How does this affect birds? How does it affect planes flying in that airspace?
If it hits a bird, the bird will die. If it hits a plane, the plane will crash. Birds and planes should stay away.
Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
91–100 of 165 posts
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#92600 kW from one kite is insanely impressive. It looks pretty small. That can easily power a few hundreds of homes.
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#93Interesting tech. I wonder if these have lower impacts on avian and bat populations.
Also, it's interesting that tech companies love using Hawaiian words for things (Wiki, akamai).
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well if you are talking about damage done to forests & noise pollution, then you are trying to capture the externalities of power production into its "true cost". I'm all for that, but if you decide to do that you also have to use the same methodology for coal, oil, nuclear, etc. Sorry birds, but I feel like the cost of every bird killed by a wind turbine pales in comparison to what a few mountain top removal coal mi…
FYI: bird deaths via wind turbines are trivial. Collisions with wind turbines account for about one-tenth of one percent of all "unnatural" bird deaths in the United States each year. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science...
I was thinking about starting the anti-windows party to campaign for banning glass in architecture, just to see how dedicated people are to the premise of reducing bird deaths caused by human structures.
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#95Good, could people just stop messing with how scrolling works.
That's something worth mentioning as an addendum to a more substantive comment. Making it the sole basis of your comment is the epitome of short-sightedness. As the proverb has it, when a finger points at the moon, only the fool looks at the finger.
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you, but I'm a power user. I wonder if anyone has any sentiment analysis showing whether the average web user likes this sort of thing, or finds it annoying.
I'm probably a "power user" as well, but I literally cannot navigate the site. It's like 1/3 of my scrolls don't even register. This isn't "design for the masses," it's just plain broken. Edit: I don't know why I'm being downvoted, it must be working for some people. Here is a video of me trying to scroll (in Chrome) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulAw0P2geRE
Have you tried pressing those buttons in the lower right hand corner of the keyboard?
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#97I'm still a bit confused about how the forces line up for the flight path. If I'm understanding: - the wing flies in a circle which is perpendicular to the wind (oriented the same way an ordinary wind turbine would be) - the tether is up-wind from the wing, so the force from the tether pulls the wing into the wind which generates lift, which is used to propel the wing along the circular path - the propellers are driv…
I think that's more or less it. I think what they're doing is a milder version of dynamic soaring, which is a popular technique used among RC glider pilots (and some birds). The speeds attainable are pretty insane, the current RC record is 505 MPH, which in a rather fascinating twist is faster than the fastest POWERED RC aircraft. This a video that shows a pretty good idea of what it looks like, at compartively slowe…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlPI0AOj5MI a video of how birds do this in nature. Ever notice hawks circling in high winds?
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#98I'm worried about the noise. The blades spin many times faster than a regular windmill. I imagine it will sound similar to a small plane flying very close to the ground. Of course a plane flies over once and it's gone; this thing will produce a constant droning noise that fluctuates in pitch and volume every few seconds as the kite goes up and down. If you put them far offshore this wouldn't be a problem, but I would…
The majority of noise you hear from a small prop plane flying above is from the engine. Also, the advanced height they're trying to achieve limits the amount of noise relative to what you would hear from a small drone overhead.
I'm sceptical that that's true. We can put mufflers on gas engines to make them quieter. The prop, though, is moving a lot of air, and there's no way to get around that and have it still work.
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#99I'm still a bit confused about how the forces line up for the flight path. If I'm understanding: - the wing flies in a circle which is perpendicular to the wind (oriented the same way an ordinary wind turbine would be) - the tether is up-wind from the wing, so the force from the tether pulls the wing into the wind which generates lift, which is used to propel the wing along the circular path - the propellers are driv…
Here's a Ted talk from 2009 about the early version of the tech. http://www.ted.com/talks/saul_griffith_on_kites_as_the_futur... The tethered airframe converts wind into high-speed lateral motion, sort of like a sailboat would if it were sailing into the wind. These higher speeds can drive the blades faster than if they were simply pointed at a wind source.
Thanks this was my biggest question. I was wondering why it doesn't just stay tethered to the ground in one single position (or as close as possible) flying into the wind.
I guess it makes sense if it rotates perpendicular to the wind - like the tip of a rotor blade, to achieve these higher speeds.
Would be curious to understand more of the math/physics behind that. But at least intuitively it makes some sense now.
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#100How does this affect birds? How does it affect planes flying in that airspace?
Commercial planes don't fly below 250m at all, expect when taking off and landing at airfields.
The structure of these "turbines" are that of planes which look like large birds to real birds, so they would stay away from the area with them.
I'd assume that these would be installed in large open fields, so it shouldn't affect migration patterns or bird localities.
I have seen eagles attack quadcopters thinking they were birds, but those are usually of similar sizes to what eagles' prey would look like, but obviously this shouldn't be a problem as well.