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I think Chris' concerns could be valid but, as Bill points out, at ten KM altitude I think this would be higher than all routine commercial and most military aviation. So my current impression is that FAA would not be biggest obstacle. It think essential to know how many flying wind farms would be cost-effective from traditional econ perspective alone before possible to do EIS to determine if they could disrupt jet stream, i.e. how many flying windmills needed to capture the 1% of jet steam energy to provide all current global energy demand as Economist article asserted. Due to the operational and maintenance difficulties cited in Econ article with conventional helicopter and airplane techs, I also found myself wondering if Sky Wind folks aware of Helios, the solar-powered flying wing which inventors are trying to make possible to stay aloft indefinitely by using fuel cell in combo with PV-covered wing.
But even if cost-effective and enviro benign, I'm nervous about any tech to the extent that it concentrates/centralizes control over energy production. So other smaller-scale lower altitude skywind options mentioned in article more appealing to me in this respect, altho could exacerbate Chris' concerns. But these seem like they would be most feasible as just another relatively small-scale decentralized alternative to add to the mix. I also found myself wondering if anyone has considered combining these smaller-scale alts with off-shore wave energy genenerating buoys, and what econ and enviro pros and cons of flying wind farms might be relative to undersea turbines that use ocean currents instead of wind to generate electricity.
-----Original Message-----
From: william.r.kramer.ctr@...
To: jones@...; HRCFS-L@...
Sent: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 9:48 AM
Subject: RE: flying wind farms
One benefit of the 10 km-high wind farms described is that they wouldn't interfere with birds, especially migratories and raptors (and even bats). A major consideration for many areas is that the turbines or blades are giant blenders to birds (on Hawaii, problems with endangered bird species as well). Because the generators require federal permits in the U.S., the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act place burdens on the design, making them impractical (e.g., cages around the blades). Birds don't fly at the 10 km elevations, so it eliminates the problem. -----Original Message----- From: owner-hrcfs-l@... [mailto:owner-hrcfs-l@...] On Behalf Of Christopher B Jones Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 8:50 To: Manoa School of Futures Subject: Re: flying wind farms The FAA will LOVE this! Also: some research indicates that wind farms are already having an impact on local weather... If true, the FX of flying wind farms on the jet stream could make global climate change even more problematic. On Apr 5, 2007, at 9:44 AM, Devin Nordberg wrote: > Yes, that's right: flying wind farms.
Yes, that's right: flying wind farms. http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8952080 ------------------------------------ Devin Nordson (formerly Devin Nordberg) ------------------------------------
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