In the mid -twentieth century, the United States made a decision that later a high position of the Navy described as “the most stupid thing that this country has ever made.” Qian Xuesenan indisputable genius of aeronautical engineering, co -founder of the prestigious JPL laboratory of NASA, and a key figure in the development of American coheteria, was deported to China in 1955 accused of communist sympathies in full witch hunt.
Qian, welcomed as a hero in his homeland, became the father of the space program and the development of Balistic missiles in China. Decades later, a new generation of Chinese engineers, heirs of the scientific ecosystem that helped build, has broken a world record with a technology that pursues an old ambition of Qian Xesen: wind turbines that fly like zepelins to harvest the energy of great altitude winds.
A Zepelin anchored to ground to generate electricity
On October 10, in the heavens of Jingmen, province of Hubei, a 23 -meter long aerostate with a leadable appearance rose to 500 meters high. It was not a transport or surveillance vehicle, but the S500, a floating wind energy system that, at that altitude, began to generate more than 50 kilowatts of power.
With this flight, China not only launched an innovative project, but sprayed two world records that until now had an American MIT research team: the one with the highest flight altitude for such a turbine (the previous one was 297 meters) and the one with the highest power generated (compared to the previous 30 kW).
The concept, developed by the Sawes company in collaboration with the University of Tsinghua and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is as elegant as complex. The system uses A member of helium filling to raise a wind turbine to altitudes where the wind is much stronger and more constant than on the surface. The electricity that generates is transmitted to a station on land through the same high strength cable that anchors the structure.
The advantage of this design is clear: the energy that can be extracted from the wind is proportional to the cube of its speed; Already hundreds of meters high, the winds are not only faster, but also more stable, significantly reducing the intermittency that it lies to the terrestrial wind farms. According to developer calculations, wind resources in the stratosphere on a region like Hami, in Xinjiang, are 40 times higher than those of the surface.
Of emergency situations to the generation at network scale
The S500 and its successor, the S1000 of 100 KW proven for the first time in January, were developed for emergency rescues, urban security and places of difficult topography. In case of earthquake or flood, the system can be deployed rapidly to provide energy and communications in the disaster area.
But Sawes’s ambitions go much further. The company has just assembled the following model on its road map: the S1500, designed to operate to 1,500 meters of altituderepresents a jumping of the capacity in capacity, with a power of generation of 1 megavatio. It is proof that technology not only looks for niches such as emergency response, but aspires to become a renewable energy source at an electricity scale.
To achieve this power, the S1500 integrates a complex system of 12 generators that operate simultaneously inside its central duct. The key for such a powerful system to fly is material engineering: generators are manufactured in carbon fiber To minimize the weight, maintaining the complete structure below a ton.
Like his little brother, energy becomes electricity in the airship itself and low to land through an anchor -integrated cable. With this design, Sawes has attracted the support of important investment funds and contracts that already exceed 500 million yuan (about 64 million euros). The company has opened an assembly plant in Yueyang.
The story of Qian Xesen is one of the greatest anecdotes about the unforeseen consequences of fear policy. As Los Angeles Times recounts, the man who interrogated Wernher Von Braun and laid the basis of the JPL was separated and returned to a country that, at that time, had a much lower scientific development. He took care of changing that, and now his heirs are materializing some of his ideas in his native country.
Images | Sawes
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