![Altaeros_Wind_Turbine_Wide[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/altaeros_wind_turbine_wide1.jpg?quality=83)
From NCAR, some wind pie in the sky.
A mother lode of wind power
Mapping the potential to harvest high-altitude wind
May 28, 2014 | What if all the energy needed by society existed just a mile or two above our heads? That’s the question raised by researchers in an emerging field known as airborne wind energy, which envisions using devices that might look like parachutes or gliders to capture electricity from the strong, steady winds that blow well above the surface in certain regions.
While logistical challenges and environmental questions remain, scientists at NCAR, the University of Delaware, and the energy firm DNV GL have begun examining where the strongest winds are and how much electricity they might be able to generate.
Their key finding: winds that blow from the surface to a height of 3,000 meters (nearly 10,000 feet) appear to offer the potential to generate more than 7.5 terawatts—more than triple the average global electricity demand of 2.4 terawatts (as of 2012, according to the study). Among the areas where such winds are strongest: the U.S. Great Plains, coastal regions along the Horn of Africa, and large stretches of the tropical oceans.
This type of research could prove critical if airborne wind energy takes off. The growing industry now includes more than 20 startups worldwide, exploring various designs for devices that could be tethered to ground stations and then raised or lowered to capture the most suitable winds at any point in time.
“From an engineering point of view, this is really complicated,” said NCAR scientist Luca Delle Monache, a co-author of a new study examining these issues. “But it could greatly increase the use of renewable energy and move the U.S. toward the goal of energy independence.”
To estimate the potential of airborne wind energy, Delle Monache, with Cristina Archer at the University of Delaware and Daran Rife at DNV GL, turned to an NCAR data set known as Climate Four Dimensional Data Assimilation. It blends computer modeling and measurements to create a retrospective analysis of the hourly, three-dimensional global atmosphere for the years 1985–2005.
The research team looked for various types of wind speed maxima, including recurring features known as low-level jets. Such jets can be ideal for energy because their speed and density is as high or higher than jets at higher elevations that would be beyond the reach of tethered wind devices. They also blow more steadily than winds captured by conventional wind turbines near the surface, potentially offering a more reliable source of energy.
Low-level jets blowing at 30-50 miles per hour or more can be found at several locations worldwide, often close to mountainous terrain or to persistent atmospheric features that help focus and channel wind. One of the strongest low-level jets on Earth flows from the Gulf of Mexico north across the Great Plains.
A study by the scientists, published last month in Renewable Energy, focused on winds in January and July. The team is now looking for additional funding to provide a more complete picture of the potential of higher-level winds. Their main goals are to estimate the strength of the winds year round and to build an interface that would enable users to explore the strength of the winds over specific regions.
“It’s important to understand the magnitude of this resource and what might be possible,” Delle Monache said.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Vermin Supreme for president!
He promised to harness zombie’s power to generate electricity and give everyone a pony! And he wore the coolest boot on his head.
Only lost to Obama because Obama promised to heal the earth and stop the oceans from rising. At least he can keep a promise.
Does anyone want to buy my “Solar Freakin’ Roadway” stock so I can invest in this?
We just need to invent a way to make more Helium, Super Conducting-Super strong tethers and anti-gravity system to keep it from falling on our heads.
GnomePirate says:
August 14, 2014 at 11:42 am
Gnome, you ask very pertinent and important questions Gnome which deserve much more attention (IMHO) than they seem to be getting these days. Are we not messing with Nature in ways which we do not yet fully understand (if at all) when we steal energy away from the Earth’s natural systems (the jet stream and ocean currents)? Do we know what the consequences of that theft are going to be as regards the Earth’s climatic and weather systems? Have these questions been studied at all by science? Is all that energy not in those systems for an important reason?
It seems to me that we are putting the cart before the horse here when we decide HOW we are going to do this before we take the time to ask ourselves the above questions and seek the answers.
