Not to be a HN naysayer, but wasn't this tried already with Makani Power?[1] They even made a documentary about it[2]
Compared to traditional wind turbines, this solution trades an enormous amount of complexity, maintenance, etc for small reductions in material cost. We should be churning out traditional wind turbines for cheap instead.
This is a very different approach. The google approach is making an airplane fly in circles generating continuous power, this slowly lets a kite out then reels it in generating pulsed power that would need a battery to smooth out. This approach can use pretty standard kite technology which is far cheaper than airplane technology.
Use multiple kites in a staggered pattern so one of them is always generating near peak power. That complexity of course offsets all of the gains, but that's fine because it illustrates why this is an idea that just won't fly.
Batteries are fine, the majority of the time it'll be in the pull stage as once depowered (the power is taken out of the kite by releasing the brake lines) you can bring the kite back down pretty quickly. Having two with the cycles staggered would reduce this but you need batteries anyway because you can't rely on demand being flat.
The algorithms to control the kite are pretty straightforward, the complexity to self launch would be a bit tough but it's easy enough for a human to do so there is no need to include that complexity for the use cases this is targeting. This wouldn't be a set and forget solution, not yet.
The kites will wear out relatively quickly but they're cheap to replace.
I consider myself a pretty skeptical / practical Engineer and I don't see any show stoppers, I think it'll fit the niche they're targeting quite nicely.
From both a maintenance, operational cost and engineering complexity point of view I don't see this as viable, but I'm more than happy to be proven wrong by a party that brings it successfully to market. Meanwhile, any place where this kite system would work is one where a regular HAT would work as well and long term (25 year lifespan) total cost of ownership and $/KWh generated will be pretty easy to determine by deploying two systems side-by-side.
It'll make sense in some places where it's harder to build/deploy a 40kW traditional turbine. They're not easy to move and are relatively close to the ground so they are viable in fewer places than kite systems because winds aloft are much higher than those near the ground. You can also use this temporarily in areas where you have periodic power requirements and poor access to the wider electric grid. Think about deploying a lot of these in areas right after hurricanes or other disasters.
> Not to be a HN naysayer, but wasn't this tried already with Makani Power?[1] They even made a documentary about it[2]
So? These (kitepower and skysails, but there are more) are long standing 'competitors' of Makani, all existing for far longer than 2020 when Makani went down. Just because Google gave up, not everyone else also gave up. I mean, Google also stopped Google code, groups and google+, yet similar products are still triving.
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It’s if Superhuman made a calendar app to go along with email. It’s super fast and has good keyboard shortcuts, and implements advanced features like sharing availability Calendly-style.
I have to ask because people here keep talking about cron’s speed:
What functionality of a calendar is speed dependent? Genuine ask and not trying to be snarky, speed just hasn’t ever been something I’ve ever had to worry about with a calendar tool so the notion (pun not intended) is merely a foreign to me personally.
Is it opening events? Creating a new calendar item? Syncing, or something else?
Where is the speed gained in from compared to Calendar.app?
If it's anywhere close to the speed of Calendar.app it's super fast compared to Google calendar, maybe that's what people are comparing it with. Remember that the Windows software ecosystem for basic tools is terrible, so maybe its users are the most excited.
First Resonance was founded by engineers who worked at companies like SpaceX, NASA, Zoox, Toyota, and more. We saw a shift to a faster, more dynamic world and found existing manufacturing systems insufficient in handling the rate of innovation needed to deliver world-changing products.
Our team creates and operates the software that advances factory operations of companies building electric airplanes, 3D-printed rockets, autonomous vehicles, and more. Today, our customers benefit from a far better UX from engineering to the factory floor, fast and democratic access to data and powerful APIs to automate hardware processes.
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First Resonance was founded by engineers who worked at companies like SpaceX, NASA, Zoox, Toyota, and more. We saw a shift to a faster, more dynamic world and found existing manufacturing systems insufficient in handling the rate of innovation needed to deliver world-changing products.
Our team creates and operates the software that advances factory operations of companies building electric airplanes, 3D-printed rockets, autonomous vehicles, and more. Today, our customers benefit from a far better UX from engineering to the factory floor, fast and democratic access to data and powerful APIs to automate hardware processes.
Our tech stack includes Python, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, GraphQL, Typescript and Apollo
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First Resonance was founded by engineers who worked at companies like SpaceX, NASA, Zoox, Toyota, and more. We saw a shift to a faster, more dynamic world and found existing manufacturing systems insufficient in handling the rate of innovation needed to deliver world-changing products.
Our team creates and operates the software that advances factory operations of companies building electric airplanes, 3D-printed rockets, autonomous vehicles, and more. Today, our customers benefit from a far better UX from engineering to the factory floor, fast and democratic access to data and powerful APIs to automate hardware processes.
Our tech stack includes Python, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, GraphQL, Typescript and React
First Resonance was founded by engineers who worked at companies like SpaceX, NASA, Zoox, Toyota, and more. We saw a shift to a faster, more dynamic world and found existing manufacturing systems insufficient in handling the rate of innovation needed to deliver world-changing products.
Our team creates and operates the software that advances factory operations of companies building electric airplanes, 3D-printed rockets, autonomous vehicles, and more. Today, our customers benefit from a far better UX from engineering to the factory floor, fast and democratic access to data and powerful APIs to automate hardware processes.
Our tech stack includes Python, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, GraphQL, Typescript and Apollo
Compared to traditional wind turbines, this solution trades an enormous amount of complexity, maintenance, etc for small reductions in material cost. We should be churning out traditional wind turbines for cheap instead.
[1]https://x.company/projects/makani/
[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE