Airborne Wind Turbine Video from Altaeros Energies — Seeing Is Believing

We’re almost out of helium. Thats a shame, but maybe other creative solutions could be figured out. I wonder if it would be possible to use some of the electricity to heat the air in the donuts like a hot air balloon without loosing the gain in efficiency from the altitude. Hydrogen could work but there’s a stigma against it, what with the explosiveness of it and all. Hmm, it’s hard to imagine that we’re really running out of helium. That really puts the concept of finite resources into perspective. Hydrocarbons are finite but can be synthesized even though they ought not to be. Running out of oil is one thing, but helium is an element, super abundant in the universe, the second cycle in a stars fusion engine, but once we release what has been trapped beneath the surface of the earth and it floats to the top of our atmosphere, that’s really it for the history of helium on earth. There’s only one way to make helium and that’s fusion. I’m sure one day we’ll get the hang of it, but we might have to make due without helium for a bit and learn to humble ourselves at the parameters under which the universe operates. One day humanity will have the power of the gods but we’re just coming out of adolescence as of late. We spent our inheritance, trashed our home, disavowed our fellow man, and now face the choice to mature into an age of peace and reason, or take much of the world down with a final reckless abandonment of what it is that makes us human, compassion and intelligence.