In my view, climate alarmists who are also wind and ocean energy supporters are being hypocritical and creating a double standard here. On one hand, they get all worked up over the human contribution to the CO2 content in the atmosphere and its supposed impact on the Earth’s climate. Then, on the other hand, they see no problems with the idea of removing energy from the worlds ocean currents and jet stream while all the time knowing (or maybe not knowing) the role that those systems play in the Earth’s climate and weather.
Perhaps Gnome and I are getting excessively alarmist with these questions….or maybe not. I don’t know because I am not a scientist. I do believe however that we should at least study these questions before taking the ocean and wind energy football and running with it.
rayvandune says:
August 14, 2014 at 11:58 am
I read a few years ago about using parasail-like kites to supplement the engine power of ships.
Hey that could work, if we orient the kites normal to the wind direction and attach them to tall poles sticking out of the ship, let’s call them “masts”…
A plague of enginasters. The great Dr. John Brignell, electrical engineer extraordinaire, has analyzed this approach to power generation and found it wanting. Google ‘enginaster’ and select the hit referencing the numberwatch blog. Very educational.
Aw, good grief.
Mind you, it wouldn’t surprise me if some idiotic politician takes this up and tries to “sponsor” the idea so that some other idiot can apply for a grant to investigate the idea further.
Now that I come to think of it, I suppose I could investigate it a bit more. As a sailor AND a seaman I probably have a fair idea about how the wind works.
Where can I apply for the grant?
Who said that I was an idiot? How dare you.
(Bring on the fracking and the coal mining and forget about all these stupid fanciful ideas from people with nothing useful to take up their time.)
Oldseadog says:
August 14, 2014 at 12:33 pm
Gas-rich Russian intentions on East Ukraine may help to focus minds in Germany & elsewhere in Europe on the advantages of fracking & coal.
Why go to all the bother of flying a kite a mile high; maybe they could put engines on it, and dispense with the cable.
But actually, there’s far more energy than that wind, just laying around on the ground. You see crows and other birds, picking at the dirt, and coming up with a beak full of next to nothing. seems hardly worth the energy stooping down to get it.
Well I was thinking of all the solar photons that the earth lands on every day. They all end up on the ground, hardly damaged at all. We just need to go out and sweep them up. There’s a whole gigawatt just laying around per square km, and we should be able to get our hands on about one fifth of those.
Did anybody compute the power density of this barrage balloon, including of course the earth surface area, swept out by those mega cables as the wind direction does a slow 360 over time.
As for (con)fusion power; so you get few picosecond blast at 16 megawatt. How much of the chemical fuel, was consumed during that 400 second burn.
Do these Tokamakanics say what chemical they are using for fuel, is it Deuterium, or Trtium, or is it both. And how do they bring the fuel into the Tokamachine , and more importantly; how do they remove the garbage (chemical) that they make with this squisher, while still keeping it running putting out usable power.
A Tokamachine supposably, uses EM fields to squish the fuel. Please don’t call this the sun in a bottle. The sun (gravity) sucks; but the Tokagizmo blows. So the sun just sweeps up its own fuel, by suction, and brings it in, and puts it in the right place , toward the center of mass, all without being touched by human hand.
So we couldn’t turn the sun off even if we wanted to. It is a self organizing autonomous power station that just goes by itself, with no control room. And if (when) it runs out of fuel, it will just move its operations to some smaller quarters, and pretty soon it will fire up again burning a new fuel, which will also be just lying around in the right place..
The Tokamakers will still be trying to stop their contraption from busting out of its bottle all over the place.
One day, they might hear about Earnshaw’s Theorem, and then they can all go fishing.
On a windless day the cable angle is 90º and length = altitude, efficiency = 0. At maximum safe windspeed what is the cable angle and cable length? At minimum unsafe windspeed what is the cable angle and cable length? At what natural force does the cable separate from the generator and fall to the ground (in the Hamptons, presumably)? How many power lines are impacted? How many miles of traffic (including commuter rail) are backed up while the maintenance people pull miles of cable off the roofs of homes and power lines (presumably in the Hamptons), How many renewable fueled trucks are required to keep on standby to haul those miles of cable pieces to a reclamation facility? I presume these trucks will be rarely needed, but to ensure quick response the should be parked in the Hamptons, and the drivers, welders, and laborers will also be housed nearby.
