Question : What is lighter than any known gas ?
Answer : Vacuum

Question : Can we make a rigid "balloon" sufficient to withstand a high enough level of vacuum so as to be lighter than air?
Thinking carbon60 or carbon nanotubes here....
Answer : ?????

As far as I can see there are two main problems with the current implementations of wind farms.

The first and most obvious is the "bursty" nature of the wind itself. You only get power when the wind blows, and you might not need it at the time - use it or lose it.

Second is the limitations imposed by our current generating technologies - wind turbines are designed to operate within a relatively narrow range of wind speeds. Too low a wind speed generates nothing, and too high a wind speed requires a shutdown of the turbine, also generating nothing.

To solve the first we need the equivalent of a "Battery" backup to even out the supply - allowing us to store the energy until we do need it.

Why "offshore" wind farms ?

Well my "battery" is nothing more than a "big balloon" strapped to the sea bed adjacent to the windmill.

The windmill would be converted into an air pump, this would allow for a more flexible gearbox solution for supporting a more diverse range of wind speeds as an input and compressed air as the output.

The pump pumps air into the "balloon" via a one way inlet valve. The "balloon" is at depth and under high pressure.

A secondary adjustable "outlet" valve leads to a series of turbines designed to generate power as the air is released.

As "battery" designs go the worst that can happen is that the "balloon bursts" and lots of compressed air is released into the sea....

Time for my fellow slashdotters to tear my idea to shreds - it's what the comments are for :-)

Internet service providers everywhere should be campaigning FOR net neutrality and here's why...

The end of net neutrality may in the short term provide ISP's with additional revenue streams, but at the long term cost of ceding ultimate control to the the larger content providers.

How's that ?

At present content companies either have to pay for their bandwidth, or provide free internet peering in order to deliver their content.

A service provider post net neutrality, is essentially re-selling the content and or services to their customers.

How long before the larger content or other upstream service providers in turn want a slice of the new pie and start to charge ISP's for generating content for their users ? Failing that charging to provide that content at a higher speed.

Seriously can you see the big name content providers not wanting in ?

Introducing artificial speed / access limits on the customers provision AUTOMATICALLY opens the door for content providers to do the same to ISP's !

Post net neutrality conversation :
Customer -> ISP : Err (content provider) is slow even though I've paid for the faster access whats up ?
ISP -> Customer : We'll check it out and come back to you.
ISP -> (content provider) : We seem to have slower access for our customers than other ISP's whats up ?
(content provider) -> ISP : Thats correct you are a basic user of our services.
ISP -> (content provider) : Whats that come again ?
(content provider) -> ISP : You are a basic customer if you want a faster feed you need to pay for it just like your customers pay you for faster access to us.

At this point the are two basic ways this can go.

1) ISP forks over the cash - problem goes away until the prices get raised.
2) ISP refuses to pay and then cannot deliver the experience they promised and they loose custom.

At present, ISP's can sit back and laugh at upstream content providers wanting to charge for their provision as simply telling the customers would be sufficient to get them to bother the upstream provider into being sensible.

Post net neutrality I don't expect customers to be so forgiving - If I've specifically paid MORE for faster access to (content provider or service) then I EXPECT faster access, crying that you have to pay for it will cut NO ICE as I would already be PAYING YOU.

Would you sit back and accept that you are paying for a higher service level whilst the service provide refuses ?