Flying A Kite For The Environment

Imagine we could generate all the power we needed by flying kites. It sounds like an idea from a children's story, or a mocking critique of the environmental movement, but it may also be a glimpse of the future.

The problem with wind power is that much of the time there isn't enough of it available to even justify energizing the alternators attached to the large windmills used in wind farms. Unless the wind speed is over, say, 10 miles per hour, it isn't worth running the windmills at all. And above some speed on the order of 40 mph, it again isn't worth the effort, this time because of fear that high winds will damage the windmills — windmills sometimes costing hundreds of thousands of dollars each.

But power-generating tension kites are different, as Lynn so ably explained: "the numbers strongly infer that such a wind turbine system can produce power for around a fifth to a tenth the cost of current generation systems, depending on site costs. This is roughly US 0.5 cents a kilowatt hour, with the likelihood that this will reduce further with mass production."

Five tenths of a cent per kilowatt-hour is VASTLY cheaper than the average retail price was for electricity anywhere in the U.S. in 2005, where electricity costs ran as high as 12 cents per kilowatt-hour in California and 14 cents per kilowatt-hour in the state of New York. So even though the kits would have to be all new construction and the old coal, gas, and oil-fired power plants mothballed or dismantled, the payback period for doing so would be measured in months, not years or decades as most such capital expenses are today. Today, with energy costs even higher, the payback would be even quicker. - I, Cringely

With an idea like this, we do not need to despoil the Blue Ridge in a futile effort to offset a tiny fraction of our power needs. Let us not forget that the push for wind power in western Virginia is driven at least partially by Dominion Power's financial considerations. (Dominion power bought 50% of a West Virginia wind energy producer in 2006). There is evidence that wind power, as currently structured using huge turbines, is not price competitive without expensive government subsidies. As with solar power, it is the price-point that matters.

All this changes with the idea explained above. The price point of electricity from these wind-power kites is remarkably low. The technology to implement the idea on a global scale is merely a generation away, and the economic benefits are remarkable. The first-mover advantage in this technology should be significant, as the savings from generating power this way will enable us to produce high-altitude wind solutions cheaply, at the same time that our dependence on fossil fuels decreases. This is a path to energy independence.

But Google appears to have recognized this already.

Enter Google, stage left.

Pete Lynn no longer works in New Zealand. Today he works in Emeryville, CA at a company called Makani Power, which is developing exactly the sort of power-generating kites Lynn envisioned six years ago. Go to the people section of Makani's website and you'll see the healthiest bunch of windsurfer/engineers imaginable, including Pete Lynn, who actually seems to play a minor role in the company.

Google is Makani Power's major investor, having put $10 million into the company back in 2006. If Makani makes it possible to convert a huge percentage of American power generating capability to wind, it will be because of Google.

Whenever anyone says the world is on an irreversible path to tragedy, there is cause to be skeptical.

In the 1960s, there was a popular idea that the world had a carrying capacity of human beings, which was rapidly being exceeded. The rules of Mathusian economics would take hold and entire generations of people would die of malnutrition and starvation in a horrifying global calamity. A funny thing happened on the way to catastrophe: a plant pathologist solved the problem. Norman Borlaug invented a form of high-yield wheat which completely revolutionized agriculture in the developing world, and as a result, India can feed its billion people today.

"When you can trigger enthusiasm ... it's amazing what you can do." - Norman Borlaug

That is exactly what it will take to solve the climate change problem. And that is exactly what things like Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize inspire. Our hope must lie not in fundamentally altering human nature (the failure of Marxism gives lie to the perfectibility of human behavior), but in innovation and inspiration, those highest advantages of mankind.

And as a result, one day soon we might be flying kites for the good of the world.

[update] How about more environmentally friendly wheat, in an extension of the efforts started by Norman Borlaug.

Perennial crops by their nature increase carbon in the soil, reduce erosion and improve water quality, Rush said. Perennial wheat also offers the chance for producers to put cattle in the field earlier and graze longer in the spring, while still harvesting grain. - ScienceDaily

(Posted in (belated) honor of Blog Action Day)