Summary: Show Notes: Startup's new stunning kite can pull energy from the sky | Interesting Engineering (01:07) Several kite power companies are attempting to pull energy out of the sky, and they are succeeding. Kitekraft, a Munich-based company developing a kite power system is one of those companies working on this technology Their co-CEO and chief technology officer, Florian Bauer, commented on the tech: “It’s cheaper to manufacture, cheaper to transport, and also has higher efficiency … If you have all those advantages, why would anyone build a conventional wind turbine?” How does the technology called airborne wind actually work? Three-step approach: Rigid enough to withstand high winds Has the form of a sailplane, and 4 propellers are only needed for taking off and landing. Designed to move quickly and effortlessly Connects the kite to the ground Transforms the pull force from the kite to the ground-station generator. A kite flies across the wind it pulls against the tether and unwinds the winch, driving a generator that produces electricity. Durable and can be exposed to varying environmental conditions such as moisture and UV light. Converts the tractive force from the tether to electricity. A control system is found in the ground station and makes sure all flights are conducted safely and efficiently. 1. The kite is a specially designed aircraft composed of composite materials. 2. The Tether 3. The ground station So far, Kitemill, another kite power company, claims that their system can produce an average power of >1 hour of operation with continuous cycles at 5.5 kW. The airborne wind is currently in its infancy. The industry will have to overcome many hurdles, such as proving that it is safe and reliable and does not cause any noise pollution. Right now, none of the kite companies have produced energy in the megawatt scales required to compete with other renewable energy sources. How balloons could one day detect quakes on Venus | Science News (07:32) Back on December 14, 2021, a tiny device dangling beneath the large, transparent balloon recorded sudden, jerky fluctuations in air pressure: echoes of an earthquake more than 2,800 kilometers away. Became the first network of devices to monitor an earthquake from the air. The finding could help scientists track earthquakes in remote areas on Earth. Opens the door to one day sending specially equipped balloons to study the geology of other worlds, including our closest planetary neighbor, Venus. When the ground shakes, it releases low-frequency sound waves that can travel long distances in the atmosphere. The military, who first tried this back in the 1940s, planned on using the microphones to pick up on the sound of the ground shaking from a nuclear explosion. Project was eventually deemed too expensive and dropped Now back to Venus, the reason the idea of balloons to take measurements on the planet is due to the extreme heat and pressure on the surface. The dense atmosphere means that the planet’s surface has about the same pressure as Earth’s deep ocean. No current lander/rover could withstand For the project to even go forward, scientists have to show that they could design devices small enough to be carried by balloons but sensitive enough to pick up earthquakes far below. In 2021, that is what they did They attached micro-barometers to 16 balloons launched from the Seychelles Islands, off the coast of East Africa The researchers were able to use the changes in air pressure to pinpoint the epicenter of the earthquake and calculate its 7.3 magnitude. Although the surface of Venus is an extremely hostile environment, at about 50 kilometers above the surface the atmosphere of Venus is the most earth-like environment (other than Earth itself) in the solar system. Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis believes, even if they can’t detect Venus quakes, t
