CANADA 
The Age of the Airship May Be Dawning Again

Dirigibles ruled the skies once. Can they make a comeback?

BY JUSTIN LING FEBRUARY 29, 2020

FOREIGN POLICY ILLUSTRATION/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/GETTY IMAGES/OCEANSKY

You might think that the tragic end of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 marked a clear end to the airship era. The famous footage of the German airship plunging in flames became the overwhelming image of a seemingly doomed technology.

You would be wrong.

For decades, the Goodyear fleet of blimps have been the only working airships most people had a chance of seeing in real life. But a handful of companies are looking to bring back the spectacular dirigibles.

The government of Quebec will be pitching 30 million Canadian dollars (23 million in U.S. dollars) to Flying Whales, a French company, to start building its massive zeppelins. The company has only been around since 2012, and it hasn’t gotten any of its airships off the ground—yet. The plan has been derided by opposition parties, not as a flying whale but as a white elephant.

But cargo airships may actually make a tremendous amount of sense. They are relatively cheap, they can carry enormous amounts of material, and they emit significantly less greenhouse gas than other modes of transportation.

The compelling arguments for dirigible travel put these airships in a class of technology, with nuclear power and lunar colonization, that is experiencing an unexpected modern renaissance.

Flying Whales’ LCA60T model, according to the company, will be able to carry up to 60 metric tons of goods, travel up to 62 miles per hour, and serve remote areas with ease. If all goes according to plan, the company hopes to get the first airship off the ground in 2022.

There’s still a healthy dose of skepticism around the company’s lofty promises. Its main backers, prior to Quebec’s financial endorsement, have been the French National Forest Agency and the Chinese government.

Flying Whales’ website is enigmatic, and the section of the site explaining the airships’ structure isn’t particularly helpful—the description of its structure reads “what else… – Hi George :)” while if you’re looking for details on their “safe lifting gas” it reads, somewhat snarkily, “helium obviously.”

It’s that last point that might make the whole idea completely untenable: There might just not be enough helium left.

The R-100 airship, circa 1920. THEODOR HORYDCZAK/U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
A slow, steady return

While the most famous airship may be the Hindenburg, it was hardly the first—nor was it the last.

For a time in the first half of the 20th century, airships were fashionable, practical, and futuristic. But their calamitous track record ultimately soured the public.

Less remembered, perhaps because its downing was never immortalized on an album cover, was the English airship R101. The dirigible was dubbed the “socialist airship,” as it was designed and built by the United Kingdom’s state aviation department. The R101 was constructed as part of a state-sponsored competition, pitting government engineers against private-sector workers. The “capitalist airship,” the R100, was designed and constructed by a scrappy engineering team on a remote airbase in Yorkshire.

The opulent socialist airship was rushed to flight, even amid a variety of problems. It took off, en route to British India, just as its capitalist competitor set off for Canada. The government airship sagged and crashed into the French countryside just a day into its voyage, killing 48 of the 54 onboard—including the aviation minister—while the private airship conducted a celebrated tour of Montreal and Toronto before heading back to London. (“Everybody’s talking about the R100,” goes the chorus of a song from the iconic francophone Canadian folk singer La Bolduc.)

Most airships of the day took off using the highly flammable hydrogen—thanks mostly to an American monopoly on helium, its nonflammable alternative. Washington had banned the export of the gas, in part over fears of the military uses of the airships, which had been used in the world’s first air raids on London during World War I.

The helium-buoyant American ships weren’t always safe, either. The USS Akron carried out several successful flights across the continent, but it was ultimately pushed down by strong winds in 1933 and crashed into the Atlantic, killing 73 people on board and two rescuers.

As U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked after the Akron went down, “ships can be replaced, but the Nation can ill afford to lose such men.” Eventually, governments stopped replacing the ships.

The USS Akron over New York City in the early 1930s. U.S. NAVY/INTERIM ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGESBut it was the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, made famous by the newsreel footage of the zeppelin bursting into a ball of flames as it tried to dock at the Lakehurst air base in New Jersey, that really scuttled the industry. The United States’ decision to lift its helium ban after the crash did little to revive faith in airships. The U.S. Navy used its small fleet for anti-submarine warfare and reconnaissance in World War II, but the airship industry was effectively dead.

