#5 Google to put wind turbines in the sky

Last February, Astro Teller, the director of Google’s secretive research lab, Google X, sought approval from Chief Executive Officer Larry Page for an unlikely acquisition- Makani Power, a startup that develops wind turbines mounted on unmanned, fixed-wing aircraft tethered to the ground like a kite.

Google has acquired a energy startup called as Makani Power, which is into developing airborne wind turbines. The U.S. Department of Energy office of ARPA-E is also extended its support for the project. According to some experts in the field, Makani is currently the world leader in the development of airborne wind power extraction systems.

Makani Power’s newest airborne turbine prototype, called Wing 7, is a 26-foot-long carbon-fiber contraption with four electricity-generating propellers that flies in circles at altitudes of 800 to 2,000 feet, sending power down a lightweight tether to a base station. “If we’re successful, we can get rid of a huge part of the fossil fuels we use,” says Damon Vander Lind, the startup’s chief engineer.

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