Comment on The world's largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley
_Analog_@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Ha, yes let’s use a limited resource (helium) to save the earth!
No, I don’t have a better idea… and maybe the improvement is worth it. After all I’ll be dead in 100-200 years when helium runs out on Earth, but climate change is already having a huge impact.
I concur. This is really fucking stupid. The only actual advantage that airships have is loitering time, and solar aeroplanes can already loiter for months albeit with a small payload.
If you really care about the environment, make it an unmanned post and use more efficient (because it’s lighter) and abundant hydrogen. Chance of explosion is pretty low, and if it does who cares.
I mean, don’t airships also have the advantage of not needing to expend energy for lift, just forward motion? A solar plane doesn’t have to worry about this either I suppose, but an airship is much easier to make have useful cargo capacity than a solar plane.
Neither do naval ships.
I can only see this being useful over land and short distances.
That massive size and slowness and expensive material and depleting helium can only haul 8,000 pounds beyond its crew. For comparison, the most common passenger jet there is; the Boeing 737 can haul around like 50,000 pounds depending on how much fuel is on board.
It’s a cool concept, but I can’t fathom it ever doing a whole lot of good. The more carbon neutral appropriate thing to do that would be a viable option would be for jets to use a different fuel source. Maybe massive solar arrays at airports used to create liquid hydrogen and craft designed to run on that instead of jet fuel. I don’t really know myself, but I know there’s no way anything other than very niche scenarios will crazy huge expensive zeppelins be used.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
Hydrogen would make more sense, but people are scared of it. Hydrogen craft are actually pretty safe. I think the British tried to use incendiary rounds to ignite hydrogen craft but there was too little oxygen so they wouldn’t burn. They switched to a mix of incendiary and regular round to create holes for airflow before igniting.
Jamil@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Hydrogen makes more sense, but it’s still derived from methane. Not getting away from fossil fuels. And methane is a potent green house gas, far more than carbon dioxide. Any industrial uses for methane will surely have accidental emissions.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
Well, it’s currently generated using methane because it’s the most efficient option available. In a world with 100% clean energy with extra capacity available, electrical decomposition of water gets you hydrogen (and a little oxygen to use for something else if you want).