It would stage a comeback, in a limited way, some decades later, when Goodyear opted for nonrigid airships—blimps—for its advertising campaigns. Airship Industries came around in the 1980s, promising a return of the dirigible. Its ships, like Goodyear’s ships, had no rigid structure inside, meaning they could carry only limited cargo and no more than 14 passengers. The airships of earlier in the century had immense metal structures inside, allowing them to carry more. These new nonrigid ships were made famous by Bond villains, Pink Floyd, and, later, by Ron Paul supporters.

Fame aside, the blimps had little use for commercial air travel or cargo transport. The niche purpose of the blimps meant Airship Industries was hemorrhaging money, and it shut down by the end of the decade.

As with many other commercially nonviable products, airships later found a home in the U.S. military. There was a hope that the dirigibles, which are capable of taking off and staying aloft for prolonged periods of time, would be ideal for persistent aerial surveillance.

The contractor Northrop Grumman was awarded a $517 million contract to build a surveillance airship in 2010, and it managed to build a successful prototype in 2012. The contract was axed a year later. Raytheon was awarded nearly $3 billion for its model, which tethered the airship to a mooring and allowed for constant surveillance of a wide area for a month at a time.

One of Raytheon’s spy blimps was tested in Maryland, where it hung eerily in the sky above suburban homes. In 2015, it broke loose from its mooring and drifted haplessly through Pennsylvania, trailed by fighter jets, before crashing in a field. Raytheon’s hopes of building more surveillance dirigibles crashed with it.

A similar program in Afghanistan, which became notorious among Kabul residents, saw even worse results. The tethers that kept the Big Brother balloons in place were notorious for snaring helicopter blades—one incident killed five American and British service members.

An aerial visualization of the Ocean Sky airship. KIRT X THOMSEN


A commercial appeal?

The market for military airships and commercial blimps remained limited thanks to past failures, though not dead entirely.

The cruise company OceanSky is forging ahead with plans to send a passenger airship to the Arctic, using a ship originally designed under the U.S. military’s surveillance program, with a planned voyage in 2023.

Many are banking that the real future of airships, however, is in cargo.

In the vast expanses of the Canadian north, there has long been a need for reliable transportation. Many communities are only accessible by road when winter rolls around and the ground and lakes are solid enough to drive on, if they are accessible by road at all. That means basic goods need to be stockpiled when the weather is cold or flown in by cargo plane—never mind supplies to build long-term infrastructure. Many of these remote communities are reliant on gas generators and are facing shortages of reliable housing stock.

The airships also promise to be a boon for economic development, if they work.

In 2016, a junior mining company in Quebec inked an agreement with U.K.-based Straightline Aviation to use a design being developed by Lockheed Martin to haul rare earth minerals from a remote open-pit mine—the road that was initially planned would have cut across a caribou migration path. That plan went belly-up when the minerals company went bankrupt, although Straightline is forging ahead with plans to offer commercial and tourism flights.

The interior of the Ocean Sky airship. HYBRID AIR VEHICLES LTD AND DESIGN Q

Stranded resources and communities are a policy concern in Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Russia, and elsewhere. Flights are expensive and carbon dioxide-intensive, and they require airport infrastructure. Shipping is more viable as Arctic ice melts, but that often requires deep-water ports and can have damaging impacts on marine life. It’s part of why people keep coming back to airships.

That’s the niche Quebec Premier François Legault is hoping Flying Whale can fill in the province’s remote north.

It’s why the French forestry sector is interested in the ships as well. The promise of lifting lumber from far-off places earned the company praise from French President Emmanuel Macron as one of the “industries of the future.”

The opportunity is also caveated with an array of risks and problems. There is no guarantee that the airships will even fly in the frigid north—Le Journal de Quebec reported that the airships will need a significant amount of water, which may be hard to come by amid Arctic temperatures.

Quebec seems unphased.

“If we don’t take risks, we go nowhere,” Legault told reporters earlier in February. Quebec’s investment earned it a 25 percent stake in the project, which in turn brought derision from opposition politicians—one questioned whether the government was inhaling helium when it made the decision.

The money puts Quebec on par with China in the project—Beijing put in $4.9 million for its 24.9 percent stake, through the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China General and the Ministry of Science and Technology. China has plenty of Arctic ambitions itself—and vast distances to cover in its underpopulated west.

The Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937. FINE ART IMAGES/HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES


A lack of lift

There’s one massive drawback for the airship industry: The world is almost out of helium.

In recent years, helium prices have skyrocketed as supply has dwindled. Far from just being used in party balloons and blimps, the gas is necessary for MRI scanners and rocket engines. Stockpiles of helium often escape, and are wasted, during other extractive projects. While there have been shortages before, helium is a nonrenewable resource and can take an enormously long time to generate—estimates suggest the earth’s supply could be gone this century.

