Tilting at Windmills

People do amazing things. They come up with incredible technology that one day may or may not be useful. The Makani project is an excellent example. Makani meaning "wind" in Hawaian, its goal was to harvest energy from wind by flying kites instead of grounded windmills because they are less efficient.

Modern Day Don Quixote?

The Makani project started out as a kite built on a shoestring in a shed in California and ended eleven years later as a multimillion dollar flying wing that crashed in the sea somewhere off the shore of Norway. In between a fabulous journey of discovery, learning and perfecting airborne wind turbines.

This is the fascinating story of an amazing technology built from the ground up straight into obsolescence.