Who can forget the grand finale of Disney’s Mary Poppins, “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” Certainly not the people at Santa Cruz’s Joby Energy. They’re flying their kites to the highest height, up through the atmosphere, up where the air is clear … and the wind blows. Unlike the All-American Rejects, they won’t leave “When the Wind Blows.” They’ll be sending their wind turbines way up, 2,000 feet in fact, in order to generate electricity.
Wind power is a dream of people advocating clean energy. But there is a big difference between the winds down below and the winds up above. “Those winds high in the atmosphere are stronger and they’re more consistent. So what that means is we generate more power more of the time using a machine that costs less money,” says JoeBen Bevirt, who founded the Santa Cruz-based company.
But it’s far more sophisticated than that. Unlike most wind installations (and Cat Stevens), they don’t have to “Listen to the Wind” of their soul. Joby’s wind turbines will be computer controlled to find maximum winds way up in the atmosphere, and computers tend to be more accurate than souls, at least when it comes to meteorology.
Joby is already testing a prototype over the Santa Cruz Mountains. It’s next model will be 20 times larger and capable of generating enough electricity to power 3,000 homes. As Bob Dylan suggested, the answer to the impending energy crisis may indeed be “Blowin’ in The Wind.” Read more at ABC 7.
