
An innovative approach to making electricity from the wind - prostoalex
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/06/08/an-innovative-approach-to-making-electricity-from-the-wind
======
tobinfricke
Hello! I work at Makani ([https://makanipower.com](https://makanipower.com)),
which is mentioned in the article:

> _Nor is it absolutely necessary that the electricity generation is done on
> the ground. Makani, a firm recently absorbed by Alphabet, Google’s parent
> company, has a different approach. It is lifting the generators into the
> sky, on board a pilotless aircraft with a wingspan of 26 metres. This craft
> has eight rotors, which act as propellers for take-off and landing. Once at
> operating altitude, however, they become miniature turbines. The electricity
> they generate (600 kilowatts at full capacity) is sent to the ground through
> a power line encased in a tether nearly half a kilometre long. Makani’s
> prototype has been tested in Hawaii and, later this year, a further series
> of tests from an oil platform off the coast of Norway are planned._

I'm excited to report that we really did pull off the offshore test a few
months after this Economist story went to print.

Video of our recent offshore test:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6NW0QeKLZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6NW0QeKLZA)
(I know it almost looks like a rendering, but it's for real!)

And a company blog entry about the test: [https://medium.com/makani-
blog/makanis-airborne-wind-power-s...](https://medium.com/makani-blog/makanis-
airborne-wind-power-system-takes-flight-offshore-907fd4c9af86)

Makani was funded in part by ARPA-E earlier in its existence, and they
recently also made a video about Makani that might be of interest:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Ly6na58e0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Ly6na58e0)

~~~
abdullahkhalids
How visible are these things from the ground?

Edit: Ignore the following line. It is too early in the morning.

\--A single one is producing 600KW, so you need a few per household, and many
thousands for a town.--

~~~
homero
That's kw hours. A big house running air conditioning is only 6kwh.

~~~
dredmorbius
kWh is a unit of _energy_ , that is, power over time, kW is a unit of _power_
, that is, instantaneous energy.

Your car _engine_ is rated in _power_ (typically horsepower in the US, though
kW is equivalent), your car _fuel tank_ is rated in _energy_ , that is kWh or
joules.

Power determines how hard you can work. Energy determines for how long.

A big house running AC _for a hour_ would give you a kWh number. The
instantaneous load is measured in kW.

~~~
homero
Yeah but if it makes 600kw then it can do it for an hour since it's a
generator not a battery

------
ncmncm
I prefer the method of releasing ions to be carried away by the wind,
producing charge separation that can be used to perform work. No-moving-parts
windmills should be the future of wind power.

It doesn't need any exotic materials, and it scales up to unlimited size.
Stretch a mesh between a pair of tall buildings, or between pylons of old,
worn-out windmills, or, yes, across a kite.

Alvin Marks patented a version of it in the 80s.

He didn't say how to make the ions. Some materials spontaneously give up
surface electrons to wind, so you might get away with streamers of the stuff
tied where warp meets weft, if it is made slightly conductive.

------
hannob
I see such things with a lot of skepticism. Here's why:

With varying intensity I've been following renewable energy development for
many years. I've seen many proposals for new forms of wind energy, many of
them looking promising. Same for new forms of solar, new forms of water power
and many other things. The Kite approach isn't new either.

However the reality is that the only thing that's been successful for wind
energy is to do almost the same thing they've been doing in the past, just
bigger, better and cheaper. The biggest efficiency win in wind energy is to
build similar technology, just with bigger wings and larger towers. The
biggest innovation was to bring costs down. Technology got better in the
details, the basic "three blades that spin around" stayed the same.

I know this is pretty boring. But it's successful. I'd bet on "make wind
energy cheaper and larger" more than on any fancy new tech.

~~~
namanyayg
I feel that way with a lot of tech, the best way to upgrade is to make it
larger and reduce costs. But we still gotta try other approaches on the off
chance they work, don't we? Without that don't we lose on innovation?

I could be biased because I do not want to live in a world where we're mainly
making incremental updates, but it seems like that's what it is.

------
nwrk
Unpaywalled: [https://outline.com/uPXtNv](https://outline.com/uPXtNv)

------
vezycash
I hope something comes out of this one. Kitegen has been around 2006 and
nothing to show for it.

------
Jedd
A few years ago a similar story about similar technology popped up, and I
referred [1] to a New Scientist story[2] from 2000 that described something
remarkably similar, being designed and built by an Australian researcher
called Bryan Roberts.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9222149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9222149)

[2] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16722574-800-reach-
fo...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16722574-800-reach-for-the-sky/)

------
gniv
Here's a video explaining it, from the same company:
[https://youtu.be/3VKFJ2_cQmM?t=147](https://youtu.be/3VKFJ2_cQmM?t=147)

------
AstralStorm
I wonder why none of the projects is trying balloons... Or are they?

