China loves to play with balloons. This one makes electricity.

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Imagine hundreds of these floating above your city.

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...and the shade they would provide would reduce electrical demand. Win/win for enviro geeks

/s

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We are finally learning how to farm the sky for energy. All this time, the fastest, most consistent winds on Earth have stayed just out of reach. They swirled thousands of feet above our heads while we struggled to build taller and heavier steel towers on the ground. But in a quiet corner of Sichuan Province, a 197-foot silver giant just proved that we don’t need to build towers as tall as skyscrapers for turbines — we just need a very long leash. The S2000, a massive airborne wind energy system (AWES), recently completed a landmark test flight. Developed by Beijing Linyi Yunchuan Energy Technology, this helium-filled “airborne power station” hovered at 6,560 feet (2,000 meters), funneling 385 kilowatt-hours of electricity directly into the local grid. In just 30 minutes, this single floating unit generated enough juice to power an average American home for nearly two weeks.

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Fascinating. Seems like progress over windmills


Edit: Looking at images and videos....ugly AF I'd go full NIMBY on one of these above my house

Try that in southern US when a Cat 5 hits. shite would be in Kentucky on somebody’s barn

Wi Too Lo

Elon can get us more helium

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Isn't the planet running out of helium? Pretty sure I remember hearing about that. Seems like implementing this idea on a grand scale would put a pretty big dent on dwindling helium reserves.

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I hadn’t heard of this but did some research and was surprised by it. Helium actually leaks out of our atmosphere over time into space, but the rate is relatively small and balanced by new helium being released from uranium decomposing in Earth’s crust.

The actual helium supply concern is the easily available helium is running out. We had one US national cavern that has run out in the past year or so. Now our supply comes from separating helium from natural gas pipelines, but the known concentrations of natural gas with helium are depleting. 100-200 yrs remaining like this unless new reserves are found. But we do continue to find new reserves. At some point we could run out of reserves though and need to do “air helium capture” similar to direct air carbon capture, sucking in air and separating the tiny amount of helium then tucking it away in caverns for storage and use

TLDR; we aren’t going to run out of helium, but it could become incredibly expensive in 100 years or so

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ll, there's always hydrogen.

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oh, the huge manatee!

Hello target practice!