If the world runs out of helium, it’s not clear that there’s a good alternative. The dangers of hydrogen are well established, and the gas behind the Hindenburg disaster is unlikely to make an air travel comeback.

Hypothetically, there could be an airship lifted by a vacuum—that is, by material that can contain nothing at all inside but withstand the atmospheric pressure from the outside. It is, at this point, science fiction, although NASA has posited that some kind of vacuum airship could eventually be used to explore the surface of Mars.

Airship companies seem satisfied with helium for the time being. OceanSky cruises has a reassuring FAQ on its website, telling those looking to join them on an airship trip to the North Pole that 600 of their cruise ships “would account for just 1% of annual helium consumption” and that each ship “stays filled with the same helium as from its inception, less a tiny annual leakage.”

If these airships can take off despite carrying a century of failed projects, a lack of its necessary resource, and economic justifications that still seem more wishful thinking than reality—it might just be the return of the zeppelin.


Justin Ling is a journalist based in Toronto.

FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE

Aeronautical Innovations

Conference:

2022 Aviation Innovation

Airship conference: Oct 20, 2022

Time is slipping away. Governments have agreed to a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035, but climate change is not waiting. Floods, droughts, heat waves and violent storms are increasing in frequency. Carbon emissions must be cut before the Arctic Ocean loses all its ice leading to a "Runaway Greenhouse Effect." Innovation is needed. Airplanes have the most difficulty adapting to a low carbon future because they require so much energy

No one disputes that jet engine emissions are large contributors to climate change. The aviation industry is working hard to reduce their Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Electrically-powered airplanes are being tested with batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, but significant change in the carbon footprint of fixed-wing aviation is unlikely to be achieved for many years.

A sound economic case exists for continued jet passenger travel, because face-to-face meetings on a global scale are necessary. No similar justification exists for cargo jets, which is the most polluting form of freight transport. Air freight shippers can drastically reduce their carbon footprint by embracing a new aviation age of the electrically-powered airship.

Airships use less energy per tonne-kilometer because they are buoyant and require fuel only for propulsion. Hydrogen can be used as fuel because giant airships have room to store large fuel tanks, without compromising space for freight. Hydrogen fuel cell powered electric airships could meet the transport needs of air cargo shippers and help them meet their commit to green supply chains.


Northern Canada is an ideal place for electric airship cargo operations to begin. Climate change is making the ice roads unreliable. Even existing infrastructure is threatened as the permafrost melts below them.

Electric airships could transport truckload size loads across the wild terrain at about the same price. And unlike roads, have zero environmental impact on the wildlife below. This sparsely populated area would also be acceptable for the introduction of remotely piloted airships.

Year-round cargo airship service would bring prosperity to the Northern economy. Food insecurity, bad housing and poverty could be banished from the indigenous communities. The mining industry would be able to gain economic access to rich mineral deposits. Wind turbine blades could be moved to remote wind farms to power mines, Arctic homes and businesses. The Northern economy would become more resilience, richer and attractive to investment.

Innovations in transportation are transformational. Airships will unlock currently isolated regions from crippling logistical inconvenience to competitive access to economic opportunity. Canada can position itself as a pioneer in what promises to become a huge global industry. Already, FLYING WHALES, a French airship company, has opened an their office in Montreal, Quebec. Homegrown, Buoyant Aircraft Systems International (BASI) has airship research and development offices in Manitoba and Ontario. More airship companies are looking as coming to Canada, soon.

Airship projects are underway in Brazil, Israel, France, China, the U.K., the U.S. and Canada. Like Rip Van Winkle, after sleeping for many decades, the airship industry has awoken, teeming with new design ideas and opportunities. The 2022 Aviation Innovations Conference brings together representatives from all segments of the aerospace and aviation supply chains.

You should participate in these packed days because you are a stakeholder in this critical industry, either as an airship developer, an aviation parts manufacturer, fixed base operator, logistics provider, First Nations leader, government policymaker/regulator, academic, consultant, investor, student, or as an environmentalist.


Why wait?

Time is running out of hand. Governments have agreed to a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035, but climate change does not wait. Floods, droughts and severe storms are becoming more frequent, while the Arctic Ocean is losing its ice. Innovation is needed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and aviation is the most difficult mode of transportation to adapt. Fortunately, electric airships can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of air freight, if the world has the wisdom to invest to bring airship technology to maturity.

