More than 200 years ago, Benjamin Franklin advanced the research
of electricity by flying a kite. Now, a German company is taking
a slightly different tack on that old idea by using kites to
generate energy. Nature Technology Systems (NTS) GbH has
designed a principle based on the same elements of energy
output, speed, and consistency used in wind turbines, according
to the company. The result is a method that uses clusters of
kites to form an aerial power station 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet
in the air that produces energy on the ground. The system, which
NTS is testing in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute
for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart,
works like this: The kites fly at high altitudes, where there
are strong winds, on a tether of cables about 2,000 feet in
length that's connected to vehicles on the ground, said Joachim
Montnacher, an engineer at the IPA, in a press release. Those
vehicles are pulled around a circuit on rails, producing kinetic
energy that is then turned