Ken Caldeira

I have spoken with several people in several companies and they all seem to think different things are the main impediment.

My understanding is that one of the big impediments is tether mass, and there are big tradeoffs with mass of the conductor and insulation versus how high up you can go. It might be that we would require something nearly magical to make such systems really work economically.

(Everything else you mention is also a concern.)

I would say that this is one area in which the size of the investment compared to the size of potential return is tiny, especially when compared with investments such as fusion power.

We recently did a study on steadiness and availability of high altitude winds. The conclusion is that there is a huge amount of power available but that it still is too unsteady to provide base load power without continental (or global?) scale distribution systems, back-up power, or unbelievable amounts of storage.

The other thing we should recall is that if we were to meet future power demand by this source exclusively, we must intercept more than 1% of natural flows. I think when we get above a 1% change in a natural system, we need to be concerned about large scale unintended consequences. Remember, global warming is basically a 1% problem – 1% warming of our 288 K planetary temperature. (That is one reason why solar is so attractive – with solar we are talking about capturing 0.01 % of the energy that hits the ground.)