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Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

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Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#91

Post by jandrese »

teraflop wrote: post #51
cforrester wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that helium is becoming scarce in the sense that we can't get any more, though. I may be wrong, but my understanding is that it's just expensive to store, so nobody wants to do it if it's not worth the money. If air ships started to "take off", there would surely be more money in producing helium.

Helium is scarce in much the same way that crude oil is scarce: there are plenty of reserves still in the ground, but we are consuming them orders of magnitude faster than they were produced, and as the reserves dwindle the costs of extraction will rise. Helium is a chemical element, and aside from nuclear reactions (which are economically infeasible for non-microscopic quantities) we can't produce more of it.

In fact our helium supply is a by-product of the petroleum industry. As we transition to renewable energy our supply of helium will diminish as well.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#92

Post by usrusr »

riffic wrote: post #59
cdolan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you drive a container ship over land? I Think the point is that you could use this across the USA or other large geographic bodies for similar efficiency that you see with a container ship on water.

Wonderful thing called a railroad network.

Rail can only carry objects that can fit inside the cross-section and streets aren't much better.

The defunct Cargolifter protect was quite open about not attempting to be competitive for loads that easily fit conventional transport. They saw their market exclusively in loads that are too bulky for ground transport and I don't think that anything has changed.

Other than that this hypothetical market could be really huge now that wind turbines have grown into the "untransportable" realm for offshore use where no practical transport restrictions exist. (At least in countries that haven't universally given in to NIMBY and are still expand their land-based wind capacity)

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#93

Post by raxxorrax »

cforrester wrote: post #42
VonGuard wrote: post #36

This article doesn't seem to take into account that Helium is becoming scarce, and when used in airships, it's eventually just released and lost forever. NYT Article on the shortage: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/science/helium-shortage-p... We used to have a strategic Helium reserve in the US for zepplins and so forth, then it was just kept for chemistry and other purposes. I think we started selling it down un…

I wouldn't say that helium is becoming scarce in the sense that we can't get any more, though. I may be wrong, but my understanding is that it's just expensive to store, so nobody wants to do it if it's not worth the money. If air ships started to "take off", there would surely be more money in producing helium.

With a few billions investment and very high operating costs, we may be able to create a few kilograms of helium per year.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#94

Post by Sharlin »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #90
VonGuard wrote: post #36

This article doesn't seem to take into account that Helium is becoming scarce, and when used in airships, it's eventually just released and lost forever. NYT Article on the shortage: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/science/helium-shortage-p... We used to have a strategic Helium reserve in the US for zepplins and so forth, then it was just kept for chemistry and other purposes. I think we started selling it down un…

It's the second most abundant element in the universe. Maybe we'll put in a tad more effort to explore it if Helium runs out.

That doesn't really help if it isn't abundant where it's needed. There's no primordial helium on Earth, all of it is created by alpha decay of radioactive elements. As to the rest of the solar system, all that abundant helium is locked in the bottom of particularly deep gravity wells.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#95

Post by ShorsHammer »

Sharlin wrote: post #94
ShorsHammer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the second most abundant element in the universe. Maybe we'll put in a tad more effort to explore it if Helium runs out.

That doesn't really help if it isn't abundant where it's needed. There's no primordial helium on Earth, all of it is created by alpha decay of radioactive elements. As to the rest of the solar system, all that abundant helium is locked in the bottom of particularly deep gravity wells.

There's a huge amount on our only moon.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#96

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

WalterBright wrote: post #78
VonGuard wrote: post #36

This article doesn't seem to take into account that Helium is becoming scarce, and when used in airships, it's eventually just released and lost forever. NYT Article on the shortage: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/science/helium-shortage-p... We used to have a strategic Helium reserve in the US for zepplins and so forth, then it was just kept for chemistry and other purposes. I think we started selling it down un…

Should just use hydrogen. We learned how to safely fly airliners full of jet fuel, we can solve the safety problem with a bag full of H.

Jet fuel can be contained easily. Hydrogen diffuses even through welded containers. It can also weaken them structurally: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#97

Post by colechristensen »

teraflop wrote: post #51
cforrester wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that helium is becoming scarce in the sense that we can't get any more, though. I may be wrong, but my understanding is that it's just expensive to store, so nobody wants to do it if it's not worth the money. If air ships started to "take off", there would surely be more money in producing helium.

Helium is scarce in much the same way that crude oil is scarce: there are plenty of reserves still in the ground, but we are consuming them orders of magnitude faster than they were produced, and as the reserves dwindle the costs of extraction will rise. Helium is a chemical element, and aside from nuclear reactions (which are economically infeasible for non-microscopic quantities) we can't produce more of it.

We can produce more of it by distilling it out of the atmosphere, it is just rather expensive.

This is exclusively how neon is produced (as far as I can find) so it is obviously economically viable at a certain price.

I did a calculation once about nuclear production of helium and found that the heat from the nuclear reactors producing enough helium to match current usage would be on the same order of magnitude as the power received from the sun across the whole planet.

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#98

Post by alexisread »

nradov wrote: post #48
ericd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a company working on hydrofoils for cargo ships in one of the recent YC batches. No idea how it’s going, but they at least seem to think it’s possible to put foils on something large.

Boundary Layer Technologies is developing small cargo hydrofoils to compete with air freight. This may be a viable niche market. But their design looks like it has only about 1% of the capacity of the largest displacement hull container ships. Hydrofoil technology doesn't scale. And the cruising speed won't be much over 50kts.

Agreed! A possible solution in this style are Wing-In-Ground effect aircraft (WIGs) such as the Pelican.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Pelican

Having said that, hydrogen airships are probably the way to go due to abundant gas, high lift, ability to compress as per airlander.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Air_Vehicles_HAV_304/...

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#99

Post by Sharlin »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #95
Sharlin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really help if it isn't abundant where it's needed. There's no primordial helium on Earth, all of it is created by alpha decay of radioactive elements. As to the rest of the solar system, all that abundant helium is locked in the bottom of particularly deep gravity wells.

There's a huge amount on our only moon.

A few parts per billion, about one gram of helium-3 per 150 tons of regolith. For comparison, economical gold mining on Earth typically requires a deposit of at least 500 ppb or so. And there are no 3He "deposits" on the moon; it's all fairly uniformly distributed across the 38 million square kilometers of lunar surface!

Re: Some scientists are serious about resurrecting zeppelins for cargo

#100

Post by Mirioron »

colechristensen wrote: post #97
teraflop wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helium is scarce in much the same way that crude oil is scarce: there are plenty of reserves still in the ground, but we are consuming them orders of magnitude faster than they were produced, and as the reserves dwindle the costs of extraction will rise. Helium is a chemical element, and aside from nuclear reactions (which are economically infeasible for non-microscopic quantities) we can't produce more of it.

We can produce more of it by distilling it out of the atmosphere, it is just rather expensive. This is exclusively how neon is produced (as far as I can find) so it is obviously economically viable at a certain price. I did a calculation once about nuclear production of helium and found that the heat from the nuclear reactors producing enough helium to match current usage would be on the same order of magnitude as th…

Helium is light enough to escape Earth's atmosphere though. Eventually the atmosphere will run out of it.
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