Airborne Wind Turbine
From Open Source Ecology
Basics
- A Category of Wind Turbine that has its components either not connected to the ground, or only tethered
- Thus it is lower cost due to no need for a large Mast , and can reach (much) higher altitudes and thus stronger more stable wind
- Also they can be "pulled down" via the tether and thus are highly mobile and can be made very safe in storms
Categories
Heavier than Air
- These are the most common, typically a Ram Air Wing, Semi-Rigid Kite, or a Tethered Glider
- They typically use a tether and the basestation does the power generation
Lighter than Air
- These aren't common and seem to be less viable of a design, but use a Lighter than Air Aircraft to carry a more conventional wind turbine design
- Some use the lifting device as a turbine (essentially a blimp spinnin on an axis), which adds some benefits
- Unless Hydrogen or Hot Air or some alternate Lifting Gas is used, you are going to need Helium which is a non-renewable resource almost in a more extreme sense than Fossil Fuels so is the exact opposite of an Appropriate Material
- Thus these are not really relevant in an OSE context at least
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