This idea is to have a large number of power generating
atmospheric satellites, each of which is an untethered aerostat,
each one located just outside of any of Earth's jet streams.
Each aerostat generates it's power using a pair of counter-
rotating kite turbines, one kite turbine inside the
jet stream,
the other outside the jet stream.
The kite turbines would be similar to those designed by
"Windswept and Interesting Limited", except that both "lift
kites" would be of the steerable variety.
Most of the power produced by the turbines would be turned
into a beam of radio or microwave energy, which would be
transmitted to a terrestrial rectenna, to be turned into
electricity and added to the grid. The beam might need to be
bounced off of one or more relays, if the beam generating
aerostat is too far from the nearest rectenna.
Some of the power produced by the turbines would power a
heat pump, which would be used to heat the lifting gas. If the
lifting gas is hydrogen instead of hot air, there would be an
atmospheric water generator and electrolysis device to replace
however much hydrogen is lost to diffusion.
Each wireless energy relay would be kept aloft by it's own
aerostat, with power for station-keeping provided by a rectenna
which steals energy from the main beam.
The steerable "lift kites" supporting the two kite turbines would
be automatically aimed in opposite directions relative to the
aerostat, with the lift and drag balanced such that they won't
pull the aerostat completely into or completely out of the jet
stream.
It has been suggested that the earth's jet streams have 1.7
petawatts of harvestable power, and humanity needs slightly
more than one hundredth of that.
I'm not quite certain how much power any one of these devices
could produce, but the wind, at least, is sufficient for however
many of them we are willing to build.
Comments welcome. Criticism welcome. Flames will be used
to help heat the lift gas.