Comments on: Cool Earth Solar eyes rural power with balloons

The first test of its solar concentrator balloons is set to launch in the next two weeks with a 1.5-megawatt installation, and a utility is slated for the first half of 2009.

[cvye]

what happens when the wind kicks up?

[mlamonica]

The company says the balloons can withstand 125 mph winds.

[Manhattan2]

This company is on the right track. We have the optimal solution and it will be up to the next president and congress to make it happen at the scale that will be required to make a difference. Solar Transfer is the only solution that makes sense. Our researchers and engineers have that as our first requirement for any of our solutions. It has to make sense, be useful, and make a difference in some way. The answer is coming. George Bush didn't want to hear the solution, Hopefully our next president will be open to the power to reason. Cool Earth should contact the designers at Solar Transfer.

[Joe Real]

There is too much wasted space that sunlight is not captured from the total area occupied by the system. This is not a problem if the cost of land is very cheap, like in desert areas. In residential areas where land is at a premium, this is not a very efficient design to maximize power from a given area.

[Manhattan2]

Mr Real, at 10 percent efficiency with a 50% land mass saturation how many square miles do you need to power the US consumptions of energy electricity for manufacturing, transportation, food distribution. That's all energy. How much space? Solar Transfer is the solution. These guys are on to something. Something we have been talking about for a decade now at the Manhattan 2 Project. We have not released our Energy Manifesto yet. So the answers are still kept within the group. When the right people contact us at [e-mail] the system will be put in place.

[Joe Real]

Manhattan2, if you look at how they arranged the ballons, they are like wasting 75% space. If the individual ballons are 10% efficient, then their overall efficiency is just 2.5%.

The best terrestrial plants in the world are a lot better than that. In my previous stint as a researcher helping various scientists with crop simulation and modeling, some plants can be pushed to 5% overall efficiency if all biomass produced are accounted for.

This technology is not a wise use of prime land, and only the low grade lands are good enough for this, because it is the cost per watt that counts. Unfortunately those lands are far from urban centers where power is to be used, and so this would require tremendous infrastructure to obtain transfer and redistribute power from the waste lands unto the urban centers.