Wind turbines in the heights.

The concept works.

Earlier this month, China put into the air a gigantic airship loaded with wind turbines within its own structure. The S2000 does not rotate tied to the ground, it rises, floats and explores a territory that has always been there, but outside the reach of traditional infrastructure.

It's a suspended oval body, surrounded by a ring that channels the wind with built-in turbines as if the air was compressed before generating power, but the idea behind it is surprisingly simple, the higher you go, the stronger and more constant the wind becomes, and as wind power grows with the cube of wind speed, small differences up there represent huge jumps in power down here.

Everything that is tested in this area is totally innovative.

During the tests, S2000 ascended about 2,000 meters in half an hour and began to generate electricity stably, it was not a record nor did it try to be, the goal was to demonstrate something more important, the concept works. While conventional turbines remain tied to the ground fighting for space, environmental licenses and irregular winds, this airship ascends to regions of the atmosphere, where the wind blows much more strongly and steadily.

Between 500 and 3,000 m altitude, the air moves more predictably and that makes all the difference, of course, there are still enormous challenges, no one knows, for example, how this type of airship would behave in severe storms, what its long-term maintenance would be like or how it would fit into airspace safety rules.

But China is willing to try high-risk ideas when it perceives strategic potential and this logic of leaving the obvious and exploring invisible layers where no one has tried is being taken very strongly by the Chinese.