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their acquisition[1] of Makani and their "airborne wind turbine" tech suddenly makes more sense to me. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/22/google-x-acquires-m
by mh- 13y ago
their acquisition[1] of Makani and their "airborne wind turbine" tech suddenly makes more sense to me.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/22/google-x-acquires-makani-power-and-its-airborne-wind-turbines/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/22/google-x-acquires-makani-po...
- mdturnerphys 13y agoI thought the same thing a few weeks ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5776908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5776908
- riffraff 13y agoI may be wrong, but I believe all the high-altitude-wind-energy thingies work by having the flying bit tethered to the ground, while this baloons seem to fly much higher, making the two seem incompatible to me.
- mh- 13y agoyou're not wrong- the airborne turbines are operable tethered to the ground. but, there previously wasn't much value to Makani in exploring untethered solutions; they needed transmission lines going back to the surface, anyway. I don't believe Google intends to use the two technologies together directly. there's just more synergy here than it may appear, on the surface.