Researchers with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), in Austria, not long ago explored another prospective solution: the return of airships to the skies. Airships count on jet stream winds to propel them forward to their destinations. They offer clear advantages over cargo ships in regards to both efficiency and avoided emissions. Returning to airships, says Julian Hunt, a researcher at the IIASA and lead author of the new study, could “ultimately [increase] the feasibility of a 100 percent renewable world.”

 

In modern times, world leaders are meeting in New York for the U.N. Climate Action Summit to present plans to address climate change. Already, average land and sea surface temperatures have soared to almost 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. If the current rate of emissions continues to be unchecked, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that by 2052, temperatures could rise by up to 2 degrees C. At this stage, as much as 30 percent of Earth’s flora and fauna could disappear, wheat production could fall by 16 percent, and water would become more scarce.

 

As outlined by Hunt and his collaborators, airships could play a role in cutting future anthropogenic emissions from the shipping sector. Jet streams flow in a westerly direction with the average wind speed of 165 kilometers per hour. On these winds, a lighter-than-air vessel could travel around the world in about two weeks (while a ship would take 60 days) and require just 4 percent of the fuel consumed by the ship, Hunt says.

 

The IIASA-led study, conducted by a team from Austria, Brazil, Germany, and Malaysia, also proposes combining the transport of hydrogen apart from cargo on airships that use hydrogen as the lifting gas. “An aspect that will substantially increase the viability of airships and balloons is the development of a hydrogen economy,” Hunt says. Given that airships are actually a clean technology (the only by-product of hydrogen-based fuels is water), using them to also transport hydrogen could offer a further advantage of this transportation mode.

 

Nonetheless, many people still associate airships with the tragic Hindenburg disaster in 1937, when a hydrogen explosion resulted in 36 deaths and earned airships a reputation as quite unsafe. The hydrogen-filled airships mentioned in the IIASA study do have a potential risk of explosion, and aren't ideal for passenger travel.

 

But Hunt says that using the new materials for example graphene that are lighter, more durable, and more flame resistant, the risks are somewhat lower. He also suggests taking extra security precautions, including flying routes that avoid heavily populated areas. And, says Hunt, if problems do occur while an airship is operating, “the airship should be evacuated and blown up in the stratosphere” and also come backed up with a mechanism to safely unload any other cargo (with parachutes, for instance).

 

Most modern airships, though, use helium rather than hydrogen as the lifting gas, including those developed by the company Flying Whales, which aims to start delivering cargo to remote areas in 2023, and the hybrid airships built by Lockheed Martin for Straightline Aviation.

 

“Helium is an inert gas,” says Mike Kendrick, CEO of Straightline Aviation, which is expecting its helium-based hybrid cargo airships to lift off in early 2021. “[It’s] not quite as efficient as hydrogen [and more expensive] but much safer.” (The hybrid vessels made by Lockheed Martin, unlike conventional airships, are heavier than air.)

 

The most energy-intensive part of airship operations comes when its lifting gas has to be pressurized to allow for descent. If the energy released during depressurization (during lift) can be stored and reused during descent, every trip could theoretically have a net zero energy use. And any hydrogen fuel onboard could possibly be supplemented by solar power arrays on the airship’s surface, says Hunt.

 

“If you try to estimate the cost [of using airships for cargo] now, it would be 10 to 50 times more expensive than ships, [which] are a mature technology that has been developing for hundreds of years,” Hunt says. For airships to be competitive with conventional shipping, he adds, the cargo industry would have to invest at least US $50 to $100 billion over the next decade or two in developing the technologies required making it a safe and practical options for transportation.

 

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