Novel Wind Turbine Architecture

[iancampbell]

Regarding buoyancy gas, one possible solution to the helium-shortage problem would be to use another less efficient but much more abundant gas; preferably, one easier to extract from air. Admittedly, almost any other buoyancy gas would be less efficient. A good candidate might be neon, with buoyancy approximately a third that of helium.

Alternatively, really big solar-heated aerostats might be used; these would have enough thermal inertia to stay up at night, at least at low latitudes.