Technology

This is an extremely promising innovation, and company plans on bigger designs already. But the total cost has to include an automated roof opening shelter for storms, that can open and close in medium winds before the high winds come. This makes the ground footprint higher than traditional turbines, even if agriculture can be done when there is no storm and roof is open. Perhaps 4 thethering strong cables could permit it to survive a cat 1 hurricane when hugging ground without a roof, but it is more weight to lift normally.

• Operational altitude: 4,921 feet
  So precise
• Weight: Under 2,204 pounds
  Um... so 2,203 pounds?

Is anyone else getting aeon flux vibs?

I am guessing that the 131 feet come from the size of the turbine (60m x 40m x 40m)... The article is extremely poorly written

It'd be interesting to see the cost efficiency of that versus traditional wind turbines over the expected lifespan of both.

Posting them around rich people's private airfields would improve their footprint even further.

How come the 131 foot altitude in the headline is never mentioned in the article? These turbine operates at 4,921 feet, a number that makes a lot more sense when you convert it to metric, 1.5 km. The article is littered with these odd imperial measurements that should have just been left as nice round metric numbers, or least re-rounded after conversion. 130 feet would have read better, but the original number was 40 m.

The wind at 32,000 ft is 200 times stronger than the wind at the surface?

Ummm... 10 knots * 200 = 2000 knots. I don't think so lol.

A lot of strange numbers in this article that bring its accuracy into question.

No mention of the weight of a 1 and 1/2 km wire that is also suitable to anchor this thing in place. Or are they going to float batteries and bring them down to discharge?

I'd love to see the weight of a five thousand foot cable.

These are a massive liability every storm. You have to winch them down and get them into a blisteringly massive hangar that can hold them. Then get them set back up after. Every. Single. Storm.

Furthermore, you don't save on land use, as you need the massive, expensive hangar for each right at their base.

Ground-based wind-turbines just feather their blades and lock their gearbox. Very simple.