No one disputes that jet engine emissions are a major contributor to climate change. The aviation industry is working hard to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Electrically powered aircraft are being tested with hydrogen batteries and fuel cells, but it is unlikely that a significant change in the carbon footprint of fixed-wing aviation will be achieved for many years. Aerostatic flight, on the other hand, offers a simple and well-understood path to greener flights.

While there is a strong economic case for continued passenger air transport, which makes face-to-face meetings possible on a global scale, there is no similar justification for cargo aircraft. Air cargo could be transported by electric airships to meet shippers' needs, with zero greenhouse gas emissions. Electric airships consume less energy per tonne-kilometre because they float and only need fuel for propulsion, and they are so large that hydrogen tanks can be stored easily, without compromising space for passengers or cargo.

Northern Canada is an ideal place to begin cargo operations by electric airship. Northern latitudes are experiencing unreliable ice routes and melting permafrost. Electric airships could carry large loads over this wild terrain at a lower cost than airplanes and without any impact on the environment. This sparsely populated area would also be acceptable for the introduction of remotely controlled airships.

Year-round airship service would transform the northern economy and improve its resilience. Food insecurity, poor housing conditions and poverty could be banished from indigenous communities. The mining industry could have economic access to rich mineral deposits and wind energy. Wind turbine blades could be moved to remote wind farms to power Arctic mines, homes and businesses. In short, the northern economy would become more sustainable and wealthier. And Canada would position itself as a pioneer in what promises to become a huge global industry, as airships transform tourism, intercontinental transportation, forestry and other industries, and liberate many parts of the world, from islands and poor landlocked countries in Africa to Siberia, Patagonia and the Amazon. crippling logistical inconveniences.

Airship projects are underway in Brazil, Russia/Israel, France/China, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. Like Rip Van Winkle, after sleeping for several decades, the airship industry woke up, full of new design ideas and opportunities. The 2022 Aviation Innovations Conference brings together representatives from all segments of the aerospace and aviation supply chains. You should participate in these busy days because you are a stakeholder in this critical industry, whether as an airship manufacturer, stationary base operator, logistics provider, First Nations leader, government policy-maker/regulator, academic, consultant, investor, student, or environmentalist.

How solar-powered airships could make air travel climate-friendly

Research team identifies optimal flight routes for solar-powered airships

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITÄT ERLANGEN-NÜRNBERG

Flying is the most damaging mode of transportation for our climate. At least, up until now. But work is already underway to investigate technical alternatives to conventional aircraft. For example, airships with highly efficient solar cells and extremely light batteries on board. Prof. Dr. Christoph Pflaum from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), together with Prof. Dr. Agnes Jocher from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the FAU student Tim Riffelmacher, has investigated which route a solar airship would have to take in order to fly from London to New York as quickly and as climate-friendly as possible.

The findings were published in the International Journal of Sustainable Energy.

“If we rely on solar-powered airships, we can make aviation more climate-friendly relatively quickly and economically,” says Prof. Dr. Christoph Pflaum. The computer science professor at FAU specializes in numerical simulation with high-performance computers and has published the paper “Design and route optimization for an airship with onboard solar energy harvesting” together with FAU student Tim Riffelmacher and Professor Jocher from TUM.

Climate-friendly and cost-effective air travel

“Our calculations show that solar airships could significantly reduce both transport costs and the CO2 emissions of air travel,” explains Professor Pflaum. In the course of his research, the scientist has become a true fan of solar-powered air travel and eagerly lists its many benefits: “Solar airships are absolutely climate-friendly because they are equipped with extremely light and highly efficient thin-film solar cells that recharge over again during the flight. As a result, no combustion-related emissions are generated while the airship is flying.”

Energy from the power grid is only needed to recharge the battery before the airship is launched and the charging process has very low CO2 emissions. “A maximum of five percent of the amount of carbon dioxide generated in conventional air transport is emitted,” he says and refers to the figures: Compared with long-haul freight flights, less than one percent is generated, by medium-haul flights almost 1.4 percent and for person transport approximately five percent.

“Unfortunately, this solar airship does not exist at the moment, but in California a company is investing heavily in developing a large, fully rigid airship for the first time in 90 years, which offers a lot of space and is well protected in wind and weather,” says Professor Pflaum enthusiastically.

