The S1500 floating turbine’s operating altitude is 4,921 feet above ground level, where wind speed moves about three times faster than at the surface. The advantage of this altitude (also referred to as vertical slice) can result in a power output up to 27 times higher than a conventional ground-based wind turbine of similar capacity.
The capacity to generate one megawatt of electrical power (MW) with the S1500 system is comparable in size to what small wind power turbines normally generate (a conventional 328-foot-tall wind turbine), while the footprint of the S1500 system is significantly smaller. This amazing power density shows the efficiency benefits of being able to access high altitude wind power resources by new and innovative airborne platforms.
- Operational altitude: 4,921 feet
So precise - Weight: Under 2,204 pounds
Um… so 2,203 pounds?
Altitude: 1500 meters
Weight: Under 1000kg
- Operational altitude: 4,921 feet
Is anyone else getting aeon flux vibs?
Feeling like like Hindenburg up in here
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.
Yes it’s odd to see an article about electricity generation technology that doesn’t even have a speculative ‘levelised cost of energy’ as they call it. That is lifecycle expected average $/MWh.
I guess its a very early prototype. and maybe China doesn’t care to much about LCOE.
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.
It’s not that hard to comprehend both measurement systems. Both are valid and it’s up to the author to choose how they want to express their figures. You can send them a complaint if you want, but complaining about their measurements here isn’t going to change anything.
Probably because the article was AI generated, if I had to guess.
is it 131ft long? 🤔
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 can’t be arsed to dig up the equation, but it may mean that the wind has 200 times more usable energy, which I think is a cube function of its speed. Wouldn’t be 2000 knots in that case
they gonna use magsafe connectors for wireless transmission, duh.
You’re starting to sound like a chatbot now, MagSafe connectors aren’t wireless. That’s the point!
(I know you’re probably not a chatbot)
Maybe it means the kinetic energy of the wind, which I believe scales against its velocity-squared?
I’m thinking it’s about consistency. 10kts 10% of the time vs average 150kts 100% of the time (the math is a little off but we’re in hypothetical estimates already)
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.
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.
Still better than coal
Lot’s of birds will be shredded
Have data to prove that? Because existing wind turbines hardly kill any birds. That’s oil lobby shit leaking through.
You know, I was skeptical that birds even got up that high.
Turns out this thing is actually far too low.
Incidentally, also why the other wind turbine bird death stories are largely horseshit.
Those studies gave a wide range for the number of birds that die in wind turbine collisions each year: from 140,000 up to 679,000. The numbers are likely to be higher today, because many more wind farms have been built in the past decade.
Those numbers are not insignificant, but they represent a tiny fraction of the birds killed annually in other ways, like flying into buildings or caught by prowling house cats, which past studies have estimated kill up to 988 million and 4 billion birds each year, respectively. Other studies have shown that many more birds—between 12 and 64 million each year—are killed in the U.S. by power lines, which connect wind and other types of energy facilities to people who use the electricity.
I wonder if the way they tested it to get those higher numbers was something like finding a field where birds were roosting with windmills present, then fire off some massive fireworks at night and assume any bird that died did so because of the windmills.
Assuming they didn’t just pull the numbers out of their ass and actually designed a bad faith experiment that could inflate bird deaths.
Does it have batteries on board? How does it connect the power to the grid? O_o
If only there was a giant cable it was tethered to that could also carry electricity.
It’s obviously attached with wires. It can’t just float around and generate energy.
You say obviously but I don’t see how tethering a loose object with 5000ft of live wire is “obviously” safe
Our houses has loads of live wires, we know how to do it safely nowadays.
Your home also has Walls surrounding the wires.
We’re surrounded by live wire all the time. They’re insulated, it’s fine.
Oh. That makes it better.
Through a HV cable run to the ground, along with the cable to anchor it.
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