I've heard something about that. The obvious problem is mining, but you might be able to largely get around that by making everything you can out of plastic. It's just hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, sulfer, and nitrogen, all of which exist in the atmosphere.
The sulfur dioxide could be problematic, but according to this website I found with google polyethylene is totally resistant to 60% pure sulfuric acid, and partially resistant to 98% pure. I don't think a little sulfur dioxide in the air would be a problem.
You are going to need other elements for some stuff occasionally. Perhaps you can mine dust.
You are going to need other elements for some stuff occasionally. Perhaps you can mine dust.
The impression I get from reading it is that he figures either teleoperated mining robots, or mining the asteroids; he spends more than a little time on discussing the great leaps in robotics, and then in claiming that a Venus colony is, from the point of view of orbital mechanics, almost as good as actual asteroid colonies for traveling to & exploiting asteroids.
I was wondering what people thought of this paper by Geoffrey Landis on colonising Venus. In it he suggests that cloud-top Venus is one of the most benign environments in the Solar System. Temperature and gravity are similar to Earth, there's some radiation shielding and useful resources, and aerostats filled only with breathable air would float at that height. I'm no expert so can't speak to how accurate it is, but it's certainly very thought-provoking for such a short paper.