The technology can be implemented quickly, but has been quite neglected in recent decades. “Of course, the tragedy of the airship LZ 129, better known as ‘Hindenburg‘ has influenced this lack of progress,” the professor acknowledges. “With a length of 245 meters and a diameter of 41.2 meters, LZ 129 was one of the largest aircraft ever built and a real sensation on its maiden voyage in March 1936. But just a year later, it caught fire when it landed in the USA and was completely destroyed.” This meant the end of airships for a long time, but now they are being rethought with solar cells on board and work is underway on a “real game changer”.

With these new models, no one needs to be afraid of a fire, as the airships are neither filled with combustible hydrogen nor with any other fuel.

The researchers believe that cost aspects also speak in favor of solar airships, because the energy consumption costs of solar-powered airships are, according to their current calculations, significantly lower than those of conventional aircraft.

Two to three days for a flight across the Atlantic

Are solar airships a real technical alternative to conventional aircraft? “It looks promising,” Professor Pflaum and Professor Jocher agree. “We only have to lower our expectations for flight time, because an airship flies much slower than an airplane.”

Several FAU students simulated and calculated in their Bachelor’s and Master’s theses how fast an airship with solar cells on board would really be and which route it would have to take in order to optimally exploit wind and weather and sun positions. Most recently, Tim Riffelmacher dealt with the “Charging optimization of the battery in a solar airship with simulated annealing” in his Bachelor’s thesis.

He, too, is very enthusiastic about the solar-powered airships and took a closer look at battery use during day and night in his simulations. “The battery is charged before the flight and then has to last for long distances,” explains the young researcher. “This is easier said than done, because at night there is no sun and the solar cells do not produce electricity.“ But optimizing the charging process makes a lot of things possible.

In their work, Riffelmacher and the other students were able to show that national, continental and even intercontinental flights with a satisfactory flight duration are possible. “According to our calculations, a flight across the Atlantic from New York to London takes about two days and one night,” Prof. Dr. Christoph Pflaum summarizes the results. “In the opposite direction from London to New York we calculated a flight time of three days and two nights.”

Such travel times are acceptable for most cargo flights and he also sees an opportunity for passenger transport: “After all, traveling in an airship is much more comfortable than in a conventional aircraft. There is space for a dining room and a lounge and for stylish double rooms for passengers.”

---

JOURNAL

International Journal of Sustainable Energy

DOI

10.1080/14786451.2023.2189488 

ARTICLE TITLE

Design and route optimisation for an airship with onboard solar energy harvesting

Flying high: U.K.'s modern-day green airship takes shape

Agence France-Presse
March 12, 2024 

Britain's Airlander 10 is being billed as a less polluting alternative 

to traditional aircraft© Daniel LEAL / AFP


Britain's innovative Airlander 10 airship could soon take to the skies to offer leisure passengers panoramic views and far less pollution than traditional aircraft, according to its manufacturer.

On the outskirts of the town of Bedford, north of London, UK company Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) says its plans are well underway for greener but slower commercial air travel.

The Airlander -- which is 300 feet (91 metres) long -- is lifted by its gigantic helium-filled hull, which is then steered through the air by engine propellers powered by conventional fuel.

The dirigible is "unlike any other aircraft cabin you've sat in", HAV chief executive Tom Grundy told AFP on a visit to the Bedford facility.

"It's big, it's long, it's spacious (and) it's very quiet to sit on board.

"There's floor-to-ceiling windows, and the aircraft's unpressurised, so you can even open a window and look at the outside world as you're going over it."

- Cutting emissions -

The airship, initially developed for the US army, is longer than the Airbus A380 jumbo yet pumps out up to 75 percent less emissions than aircraft, according to HAV.

The group plans to start production later this year, while electric- and hydrogen-powered versions are planned in order to further slash emissions.


HAV has already manufactured a prototype, part of which is now on display in Bedford after completing test flights.

The tech hub also features a life-size model of the future airship that allows visitors to step on board and view its "luxury" configuration including a bar, passenger cabins and an observation lounge.

However, experts concede that airships will be hindered as a form of transport owing to its slow speed versus other airborne modes.


Professor Andreas Schaefer, director of the Air Transportation Systems Laboratory at University College London, cautioned that it would be a "niche" market.

"On a commercial basis, as a vehicle for long distance transport, I can't see any future because simply the speed is by far too slow," he noted.

HAV is one of the few companies that it seeking to relaunch the airship, but using the inert gas helium.


Almost 90 years ago, the Hindenburg Zeppelin -- filled with highly flammable hydrogen -- exploded in the United States in 1937, killing 36 people and ending the widespread use of airships.

