A small but passionate Italian company is developing a concept that would see "carousels" hoisting arrays of kites thousands of metres into the sky, where they would catch the wind and generate formidable amounts of power.
Let's not beat about the bush here: unless we do something pretty damn dramatic to slow the pollution of our atmosphere, the world as we know it is going to change - and not for the better.
In fact, some scientists believe it's already too late to halt the progress of global warming, citing the relentless consumption of fossil fuels, the melting of the ice caps and many other portents of disaster (for the sake of brevity and everyone's mental equilibrium, we won't go into the cavalier dismissal of the Kyoto Accord and other initiatives aimed at curbing the dreaded greenhouse effect).
Against that, we should be encouraged by the fact that scientists, engineers and assorted futurists are trying to avert the looming crisis with a host of strategies, including the development of safer and more affordable nuclear power and proposals for the safe storage of nuclear waste - if there is such a thing.
Some of their ideas are workable only on the basis of hugely optimistic assumptions - for example, a sizeable proportion of the world's motorists deciding to swop their muscular gas-guzzlers for wimpy fuel cell-powered vehicles costing three times as much - while others are characterised more by gee-whiz ingenuity than practicality. Some of the more provocative ideas exist only in the form of outrageous concept drawings and small prototypes with cute names.
We've heard about wave power (actually, this is one of the few concepts with serious potential), geothermal power (again, quite effective, but not suitable for rolling out on a large scale), wind power (experimental wind-powered turbines are already doing their bit in South Africa), and many other strategies - including (as we recall from our recent Great South African Inventors Competition) at least three utterly foolproof designs for "free energy".
Now meet a concept that must rank among the most original yet - kite power. Before you dismiss the idea outright, says Sequoia Automation, the small Italian company behind the project, you need to know a few things about the energy produced by the movement of air.
Research and development director Massimo Ippolito, a keen kite surfer and hang glider, spells it out: "Two ribbons of wind completely encircle the Earth; the one in the southern hemisphere is at the latitude of Tierra del Fuego, and the other passes through Europe and the Northern United States.
"The altitude of this ribbon goes from 500m to 10 000m, and its breadth from 4 000km to 5 000km. The power of this wind averages 2kW per square metre, from which you can deduce that the wind passing over Europe has the force of 100 000 nuclear plants. This enormous renewable energy source prompted us to consider how a series of kites could entrap and exploit it."
Enter the Kite Wind Generator (KiteGen) - likened by Wired writer Nicole Martinelli to a "backyard drying rack on steroids". Sequoia prefer to compare their concept to a giant carousel. Anchored solidly to the ground, it's activated by the wind itself, which drags the light and ultra-tough kites out of funnels within the arms and propels them 1 000m or more into the sky. The rotating central structure contains automatic winches that release pairs of cables to guide the kites.
As they circle in the air, the vertical rotating axis of the structure activates very large alternators that are geared down to handle the extraordinary force exerted on them. Sequoia estimate that their Kite Wind Generator, working night and day, could produce up to 1 gigawatt of power at a cost of just €1,5 per megawatt hour, or just a fraction of the cost of conventional power in Europe. But it doesn't stop there. A scaled-up version of the KiteGen design, spanning all of 2 000m, could theoretically generate 5 gigawatts of energy.
A sophisticated control system would adjust the kites' flight pattern to optimise its wind-catching efficiency, and radar would be used to detect incoming objects - stray aircraft and flocks of birds come readily to mind - and quickly redirect the carousel. Naturally, this also raises the question of aircraft flight paths. However, Sequoia insist this is hardly a deal-breaker, pointing out that their arrays would be hoisted only after negotiation with civil aviation authorities over the use of airspace.
Ippolito expects a fully functional carousel to be ready within two years. To achieve that goal, he's assembled a team of 20 experts in various fields who appear to be as passionate as he is about the project. They genuinely believe that KiteGen will help reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuels and - together with solar and other sustainable power resources - make a significant contribution to clean energy initiatives.
Okay, so what are their chances? On the face of it, not bad. A few months ago, the company built and launched a small-scale prototype from the back of a truck. The single kite generated a small amount of energy, but it was enough to get the team very excited. Earlier this year, Sequoia won a 2006 World Renewable Energy Award for its KiteGen project.
There's even some start-up money: the Turin utility company, AEM, signed on as a technical partner and agreed to cover 40 per cent of the development expenses. Ippolito estimates that a 1 gigawatt version of their unique energy plant can be built for as little as €360 000 (about R3,4-million).
While conceding that the KiteGen concept will attract its fair share of sceptics, Ippolito believes the rest of the world badly underestimates the potential of wind energy, citing the proven efficacy of windmills and the experience of many generations of sailors.
"We hope... that a project with such high potential will not be considered 'too good to be true' to receive the attention and financing that it deserves."
This article first appeared in Popular Mechanics.