No problem. Somebody cut a check for a dozen or so.
Wouldn’t it be simpler to install turbines in the gulf stream, fixed to the ocean floor. Near Florida, the gulf stream is about 5 mph, more or less always very close to that speed. The mass of water, as compared to air, would provide a huge amount of energy. However, don’t get me wrong, carbon dioxide is healthful to humanity, even above 800 ppm, plus inexpensive energy is especially important to the impoverished in this world.
What’s black, white and red and goes 100mph?
george e. smith says:
August 14, 2014 at 12:37 pm
Can’t say if magnetic containment will prove a better approach than lasers or some other system, but there are lots of small scale tokamaks operating all over the world now. Maybe the engineering problems are not solvable, but IMO they’re less of a waste of money than the Green Energy scams.
A good illustration of the fact that we will never run out of energy. the whole universe is made out of it.
The more people there are, the more things we discover and the better our technologies for increasing life.
Yes, this particular article is about crackpot crap (probably), So what? Some things work.
But we are carbon-based life forms. Fossil fuels and only fossils increase the amount of Life we can have in this world.
old fella says:
August 14, 2014 at 12:40 pm
Turbines in the Stream,…how can we be wrong?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream_Turbines
Will they be equipped with gremlin traps?
Harnessing the wind has the immediate drawback of any dilute energy source. Some very dense energy sources are becoming mature enough to be brought into the market in the very near future. They will not only out produce the diffuse sources they will eventually remove the need for a grid and replace all current sources .
Look at Blacklight Power who have developed a power source with a million times the power density of a car engine with an anticipated cost of less than 1 cent per kilowatt hour. They project field testable units in 14 to 16 weeks. http://www.blacklightpower.com/
Or Solar Hydrogen Trends who have developed a process to produce hydrogen from water at an energy equivalent cost of 1.3 cents per kilowatt hour. http://www.solarhydrogentrends.com/
Or Lawerenceville Plasma Physics who are nearing proof of concept on a small hot fusion generator that generates no radioactive waste and electricity at a tenth the cost of coal facilities. http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/
Or Andrea Ross’s E-Cat that expects to announce a functioning 1 megawatt plant this fall that produces no waste product or radiation. http://www.e-catworld.com/
With these and other innovations in the game I don’t think this crazy scheme of windmills floating in the air has any future.
Or in winter, when it’s not so hot.
Air density would be lower which means the energy content in the wind would be lower. Apparently the lower air density also means the turbines can operate at higher speeds.
Presumably the maths works to make it worthwhile.
He who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty, but he who works [drills, fracks] his land will be kept safe.
Proverbs
The clippings from a single haircut [100 g] – fully converted to energy according to e=mc2 would provide about 1.4 terawatts for a whole year – the entire world’s power needs. So what’s the problem?
NCAR makes the Village Idiot look smart. ( I never thought that would happen.)
I’m not a scientist, but doesn’t every action have an equal and opposite reaction? If we use this wind energy, coudn’t it mess up the circulation of the weather systems and cause havoc?
A variant on the 1752 lightning rod and kite experiments by Benjamin Franklin. Might have a similar outcome as the experiment that killed Georg Wilhelm Richmann in Saint Petersburg in August 1753. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_experiment
Wow! They discovered the jet streams and all that air movement known as “weather”. Tethered systems have issues. Search the web for Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS). High winds are real killers of TARS systems. To maintain a 3 mile height they need at least 5 miles of cable else turbulence will snap the cable while, of course, the blimp crashes.
It’d be better to drill into the magma. One could call all the “start-ups” (code for boondoggle) the Fracking Lava Industry. Obtw, there are still polices of Y10K insurance available on the web.
with wind turbines we have bird choppers.
with tethered balloon turbines, cessna choppers.
with Gulf Stream turbine, flipper and manatee choppers