- Airship revival -

Yet the potential of airships to provide an environmentally friendly, low-cost alternative to helicopters and passenger jets for transportation has now sparked renewed interest.

HAV's French peer Flying Whales is seeking to develop a fleet of rigid airships for carrying heavy cargo.

"The airship revival has been talked about, like the revival of Concord, for about 30 years now (or) more," aviation consultant Philip Butterworth-Hayes told AFP.

"The idea is absolutely great, it should theoretically be able to meet all the environmental challenges that aviation has in terms of being able to reduce carbon emissions."


Yet he sounded a cautious note over the outlook for airships.

"There's a whole number of very complex technical regulatory issues that need to be sorted out before it becomes a reality," said Butterworth-Hayes.

"You need an awful lot of money to certify an aircraft," he added.

Airlander, which is capable of taking off and landing on land or water, can stay airborne for up to five days and travel more than 7,000 kilometres at about 140 kilometres per hour.

Yet its British manufacturer estimates that its first commercial airship flights will not be until 2028.

HAV currently has 23 pre-orders for the airship, with an order book totalling more than £1.0 billion ($1.3 billion). That includes 20 lodged by Spanish regional airline Air Nostrum.

Hydrogen gas-fuelled airships could spur development in remote communities
Barry E. Prentice, Professor of Supply Chain Management, University of Manitoba 3 days ago

What do tomatoes, hemp and hydrogen gas have in common? Only one thing: they were all victims of misinformation that banned their use. Harmless products that could have had a positive role in the economy and society were shunned for generations. 

© (Piqsels) Hydrogen gas was banned for use in airships based on misinformation and outright falsehoods 100 years ago.

It seems incredible today to think that Europeans believed tomatoes were poisonous for about 200 years. People did get sick, and some died after eating tomatoes. The culprit was pewter dishes favoured by the upper classes. Tomato acid leached out enough lead out to be poisonous.

The advent of porcelain dishware and Italian pizza finally sorted out the real problem. But once a myth is born, it can be hard for the truth to emerge. Europe lagged a long time behind North America in tomato consumption.

The prohibition of hemp, the fibre of the cannabis plant, has a more nuanced story and competing explanations. Some accounts sound like conspiracy theories.

The alleged conspirators were industrialists in paper, plastics and pharmaceuticals who sought drug regulations to eliminate hemp as their competitor. This is difficult to prove, but economist George Stigler’s seminal article in 1971 on the economics of regulation lends support to the theory.

 

© (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) In this August 2019 photo, rows plants are shown at an industrial hemp farm in Michigan.

The best-documented cause of hemp’s vilification is racism. Notable racist slurs by U.S. government official Harry Anslinger, who drafted the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, leave no doubt of his bias. As commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, he targeted racialized minorities who used hemp plants.

The fear-mongering has ended in most places and important uses for hemp and cannabis are making a valuable contribution to health care, nutrition and fibre. But the stigma of the false claims continue, as does prohibition in many places.
Hydrogen ban

Unlike the prohibition on hemp, hydrogen gas bans in the United States and Canada are extremely narrow. It’s legal to use hydrogen for almost every conceivable purpose, except one: as a gas to provide buoyancy for airships, more commonly known as blimps (although there are differences between airships, blimps and dirigibles).

In fact, Canada still has a ban enshrined in its air regulations that states: “Hydrogen is not an acceptable lifting gas for use in airships.”

Canada’s ban on this use of hydrogen is strange given that Canada has never had an airship industry. The origins of the false information that led to this ban on the use of hydrogen are even more surprising.

Helium was discovered in natural gas in Kansas in 1903, and an experimental refinery was built in Texas in 1915. At great expense, a few barrage balloons were filled with helium during the First World War.

After the war, the need for helium was unclear. But officials from the U.S. Bureau of Mines wanted to protect their newly established helium refinery. They took advantage of the Roma airship accident in 1922 to sell helium to the military.

The Roma was a hydrogen-filled, Italian-built airship sold to the U.S. army. During trials, its rudder broke and the airship crashed in Norfolk, Va., hitting power lines during its descent. All 34 crew members were lost. 

 

© (National Archives) The Italian airship Roma flying over Norfolk, Va., in 1921.

Spreading a falsehood via the media that the crew would have survived had the airship had been filled with helium, the Bureau of Mines was given an audience in Washington, D.C. Before Congress, they staged a demonstration with two balloons and a burning splint.

