Airships only make sense in a world in which the economy takes into account ecodestruction. Kind of like wind-powered ships. If we didn’t know what GHGs do environmentally, which offset any short-term efficiency gains provided by burning hydrocarons, nobody would ever dream of abandoning these miracle fuels. So you can only examine the efficiency of airships with hydrocarbons off the table entirely.
They do plenty of ecodestruction. If we had them now, they’d be fueled by hydrocarbons. That could hypothetically be batteries in the future, but batteries good enough for that could do equally well in airplanes.
The material used in making them rigid also has a carbon cost.
It wouldn’t be light enough. Panels weight about 19kg each for a 1x1.7m panel. This can probably be slimmed down for the application, but probably not by enough. Perovskite promises a lighter weight panel, but they still have longevity issues that are being worked out in the lab.
Why not put those panels on a boat instead? Or in a field and power a train?
I think they’d be solar powered with some kind of thin film photovoltaic. You don’t need much battery in that case. While some carbon cost is inevitable, the point is they wouldn’t ever compete with something that burns kerosene.
Airships only make sense in a world in which the economy takes into account ecodestruction. Kind of like wind-powered ships. If we didn’t know what GHGs do environmentally, which offset any short-term efficiency gains provided by burning hydrocarons, nobody would ever dream of abandoning these miracle fuels. So you can only examine the efficiency of airships with hydrocarbons off the table entirely.
They do plenty of ecodestruction. If we had them now, they’d be fueled by hydrocarbons. That could hypothetically be batteries in the future, but batteries good enough for that could do equally well in airplanes.
The material used in making them rigid also has a carbon cost.
Don’t forget that they are huge, you could fit a lot of solar power on them, given that it would be light enough
It wouldn’t be light enough. Panels weight about 19kg each for a 1x1.7m panel. This can probably be slimmed down for the application, but probably not by enough. Perovskite promises a lighter weight panel, but they still have longevity issues that are being worked out in the lab.
Why not put those panels on a boat instead? Or in a field and power a train?
I think they’d be solar powered with some kind of thin film photovoltaic. You don’t need much battery in that case. While some carbon cost is inevitable, the point is they wouldn’t ever compete with something that burns kerosene.
There are plenty of other options that don’t burn kerosene.