~~~
dredmorbius
Mass vs. lift.

For the stated generation model, the kite's lift is being directly used to
create electricity as it is reeled out and in. For lofted generators (Google's
power kites), you're putting the turbines and generators in the air. Both are
more effective with kites than balloons, as in the first you get more lift
providing generation directly, and in the second a far smaller wing can
support a much larger weight than is possible with a balloon.

Frankly I don't think any of these approaches is very practical in the long
term at scale. Too many fiddly bits.

------
sunkenvicar
Wind is a second-order force. It’s even worse than solar - hard to believe!

~~~
sfink
I'm not sure what you mean exactly, but I think 2nd order force is a fair
description. Except you diss solar, so I'm a little confused.

To me, solar is first-order. Solar leads to wind, so it's second-order.
(Though really, solar heats water and air, producing wind, so it's kinda
third-order.) Oil is... uh... the sun grows the plants which die and get
compacted, then we pump up the remnants. I'm not sure what you'd call that.

Uranium is, like, zeroth order then. Fusion in the Sun produces solar.

And yet, none of this really means much. Unless you're constructing Dyson
spheres, it really doesn't matter how efficiently you're capturing the max
theoretical energies. If you don't believe me, stop eating. Try replacing food
with sucking on a power cord.

~~~
sunkenvicar
I’m referring to energy density. Because civilization requires ever-increasing
amounts of energy to grow and prosper.

Solar, even concentrated desert solar, is no good at all. Wind is a distant
derivative and much, much worse.

Hydrocarbons and nuclear are the fuels of today and tomorrow because they are
orders of magnitude more energy dense. These energy sources are so dense they
double as energy storage.

~~~
adrianN
Come back with your concerns when we fully exploit the potential of wind and
solar and run out of energy. Right now covering single digit percentages of
the world with solar panels would satisfy our energy needs.

~~~
sunkenvicar
I am concerned now because covering the world in solar panels and wind
turbines is unsustainable. Each siting location by definition is worse than
the one before. The vast land area required will cause tremendous societal and
environmental impact. Problems of energy storage, rotating mass, and baseload
power remain unsolved by wind and solar.

We need to get on nuclear. Then we can help poorer nations with nuclear power
so they can undergo their own Clean Industrial Revolutions. In 80 years we all
want the world’s ~11 billion plus people to live far better than we live in
the West today.

~~~
adrianN
Energy storage and baseload are in fact solved problems: a good grid (because
it's always windy somewhere), and a combination of batteries for overnight
storage and power-to-gas for long term storage.

I'm in favor of nuclear power too, but it takes too long to build.

~~~
realusername
> Energy storage and baseload are in fact solved problems: a good grid
> (because it's always windy somewhere), and a combination of batteries for
> overnight storage and power-to-gas for long term storage.

That's far from solved, countries close to each other have very similar
weather pattern and wind electricity is especially unreliable. We're also very
unlikely to have a massive breakthrough in turbines since we're close to the
theoretical maximum already.

~~~
adrianN
The talks I heard by the engineers that actually studied this disagree with
you.

~~~
realusername
Here's what a real wind production looks like:
[https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1153626109814202368](https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1153626109814202368),
spot the problem.

Wind turbines obey Betz's law
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz%27s_law)
and are already close to maximum efficiency, the only thing you can do is drop
the production cost.

~~~
adrianN
Now add enough batteries to those charts to store 10h or so of energy and
expand the grid to western Europe. Add in some solar as well.

Experts wrote thick reports on how to transition to renewables. You shouldn't
dismiss their work with half a dozen graphics on Twitter.