The one filled with helium doused the burning splint. The one marked hydrogen would have put the flame out too, if it were more than 75 per cent pure, but contaminated hydrogen gas is explosive. When the burning splint touched the balloon, it went off like a cannon, rattling the windows in Congress.

Based on this poorly designed high school chemistry level experiment, U.S. politicians banned the use of hydrogen in airships.
Rubber-stamped laws

After the Second World War, when the U.S. became the dominant world air power, its regulations were rubber-stamped into the laws of other nations, including Canada. This is how Canada came to have a regulation banning hydrogen in airships that is grounded in neither science nor engineering research. The ban stems from a political decision made in a foreign country 98 years ago based on misinformation.

Hydrogen gas is increasingly heralded as the mobile energy source of the green economy. Hydrogen fuel cells are used for electric cars, buses, boats, forklifts, trains and recently a converted Piper airplane.

Read more: Hydrogen trains are coming – can they get rid of diesel for good?

It is perfectly legal to carry hydrogen in a high-pressure container to power any vehicle, including an airship, but not if carried in a zero-pressure container (gas cell) to lift the airship.

The prohibition on hydrogen has held back research and created doubts about the economic viability of airships that must depend on scarce, finite supplies of helium.

Lies and misinformation have consequences. Canada needs a transportation solution to the chronic problems of food insecurity, crowded housing and poverty in remote Indigenous communities.

Hydrogen-filled cargo airships could do for the Northern economy what the railways did for Western Canada 125 years ago. In the 21st century, myths and misrepresentations should not go unchallenged. Regulatory decisions made when we were still hand-cranking cars should either be justified or removed from the books.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Barry E. Prentice owns shares in Buoyant Aircraft Systems International (BASI), an airship research organization with no production and only one employee. He is also the president of ISO Polar, a not-for-profit think tank that encourages the use of cargo airships for northern transportation.

Airships for city hops could cut flying’s CO2 emissions by 90%

Bedford-based blimp maker unveils short-haul routes such as Liverpool-Belfast that it hopes to serve by 2025

Hybrid Air Vehicles hopes to produce 12 of its Airlander 10 airships a year by 2025, 

each capable of carrying 100 people on short-haul flights. Illustration: Hybrid Air Vehicles

Rupert Neate

@RupertNeate

Wed 26 May 2021 

For those fancying a trip from Liverpool to Belfast or Barcelona to the Balearic Islands but concerned about the carbon footprint of aeroplane travel, a small Bedford-based company is promising a surprising solution: commercial airships.

Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), which has developed a new environmentally friendly airship 84 years after the Hindenburg disaster, on Wednesday named a string of routes it hoped to serve from 2025.

The routes for the 100-passenger Airlander 10 airship include Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca in four and a half hours. The company said the journey by airship would take roughly the same time as aeroplane travel once getting to and from the airport was taken into account, but would generate a much smaller carbon footprint. HAV said the CO2 footprint per passenger on its airship would be about 4.5kg, compared with about 53kg via jet plane.

Other routes planned include Liverpool to Belfast, which would take five hours and 20 minutes; Oslo to Stockholm, in six and a half hours; and Seattle to Vancouver in just over four hours.

HAV, which has in the past attracted funding from Peter Hambro, a founder of Russian gold-miner Petropavlovsk, and Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, said its aircraft was “ideally suited to inter-city mobility applications like Liverpool to Belfast and Seattle to Vancouver, which Airlander can service with a tiny fraction of the emissions of current air options”.

Tom Grundy, HAV’s chief executive, who compares the Airlander to a “fast ferry”, said: “This isn’t a luxury product it’s a practical solution to challenges posed by the climate crisis.”

He said that 47% of regional aeroplane flights connect cities that are less than 230 miles (370km) apart, and emit a huge about of carbon dioxide doing so.

“We’ve got aircraft designed to travel very long distances going very short distances, when there is actually a better solution,” Grundy said. “How much longer will we expect to have the luxury of travelling these short distances with such a big carbon footprint?”

Grundy said the hybrid-electric Airlander 10 could make the same connections with 10% of the carbon footprint from 2025, and with even smaller emissions in the future when the airships were expected to be all-electric powered.

“It’s an early and quick win for the climate,” he said. “Especially when you use this to get over an obstacle like water or hills.”

HAV said it was in discussions with a number of airlines to operate the routes, and expected to announce partnerships and airline customers in the next few months. The company has already signed a deal to deliver an airship to luxury Swedish travel firm OceanSky Cruises, which has said it intends to use the craft to offer “experiential travel” over the North Pole with Arctic explorer Robert Swan.

