And if the wind dies down they all crash to Earth and kill unsuspecting humans, animals, property, etc. Idiocy because the wind does stall out quite frequently.

Seems like more clutter in the sky. The inefficiency of the system seems to demand too high of a maintenance/operating crew. Wind turbines seem like a more efficient system of harvesting energy.

Just to have an idea as to what these guys are up against, check out this web archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20141027012726/http://barnardonwind.com/2013/10/30/googles-makani-airborne-wind-generator-flies-a-bit-lower-when-you-look-at-it-closely/

What an absolutely horrible idea. This is an accident waiting to happen. Can you imagine what this will do to civil and commercial aviation. We are finding out day after day how unstable and unprofitable wind energy is, now we want to add this to the mix? Come on!

Rube Goldberg would be proud.

Unfortunately, Makani (https://makanipower.com/), even with Google's support, seems to have paid proof that this concept doesn't work. And in the meantime, turbine generation has grown cheaper and cheaper. Until someone can figure out how to use the remarkable but variably-located power of jetstreams, these sorts of concepts are unlikely to be economical.

Once some experience is gained with these they could move up into the jet stream, where a lot more power is available. They need designated areas to avoid air traffic.

@vince: they can land, glide, have motors/props and will not be used in dense areas. I can not imagine the engineers designed them to crash after a few hours. But they might not be wind-experts as you.

@peter: if they take 1/10th of the material, they may be down to 1/10th efficency.

... omg ...

3:22 minutes of absolutely no information on how the system actually works.

Since when is 200 meters considered "high altitude"?