Company Wants To Put Power Plants In the Sky 223
Zothecula writes "Harvesting power from the wind and the sun is nothing new. We've seen flying wind turbines and solar power plants that aim to provide clean renewable energy. UK-based New Wave Energy has a bolder idea in the works. The company plans to build the first high altitude aerial power plant, using networks of unmanned drones that can harvest energy from multiple sources and transmit it wirelessly to receiving stations on the ground."
Re:Wait, wireless energy? (Score:5, Informative)
Tesla was doing wireless energy over long-distances. The problem, for him as now, is that the process is horrendously inefficient.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
There's really no point in flying solar cells, they don't work any better than down on Earth
Actually, they do. Solar irradiance increases with altitude, at a rate of about 8% per 1000m [sciencedirect.com].
Re:Wait, wireless energy? (Score:5, Informative)
It just terribly inefficient.
The understatement of the century, references to Tesla aside. Transmitting power without wires is indeed possible, but unsuitable for any kind of industrial level power transfer. Getting a few more than a fraction of a watt though free space on an electromagnetic wave is going to be really difficult and extremely inefficient. Doing it at an industrial scale will be pretty much impossible.
BTW, your Hawaiian island reference.. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/visionary-beams/ [wired.com]
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
Wind turbines on an aircraft brings up images of Donald Duck blowing air at the sail on his boat. That's not a good sign.
Contrary to what a simple interpretation of physics suggests, it actually is possible to propel a sailboat with a fan in that manner. However, it's highly inefficient and you'll get far better results by taking down the sail and pointing the fan in the other direction.
Re:Wake me when it makes more power than it consum (Score:2, Informative)