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> In a 2020 sale for what Silicon Valley Disposition called a “Major Bay Area Wind Energy Kite Company,” the auction site listed a 2016 Magni crane.

I assume this must have been Makani: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makani_(company)

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There's a beautiful feature film about the story of Makani. It's a great watch with plenty of technical details that follows the story from beginning to end.

Available for free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE

As "cool" as the project seems, I completely agree with some of the comments in the video expressing disbelief that they were able to get funding for the project for more than a decade. It seems immediately obvious at the outset that there's no commercial application for the technology, as cool as it is. Way too many moving parts, way too complicated, for something that likely will only ever provide much less energy than a traditional wind turbine.

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