For some scientists, the answer to the world’s clean energy problem is blowing in the wind… like a kite. Ok, so it’s more complicated than that, but not much.

Researchers at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, Calif, believe they have found a way to satisfy all of the world’s energy needs 100 times over thanks to the constant and powerful winds located in the jet stream. Unfortunately, the jet stream is a mere 30,000 to 50,000 feet in the air.

Their answer to the height problem is simple. Fly a kite-like apparatus into the jet stream to harness the energy. The kites would be tethered to land via cables capable of transmitting the harvested power and feeding it into the power grid. Current designs are capable of generating 40 megawatts of power per kite, and generating capacity would probably increase as the technology matures.

Of course several problems exist, including what to do when the wind stops. Even winds in the jet stream do not blow all of the time. There is an estimated down time of 5%. So what happens to the kites during that 5% of the time? Do they crash to Earth (probably not)? More than likely they would have a mechanism that would start turning a propeller to keep them aloft when the wind is not blowing. 

And what about those transmitting cables? Even really thin, light weight wires start to weigh a whole lot when there is 6-10 miles worth of them, then what if a wire breaks, or what if a plane crashes into the wire, or what if messing with the jet stream causes the wind patterns to change and the whole world climate is thrown out of whack?!

If there’s one thing we’ve learned when it comes to innovation, it’s that you can't stop researching and developing an idea because of the “what ifs.” Solving clean energy problems will take a lot of “out-of-the-box” thinking, and this one seems to be flying high!

Click here for a more complete article on this subject.