any specific location there are still times when the winds do not blow. Even over the best areas, the wind can be expected to fail about 5 percent of the time.

That means an efficient means of storing energy will be critical for times when the airborne wind turbines aren’t gathering as much power. Not to mention powering some sort of device to keep the turbines suspended until natural wind currents take over again.

On a massive scale there is also potential for too many airborne wind turbines to affect climate patterns, but our current energy needs wouldn’t even come close to that precipice.

Jet streams generally fall into two categories, polar and subtropical. Polar jet streams are lower in altitude and move faster while subtropical jet streams are higher and slower moving. The position between the sun and earth seems to have a strong effect on the location of the jet streams and creates a “follow the sun” behavior.

Early tests of generating power from flying kites have proved successful already: