FWIW, the article contemplates cargo airships with a million m^3, which would carry around 40 containers. That would be a cube with 100m sides, and you'd need 500 of those to replace one big container ship.

Seems not a realistic option to replace container ships, but might be realistic for specific use cases.

So like to move a shipping container weighing 40 tons requires what 32x32x32 cubic meter space to be supported that's pretty tiny considering the other advantages. They could travel fast and in basically all weather. Lightening is a worry but if you isolate your hydrogen well it shouldn't be a problem. Not to mention they would be much more fuel efficient. Heck you could probably slap solar on them and get net zero energy discharge for low container ship speeds. The only issue being is I don't know if they would alleviate unloading issues if there was high winds. I don't really know the method for securing an airship but if they just let down a big rope and tie themselves done you can do that anywhere.

You can’t use an airship in anything much stronger than a stiff breeze - and major air currents and the like are a problem on any trip of significant length. There is a reason the zeppelins fell out of favor, and it was because their safe operational envelope was pretty small - once you looked at real long term safety record.

The US Navy ran many of them for awhile and they stopped because they crashed so often.

Theoretically they are safe. In reality, they aren’t outside of very controlled circumstances

> This volume of hydrogen is a cube with 30m sides. For one container

This is actually smaller than i was imagining.