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World’s first megawatt-level airborne 'windmill' feeds power to grid
(interestingengineering.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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I'm curious about helium leakage from the envelope and how that will be managed. I can understand why they chose helium to lift it, but it is notoriously hard to contain. If this scales up, they are going to need a constant source to replenish losses.
I think you could probably refill them by pumping new helium in but what I'm wondering is how you deal with the air pollution problem. No matter where you are in the world you're going to have some degree of corrosive and toxic materials in the air, but all across China there are smog clouds that already pose maintenance issues for tall buildings.
Fascinating, I would have assumed there this wasnt a big issue with air pollution and corrosion but that would just be my ignorance on the subject.
I do wonder how sustainable this would be from the helium perspective, it has a high potential for supply constraints and is largely dependant on gas/oil extraction currently. Hydrogen, doesnt have that limit but brings a whole lot of engineering and safety issues with it.