Another wind turbine approach

[Pio1980]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/12/te...html?hpt=hp_c3

[Wasillaguy]

The problem with any type of wind turbine in Alaska is that moisture freezes on the blades, unbalancing the prop, resulting in extreme wear and often complete destruction.
I would think you'd also need to reel down inside a hangar with retracting roof to keep snow from accumulating on the craft and killing bouyancy. Even the retracting roof would need to be specially designed to operate with a snow load.

[Pio1980]

Definitely not an "anywhere anytime" approach, but interesting.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[donquixote99]

The variant that occurs to me is flying 'solar power' collectors, either on 'albatross' wings or buoyant. Fly them high, above the weather. Beam the power down with lasers or microwaves. A plus is some ability to get power through cloud cover. A more expensive vehicle, but more reliable in challenging environments.

[piece-itpete]

dq, from space! I heard the Japs are working on it, as they are understandably wishing to shut down their nuke power.

Pete

[Wasillaguy]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

The variant that occurs to me is flying 'solar power' collectors, either on 'albatross' wings or buoyant. Fly them high, above the weather. Beam the power down with lasers or microwaves. A plus is some ability to get power through cloud cover. A more expensive vehicle, but more reliable in challenging environments.

If they figure out how to deliver power via microwave, they could distribute from conventional power sources via horizontal shots, similar to a microwave data network. One of the big issues would be focusing the beam enough to minimize loss. Data microwaves deliver only a small fraction of the transmitted signal to the receiver.
Lasers have their own problems with dispersion and attenuation through clouds, rain, etc

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

dq, from space! I heard the Japanese are working on it, as they are understandably wishing to shut down their nuke power.

Pete

Fixed that for you. Regards, the PC Police.

[piece-itpete]

It's short for that, yes. I've been called a Yank enough, with no bundling of the britches.

Pete

[Wasillaguy]

Another big hurdle with microwave power transmission is VSWR, aka return loss. Transmission lines and antenna elements must be tuned to the proper frequency. Any physical change, (say the waveguide gets dented from hail or the antenna element gets tweaked by wind or moisture gets in the system) and the VSWR becomes degraded. This means some of the transmitted energy is reflected back at the transmitter, creating a standing wave of power which quickly gets transferred to heat.
With a power delivery microwave, energy levels would be such that things would quickly melt. There's no such thing as perfect VSWR (yet), and degradation of VSWR is a common fail mode of conventional systems.

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

It's short for that, yes. I've been called a Yank enough, with no bundling of the britches.

Pete

It's an derogatory term for a whole race of people and comparing it to getting called a Yank is a bundle of false equivalence. Ask any Japanese or Japanese American and they'll square you away on that notion.