One of the most popular solarpunk images is taking off in reality. The first recorded mention of solarpunk was in this 2008 blog. The author was inspired by the conceptual image of a cargo ship being pulled by a huge modern kite.
Following on from that the Jessica Woulfe’s artwork depicting blimp turbines (pictured above) won the Atomhawk solarpunk art competition in 2019. Since then Airborne Wind Energy Systems or AWES (love this acronym!) have become some of the most popular solarpunk imagery.
Many have thought this was just a protopian dream but as Matt Ferell explored in this recent video, AWES are getting much closer to reality. As Matt explains, a flying turbine has been successfully deployed by the company Kitepower in Ireland, poweringing the local town of Bangor.
4 Comments
u235@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 190d
This is awesome. I love that they use wind power and are also white like clouds.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 8 pts · 190d
I've never seen this iconic image before
whelk@retrolemmy.com · 6 pts · 189d
Congrats on your first
ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 189d
I first read about these as being under development in a kids’ science magazine in like 2008. I’ve been waiting to see this for a while now, amazing stuff.