Record-breaking inflatable wind turbine to float 1000 feet above Alaska  

Trehugger has a post on an airborne wind turbine idea being trialled in Alaska, with the device being filled with helium to raise it into the atmosphere - Record-breaking inflatable wind turbine to float 1000 feet above Alaska.

While ground-based wind turbines remain a practical system for generating clean electricity, the future of low cost wind power for remote areas might be found in high altitude wind turbines (HAWTs), which are deployed high above the Earth, where they can take advantage of stronger and more consistent winds.

We previously covered the prototype of Altaeros Energies inflatable Airborne Wind Turbine, which was claimed to be able to produce double the power at half the cost of wind turbines mounted at conventional tower heights, but the company has just announced their plans to deploy the next generation of the device at a height of 1000 feet off the ground.

The new version of their high altitude turbine is called the Buoyant Airborne Turbine (BAT), and when deployed at the end of the 18 month demonstration project, this device is expected to break the world's record for the highest wind turbine, beating the current record set by a Vestas V164-8.0-MW installed at the Danish National Test Center for Large Wind Turbines in Østerild.