High-Altitude Wind Power

[KrazyHorse]

Rate of change of power? I can see using that to describe elasticity of a generation supply...

[dannubis]

You are of course correct, but I have never seen it in use. Normally to describve the ramping up of electricity generation, utilisation rate changes are used.

[KrazyHorse]

I agree with you that it's a weird unit. Just trying to be contrary...

[dannubis]

I did not expect anything else from a physics phd kind of person...

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I've been messing with Doddler because it's fun, but here it is straight out:

kW is a measure of power

kWh is a measure of energy

kW per hour is nothing (at least, it's nothing germane to this discussion)

An electrical generation plant is rated in units of power (either peak or average). A 200 kW average plant will generate 200kWh of energy in an hour, or 4800 kWh = 4.8 MWh of energy in a day (again, on average)

Technically, energy is the integral of power over time (or, equivalently, power is the derivative of energy with respect to time)

Thanks for the explanation

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Rate of change of power? I can see using that to describe elasticity of a generation supply...

I've never seen it used either but I guess something like the increase of Power demand in a country over time makes a lot of sense.
Units wouldn't be seconds in most contexts but you would still get Power/time.

[Fake Boris]

OK, so let's resume the situation: Doddler failed to answer an 8th grade physics question, and we should believe his critique of climate science.

[Spiffor]

I must admit, having read the figures, that I'm fairly unedrwhelmed by the invention. It sounds really cool, but if one plant was to produce only 200 kW, we'd need 45,000 such plants only to provide 1/6th of France's average consumption (54,000 MW is the full average consumption).

At the economic and environmental cost of those things (plus the maintenance, and the location which will have to be specific as not to harm air traffic), I don't think it's a really good idea, unless there are better production techniques to make those plants cheaper in terms of money and materials.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I must admit, having read the figures, that I'm fairly unedrwhelmed by the invention. It sounds really cool, but if one plant was to produce only 200 kW, we'd need 45,000 such plants only to provide 1/6th of France's average consumption (54,000 MW is the full average consumption).

At the economic and environmental cost of those things (plus the maintenance, and the location which will have to be specific as not to harm air traffic), I don't think it's a really good idea, unless there are better production techniques to make those plants cheaper in terms of money and materials.

It doesn't seem that bad; your (reasonable) hypothesis means that you can expect to increase power production by 15% without digging up a single unit of fossil fuel. Combine this with energy saving legislation on electric appliances, and you're on the right track to reducing emissions by a significant amount.

[Krill]

I wonder if this theory could be adapted to provide power from the atmosphere of Jupiter or staurn (yeah, that's looking a few hundred years down the line, but what the hell.)

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Krill
I wonder if this theory could be adapted to provide power from the atmosphere of Jupiter or staurn (yeah, that's looking a few hundred years down the line, but what the hell.)

The answer is no. Key to this concept is the ability to anchor the generators, and on the gas giants there's nothing to anchor them to. They'd be swept away like a cork in a cascade.

[Krill]

I take it you can't anchor them to something in orbit?

Ah no. The force exerted on the generator in the atmosphere would move the satellite in orbit...bugger. Oh well. There's always fusion to aspire for...

[Colonâ„¢]

Don't Jupiter and Saturn have solid cores?

[Zkribbler]

The company has Federal Aviation Administration approval to conduct tests of the technology in the California desert, but needs $3 million to build full-size flying generators. The company is having trouble raising the cash because there isn't likely to be an immediate return on investors' money.

$3 million is peanuts for a start-up company like this. It shouldn't be hard to raise.
Edit: For example, the article contains a link to a similar artical on generating electricity from ocean waves. That article notes the British Government has said it would invest $85 million to develop wave technology.

And if the generators start producing power, why won't there be an immediate return on the investors' money?

[Krill]

Colon, IIRC they were postulated to be metallic hydrogen...we don't exactly have the technology to make anything to withstand that sort of pressure...