That 7% is probably wishful thinking, but if this guy in Wisconsin is halfway right, then there's certainly a future for this unusual technology originally designed to pull kiteboarders at high-speed across lakes and oceans. It's very simple - if you can engineer a kite to pull on a cord with some degree of consistency, then you can use that energy to pump irrigation water - a task that currently accounts for about 7% of worldwide energy use (according to the article).

The aim is to market low-cost kits that charitable foundations would provide to poor farmers in India, China or other developing nations. Those foundations already are spending millions on systems to help farmers...

Interestingly, this inventor didn't have "green" in mind when he originally started working on the project - he wanted to use it to pump oil. I wonder what sparked the change of thought.

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