This Floating Generator Could One Day Power Your City

[Ichingcarpenter]

This Floating Generator Could One Day Power Your City





It looks like a UFO, and soon there could be dozens hovering silently over your city. This futuristic wind turbine is designed to take advantage of high winds and deliver huge amounts of power to the ground via thick cables. And it's about to be tested in Alaska.

Altaeros Energies are the makers of this Buoyant Airborne Turbine (BAT), and they say it's designed for off-the-grid situations like factories in the middle of nowhere, remote towns, or cities that have been hit by disaster. They can be upgraded to provide communications like internet, too. By hovering 1000-2000 feet above the ground, they take advantage of high winds that typical turbines can't on land.

Imagine that a disaster has struck your area, and all the power lines into the region have gone down. First responders could arrive with a few of these turbines, inflate them, and immediately get hospitals and other meeting centers back online in a matter of hours.
http://io9.com/this-floating-machine-could-one-day-power-your-city-1553293940

[Sherman A1]

1. Cool!

and it does appear to be rather COOL in the photo!

[yeoman6987]

3. I hope that bird don't start flying into that huge thing

A lot of birds run into buildings and I would imagine we will lose quite a few birds from this thing. I know they don't take birds into consideration but is there absolutely no other way for use to have electricity for a city?

[cprise]

5. They're for high altitude. n/t

[LuvNewcastle]

2. Amazing!

It's a wonderful idea to take advantage of wind speeds at higher altitudes. Human ingenuity can be a beautiful thing.

[ReRe]

4. Imag-

... ination. It's a wonderful thing. Everything has NOT been invented yet!

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. I wonder how it handles gale force winds?

I wouldn't think a bunch of tethers would hold it after seeing sailing rigging get demolished in storms at sea.

I think its a great idea though

[OnlinePoker]

11. Company website says it can handle 100 mph winds

After that, it will retract automatically to the ground station.

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. Thanks that's fairly amazing considering

what I've seen with winds either at sea or in the mountains.

I think they have a winner.

[OnlinePoker]

7. From the Altaeros Website

"Operating up to 600 meters, the Altaeros BAT generates over twice the energy of similarly rated tower-mounted wind turbines."

But to me, that doesn't look like a very large generator in the middle so I'd be interested to know how much electricity is actually being generated. Is it sufficient to make up for the cost of producing the helium (something in limited supply already) to operate it or to transport it to the location it will be used, for instance? Looks interesting but is it really that efficient a creator of power?

[OnlinePoker]

8. I contacted the company and got a very quick response

XXX, thanks for reaching out. Our Alaska project will be 30kW, targeting 100-200kW after that. Target capacity factor is 50-60%...
adam

[Fumesucker]

13. Wind power varies as the cube of wind speed

Doubling the wind speed give eight times the power in other words.

And that unit is a ducted fan, the effective diameter of the prop is larger than the actual diameter and close to that of the intake of the duct which is itself designed to increase wind speed through the prop.

It's really deceptive in looks but aerodynamically I think it makes some sense.

[oldandhappy]

9. great idea!

No need to limit it to emergencies -- we need to incorporate it as a regular contributor to our energy needs. hear hear

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. 5 homes off the grid could share this

and then use Tesla's batteries for backup during heavy winds.