Gas giant refinery

A gas giant refinery is a series of orbital megastructures that would be suspended in the atmosphere of any gas giant such as Jupiter or Saturn. Their purpose would be to harvest large amounts of hydrogen / helium or other gases from the planet to prepare the raw elements for transportation elsewhere. The refineries would be floating aerostats and orbital vehicles would collect raw gasses from them to transport to the rest of the solar system to be used as a vital energy source.

Workers would typically live nearby in habitats and if the operation goes large scale, it can turn into an Industrial Zone typically using a Deep Well for mining. The well could be built around an artificial black hole from a moon that had been stellified. Hydrogen is mined from the atmosphere of the gas giant and directed towards the black hole, forming an accretion disk. Fusion reactions take place within the accretion disk and generate heavy elements which are mined for manufacture into various industrial products, typically controlled by interplanetary corporations. These are used in the place of asteroid and lunar mining operations in regions where elements heavier than helium are scarce. The creation of elements up to iron is exothermic, and produces large amounts of excess energy which can also be collected for use.