Grundy said the company was in the final stages of settling on a location for its airship production line, which he hoped would be in the UK. He said the company would hire about 500 people directly involved in building the craft, and it would support a further 1,500 jobs in the supply chain. The company currently employs about 70 people, mostly in design, at its offices in Bedford. He said the company aimed to produce about 12 airships a year from 2025.

The craft was originally designed as a surveillance vehicle for intelligence missions in Afghanistan. HAV claims independent estimates put the value of the airship market at $50bn over the next 20 years. It aims to sell 265 of its Airlander craft over that period.

The £25m Airlander 10 prototype undertook six test flights, some of which ended badly. It crashed in 2016 on its second test flight, after a successful 30-minute maiden trip. HAV tweeted at the time: “Airlander sustained damage on landing during today’s flight. No damage was sustained mid-air or as a result of a telegraph pole as reported.”

The aircraft, which can take off and land from almost any flat surface, reached heights of 7,000ft (2,100m) and speeds of up to 50 knots (57mph) during its final tests. The company has had UK government backing and grants from the European Union.

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Weibo reacts to China’s ‘wandering’ balloon over U.S.: ‘Mother Nature works in mysterious ways’

“The U.S. should respect the floating freedom of the balloon,” a Weibo user wrote.

Zhao Yuanyuan Published February 3, 2023

Eyewitness image taken by Chase Doak captures what is suspected to be a Chinese spy balloon on Wednesday, February 1. EYEPRESS via Reuters Connect.

On Thursday evening, the U.S. Defense Department stated that it had been tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon as it made its way over the northern part of the country this week. The Pentagon believed it was from China and described it as an “intelligence-gathering” airship, but it decided not to shoot it down over concerns of hurting people on the ground.

In light of the revelation, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said today that he had postponed a planned high-stakes weekend trip to Beijing. Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement this morning, saying the balloon is a “civilian airship” used for research that “deviated far from its planned course” under the influence of “the westerly wind.” The statement also expressed regret that the airship strayed into the U.S., stressing that its ability to control its direction “is limited.”

On western social media sites like Twitter and Reddit, the event immediately sparked a flurry of speculation. On Twitter, multiple videos of the balloon have gone viral, generating millions of views and thousands of likes on the platform. Memes quickly surfaced. A Twitter user posted a picture of a gun pointed at the sun with the caption, “Me trying to bring down the Chinese spy balloon,” racking up 2,200 likes in less than a day. On Reddit, a user shared an image of a Yoda-shaped hot air balloon and a silo with them being labeled as the “Chinese spy balloon” and “NORAD,” the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The post has earned almost 2,000 upvotes so far.

The news is also a trending topic on Chinese social media today. On Weibo, a hashtag “Chinese unmanned airship accidentally entered U.S. airspace due to uncontrollable forces” #中国无人飞艇因不可抗力误入美国领空#, derived from China’s official explanation of the incident, has garnered over 130 million views. Many Weibo users described the airship as “the wandering balloon” (流浪气球 liúlàng qìqiú), a pun on The Wandering Earth, a 2019 Chinese sci-fi blockbuster that just saw its prequel released during the past Lunar New Year holiday.

On Weibo, opinions are split as to whether the balloon is an intelligence-collecting device sent out purposefully by the Chinese government. Some people followed the official narrative parroted by a string of state media publications including the Global Times, accusing the U.S. of making “groundless claims” and “hyping up China threat.” But most commenters were skeptical of China’s explanation, writing that with all things considered, they were hard pressed to believe that the drifting was a pure coincidence.

Below, we rounded up some reactions from both sides

 of the spectrum.

We don’t have the microchip to control the balloon. 

What could we do about it?

I’m sorry the wind was too strong.



The Lantern Festival is around the corner. 

The balloon is actually a sky lantern we sent over 

to wish Americans a happy Lantern Festival.



Who cares if Antony Blinken will come or not? 

America always bills itself as No.1 in the world 

but it got spooked by just a balloon.



An unhinged balloon broke America’s heart.



Oh damn. I thought America was lying but it turns out we were

 making an international joke.



The world is so big but the balloon just loves going to America. 

The wind is so intelligent.



Yeah of course it’s due to force majeure. You can’t go against nature.



The U.S. should respect the floating freedom of the balloon.



The unmanned airship: “The world is so big and I want to see it all.”



The airship wants to go there. Don’t ask us about it!



We’ve expressed regret. What else do you want from us?