iMedia: Harnessing urban windpower

« Innovation "scarce"? | Main | Businesses could learn a lot from a seat at the Poker table »

June 22, 2009

Harnessing urban windpower

Is urban wind power just a nice idea? Hardly, Wired reports:

The first rigorous, worldwide study of high-altitude wind power estimates that there is enough wind energy at altitudes of about 1,600 to 40,000 feet to meet global electricity demand a hundred times over....

Even better, the best high-altitude wind-power resources match up with highly populated areas including North America’s Eastern Seaboard and China’s coastline.

Estimates from the cited study put the "wind power density" at 16 kilowatts per square meter.

Posted on June 22, 2009 at 08:12 AM | Permalink

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

Posted by: |

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Your comment could not be posted. Error type:

Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Leading Ideas

Aerospace engineering graduate students at the University of Maryland's Clark School of Engineering have learned how to apply the maple seed's unique design to devices that can hover in emergency situations. Image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnekaminski/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The study study of ants has led to new models of distributed intelligence for use in computer and network defense.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilspicys/ / CC BY 2.0
The IdeaFestival is happening Sept. 23 - 26 in Louisville. If innovation is important to you, there is no better place to encounter that breakthrough idea.
Fail fast; fail well. In business, as in life, failure can be used for good. Image credit: Behrooz Nobakht
Could lightening help create artificial vasculature? Image credit: WindRanch