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Tech

The Energy of Tomorrow Looks Like a Kite

Before co-founding Makani Power, Corwin Hardham was a kite boarder using wind to ride waves, but as an engineer, he’s using...

Before co-founding Makani Power, Corwin Hardham was a kite boarder using wind to ride waves, but as an engineer, he's using wind to harness kilowatts. At 130 pounds with a 28-foot wingspan, Makani Power's Wing 7 flying energy turbine gracefully glides across currents of air, not unlike a kite.

Wing 7 relies on the simple fact that earth’s strongest and most reliable wind resources are currently untapped since they are either found off-shore or above an altitude of 1,000 feet (a height current turbines are unable to reach). The prototype looks equal parts plane, helicopter, and robot, rising vertically on a tether, until it begins to make circular swooping patterns as it picks up the wind’s current. Wing mounted turbines then transmit 20-kilowatts of electricity to ground through its tether. It also uses 90% less material than a traditional land-bound wind turbine making Wing 7 more sustainable and less expensive cheaper to produce.

Makani Power may be a small start-up but Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have already donated over $15 million to the company; as has the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency. And although current models only produce around 20-600 kW per hour, Makani hopes that with current funds, a prototype that is able to produce one megawatt will exist by 2013.

It’s an exciting concept, and the wing’s portability and lack of materials is certainly intriguing. I just hope that, as Makani Power gains more fame for its design, it can avoid too many headlines proclaiming it to be on “a wing and a prayer.”