@JonS
Congratulations on submitting your Ph.D. thesis! I know what a relief it is to get to that point and past the, "I'm never going to finish this" stage. The bird safety issue with static wind turbines is rather over stated (often by those who advocate for continued fossil fuel burning). The estimate for wind turbine bird deaths in the USA, with 150GW of installed wind capacity, or 9.8% of the country's total power generation, is between 681,000 and 1.4 million. Not small, but compared to the estimated 1 billion birds killed by buildings and the 1.3 to 4 billion killed by cats (again, just in the USA), the number pales in to insignificance. I'd be the first to advocate for action to reduce those wind turbine deaths (for example, painting one blade of a turbine black, to increase visibility, can reduce bird fatalities by more than 70%), but it's really a distraction. If the USA generated ALL of its power using wind turbines and took no action to increase bird safety, it would be responsible for at most 0.6% of the bird deaths in the country. I'm also ignoring that fossil fuel burning is estimated to kill 24 million birds per year.
@cabanford
The German Engineer joke: "that's all fine and good in practice... but how does it work in theory?!?" 😂😂😂
@BeeNTea
Having different colored and designed kites could make it a nice tourist attraction too. If our energy production can also be an art installation we can inspire people with a more creative side to get into energy production.
@JayBenOh
Congratulations on handing in your thesis! Writing these can be intense and I hope you're happy with the outcome!
@I_dont_need_a_handle
It has a couple of issues and not just regulation: 1) 18ct / kWh is roughly 3x more expensive than traditional wind turbines 2) Helium is gradually lost due to diffusion, it is expensive and it is a non-renewable rare ressource (that has to be mined in an actual mine since it is fleeting in earths atmosphere). 3) teathers are a problem. What do you do when there is no wind or turbulent wind? 4) high wear on the teathers due to constant movement and friction in the teather-bearing (plain bearings of traditinal turbines have almost no friction in comparison) 5) higher overall complexity of the system means more points of failure and thus lower service life 6) Windenergy is erratic enough as it is, flying figure-8s and reeling it in every now and then doesn't help here. 7) easy target for terrorism, as everything else that only takes only 1 Bullet to destroy. 8) traditinal wind turbines produce 3MW and upwards and take up less overall airspace -> more power per km². 9) This docking manuver will fail constantly, so more service personal will be neede, wich makes it more expensive. 10) It's a cloth! Traditional windturbines already have massive wear on their wings due to erosion thrue dirt, dust, ice etc... in the air. Those kites wont last a year and the upper ends of the teather better be hella thick. 11) you can't put them near any place where a human is likly to reside or come by. When the kite breaks, the teather will fall down and they don't look harmless to me or better yet: this kite comes off-course and clothes-lines everything is a 800m radius. Just built the damn wind-turbines. they are a good-enough solution as is .make 'em foldable in regions where hurricanes might come by if need be.
@SloanMosley
Since there is no one on board they should use hydrogen for lift. It’s cheaper, renewable and more buoyant.
@dosgos
Modern kite designs are efficient and capture powerful, smooth air from higher altitudes. Launching and tweaking the kite's figure 8's optimally requires visual and hand sense, plus a sense of what the wind is doing. Wind velocity and direction changes, so different kite sizes are used in kitesurfing for optimal performance. Errant gusts would be tough for computers to deal with IMHO but they are less common once a few meters above the water. One needs a big radius to cover all the wind directions and protect from kites crashing to the ground. The kite and cables wear out from variable tension, vibrations, salt, silt, UV light, pollution, etc.
@winfriedtheis5767
Congratulations with submitting your thesis!🎉 Great video! As you point out at the end, many things were deemed impossible, turned out to be possible, and in this case these companies have already proven that the principle is feasible. I would see these as another piece in the puzzle.
@inmyopinion6836
Thanks for the update. The ground-based wind generator was an Idea I came up with in the 80s while working for Solaron Inc. in Denver, Co. The autonomous system issues were the non-starter. We KNEW it would work, but like auto tracking solar panels, the funding has been fought tooth and nail by the BIG OIL corps.
@wizzwas
On the Aerostats. I used to work with them a bit and we eventually stopped using them because the price of helium had gone up so much it just wasn't profitable for our application anymore. I bet that had a part to play in the ones you mentioned. As well as taking a 4 man crew to launch and dock it, someone had to monitor it at all times because it wasn't rated to fly in high wind speeds. Scary as hell landing one when its windy!
@shintsu01
about the birds reduce the cat population by 0.1 % and it will avoid less bird losses then all wind based energy systems currently available
@athena1491
On the topic of birds killed by wind turbines.... the number is so low even with standard wind turbines, to the point that glass windows kill more birds a year than turbines, and coal and other pollutants even more than that, its really almost a non issue thats being used as a roadblock by oil companies
@bc-guy852
Congratulations on starting your PHD! Your channel produces great content - you're going to do great!!
@don.dandononeverything1254
They have the same concept but it’s using Tidal energy, it’s really fascinating and I think they are one of the very few countries he went full on and backed the project, love the video💚
@0005yuki
Oh the quality improved drastically in this video - cheeky from u Ryan
@BrodyAlden
Really interesting. Thank you, Ryan!
@pauljs75
Some variants have been proven well enough for over a decade even (some of the flying wing or gyrocopters work quite well and are reliable enough to implement), but the main issue is bureaucratic and regulatory. Basically it's hard to get an airspace restriction put in place that isn't temporary due to the flight hazard such systems would pose to any aircraft.
@null-u7e
I'm pretty sure it's because helium is impossible to contain, so it's requiring bouyancy to keep it flying was the issue. there's no way you can keep the helium from escaping. It'll literally leak out of a solid metal pressure vessel though the metal walls.
@MIA_DaDe
Congrats on the Phd thesis submission ... whew! Weight of the shoulders for sure! Regarding this video, airborne wind turbines seem like an exercise in frustration for its developers though I wish them well. That said, I wonder if wave or tidal energy systems might be a quicker path to more reliable/economical electricity generation. Thanks for covering this topic and thanks for the wind turbines in your background shot. Nice touch! lol
@ZirothTech