A competitor to the Mississippi River system!
> "Why hydrogen?" The reasoning goes like this; The value of an airship is determined by its range and its cargo capacity raising either increases the airships suitability for various tasks. Hydrogen provides 8% greater lift per cubic liter over helium and costs 1/10th what helium does
You are making an error
Applying purely rational considerations to what will be an emotional decision
Weep...
I can't imagine what this this would do to helium prices if we had widespread helium airships. I've got a full set of doubles with 18/45 (45% helium in them) out in my garage right now that could become my retirement savings.
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/3eqnqo/will_h...
https://www.johnchatterton.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/cr...
I'm not sure it would meaningfully impact hydrogen prices if we had widespread hydrogen ships.
For example, you can generate fairly pure hydrogen on-demand by passing electricity through water. Hydrogen is abundant and can be generated on-demand with low-tech tools from any water source.
As a fellow diver, open circuit helium mix diving is probably not going to be sustainable. We'll probably all have to switch to rebreathers soon.
This claim is always trotted out, but is false. The kerosene fuel produced the visible flames, while the hydrogen burned mostly invisibly. The skin mostly survived. Another common and false claim was that a bomb started it. No, it was the leaking hydrogen that ignited.
This doesn't mean a modern, unmanned airship shouldn't use hydrogen for lift. Adequate ventilation prevents ignition of leaks, and modern sensors can detect leaks. Harvesting humidity to replenish losses, using solar panels all over the top of it, is a reasonable design choice.
> This claim is always trotted out, but is false. [...] The skin mostly survived.
Really? You can see the skin burning away in the photos and film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster
I expect that they are really designing for hydrogen lift, the economics become a lot better and pretty much everyone understands what killed the Hindenberg wasn't the hydrogen rather it was the outer skin catching fire. "Teldar"[1] (I think that is a wonderfully stupid name) is much less flammable. If you ask "Why hydrogen?" The reasoning goes like this; The value of an airship is determined by its range and its cargo capacity raising either increases the airships suitability for various tasks. Hydrogen provides 8% greater lift per cubic liter over helium and costs 1/10th what helium does to source and supply. So economically it just makes more sense but we haven't had hydrogen airships because of the public perception of their danger (and thus the lack of investment). Anyway, there are some great applications for dirigibles and "disaster relief" and "heavy lift" are but two. Something about being able to just sit there for hours over a point that is unreachable by land is pretty appealing.
[1] https://www.dupont.com/content/dam/dupont/amer/us/en/tedlar-...