[LINK] Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

[grove at zeta.org.au]

On Wed, 7 Feb 2007, Stewart Fist wrote:

>> Now you can lift airships with hydrogen but the Hindenburg gave
>> hydrogen a bad name even if it is not completely clear if the fabric
>> covering was a major factor
>>
>> No doubt we could build much safer hydrogen lifted airships now and
>> also use the hydrogen as a fuel.
>
> If the envelopes were built out of asbestos-fibre cloth, there wouldn't be a
> problem.
>
> West Australia's Wittenoom might be ready for another boom period.

I thought the Hindenburg covering was made from rubberised canvas and sprayed 
with aluminium powder.   A very highly flammable combination!

The only native supply of Hydrogen pre WW2 was some American region
where it was vented from volcanic sources.   These days, Hydrogen can be 
extracted from sea water via electrolysis as a by product of desalination!

I think with the new lightweight carbon-fibre and synthetic structures 
we have today, a zeppelin type airship could be cheaply constructed,
provisioned with hydrogen and fuel cells for propulsion.   A truly 
green transport medium.

With airships, we could take most of the heavy freight off the roads, 
automate their transport, have point to point delivery of goods 
(Coles could have a landing pad on the roof of every supermarket!) 
and it would be a cheap but gracefully slow method of air transport.

On top of that, there was some sort of scheme to have comms equipment 
on small versions of these airships, so that you could do 
Internet comms using them (instead of satellites), weather stations 
and so on.

I always dreamed of having enough money to throw away on such a 
crazy scheme, that just might work.....

Or have I been watching too much animation from Ghibli studios?!  :/


rachel

-- 
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove at zeta.org.au                http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
 	"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security,
 	deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759