Canadian Company Plans Solar-Powered Heavier-Than-Air Airships 218
savuporo writes "By crossing airships with airplanes, Solar Ship is planning to build a craft that can carry heavy loads long distances with a tiny carbon footprint. Filled with helium, they soak up rays from the sun to provide the energy for forward motion and fulfill its original design challenge – carry 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lbs) of payload 1,000 kilometers (621.4 miles). The craft is heavier than air, and uses a combination of helium filling its interior and its lifting body delta wing shape to stay airborne. Solar Ship shows plans for a range of different size craft for different duties."
In related news (Score:2)
Iran recentyl claimed to have discovered massive helium reserves:
http://www.google.com/search?q=iran+helium+reserve&site=universal&tbs=cdr%3A1&cd_min=9%2F1%2F2011&cd_max= [google.com]
Allegedly the estimate is 10 billion cubic meters. That was in September, but there's still no mention in major Western media.
Re:In related news (Score:2)
What limits the range? (Score:2)
If the aircraft needs no fuel to stay aloft what is placing the limit on the range? At some point it would have to come down of course but why couldn't it stay up for 10,000 km instead of just 1000 km?
Lifting body aircraft with lighter than air gas to assist in lift has been tried before unsuccessfully. This is different in using solar power to drive the engines. With the low density in solar power I find it difficult to believe solar power is enough to keep the aircraft aloft. Perhaps that is where the range limitation comes in, there is only enough battery power + solar power to stay airborne for 1000 km.
Given the current technology in batteries and photovoltaic panels I'm tending to believe that a coal burning steam engine makes about as much sense in aircraft. I'll have to do the math but the power to weight ratios might just be comparable. I'll guess the coal burning would not go over very well with the global warming crowd. Perhaps a steam engine that burns wood, hemp, switchgrass, sugar beets, or some other biomass would be more acceptable and still keep the power to weight ratio within the same ball park as an electric battery pack.
I'm pleased to see technology like this getting some attention. I think that airships will make a comeback as energy prices rise and material science improves. I'm just a bit of a skeptic when it comes to solar power.
Re:What limits the range? (Score:2)
I'm assuming that the range is based on how far the airship can travel before the sun goes down, assuming it launches in the morning. For the hybrid versions, I imagine it's a combination of day travel and fuel capacity. For instance at 60km/h, the Caracal has a 500km range. That means about 8.3 hours of flight time, which is reasonable considering some days may be cloudy.
Re:What limits the range? (Score:2)
Perhaps it can only travel 1000km in a day? If you are looking at a 10 hour day, that would be a speed of 100km/h.
Photovoltaics are much lighter than you seem to think, many solar powered aircraft have been built. And a helium filled flying wing would have plenty of room for them.
Re:What limits the range? (Score:2)
Re:What limits the range? (Score:2)
It's been done several times successfully, at least from an engineering standpoint. The problem with airships is more financial than technical.
Re:What limits the range? (Score:2)
My guess is that helium containment is hard for balloons and the limited range is caused by helium loss?
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-265008.html [rcgroups.com]
Helium atom's are very small giving them a diffusion rate through solids that's 3x that of air.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium [wikipedia.org]
The other factor is, all helium we currently have is produced through alpha particle emissions due to radioactive decay. This is a non-renewable and finite resource that if exploited would run out long before we cooked ourselves in a carbonated atmosphere.
Tiny carbon footprint indeed, but possibly still wasteful. Once the helium escapes the balloon it floats up to the upper atmosphere and escapes into space via some method I'm forgetting. Never to be used again. The same thing applies to your birthday balloons but nobody is particularly worried about those unless you try to lift your house with them.
Re:What limits the range? (Score:2)
Or compress the gas (using lots of energy) into storage containers...
Cheap return trip (Score:2)
Re:Cheap return trip (Score:2)
The Deltoid Pumkin Seed (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.johnmcphee.com/deltoid.htm [johnmcphee.com]
these guys have an actual working prototype (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.hybridairvehicles.com/ [hybridairvehicles.com]
The US military is buying half a billion dollars worth of kit from them... Or rather through Northrop Grumman.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/video-northrop-grumman-wins-race-to-revive-hybrid-airships-with-517-million-order-343259/ [flightglobal.com]
Re:these guys have an actual working prototype (Score:2)
The US military is buying half a billion dollars worth of kit from them... Or rather through Northrop Grumman.
So that would be $500k's worth if bought direct?
Just (Score:2)
Just clone Al Gore.
There's your inexhaustible supply of hot air right there.
Hot air (Score:2)
Would it possible to build something like this held up by the buoyancy of hot air rather than helium?
With the right kind of insulating materials in the envelope, heat loss could be controlled. There might also be a way of using solar power to heat the air.
Re:Hot air (Score:2)
Paint it black ?
Re:Hot air (Score:2)
Would it possible to build something like this held up by the buoyancy of hot air rather than helium?
Depends on how far you're willing to stretch "like this"
http://www.solar-balloons.com/ [solar-balloons.com]
wait (Score:2)
A stupid concept... (Score:5, Interesting)
The difficulties with a solar powered helium dirigible are manifold and have already been pointed out -- finite supply of helium, helium needed for kids' balloons and (eventually, perhaps) as thermonuclear fuel (at which time we'll kick ourselves for wasting it for decades in kids' balloons), absolutely impossible to keep sun-warmed helium inside any sort of bag. Weather and wind make the transportation dangerous or impossible (given the wimpy peak power likely to be available to move the bag -- probably inadequate to overcome even a very modest headwind). The danger of 1000 kg loads being dropped on people's heads if weather conditions exceed the limited capacity of robot brains to solve weather problems and the lifter breaks up, pops, catastrophically fails.
It isn't quite inconceivable that one could build a solar-solar system -- a solar balloon for lift, solar power for "thrust" -- although again I think that the force of wind pressure instantly will exceed the peak thrust of any onboard solar system on even a very sunny, nearly still day. To lift a metric ton you'll need a rather large balloon, so very small overpressure on the upwind side will exert a huge force downwind. And you'll still have the problems with weather, with the fact that the sun doesn't shine at night and you can't carry batteries or the whole design becomes laughably impossible, not marginally feasible (either one, Helium or hot air).
But rail? Piece of cake. Hell, you could probably deliver a steady stream of pickup truck sized loads driven by solar collectors along the roadway -- 70-100 watts per square meter of collector, plenty of room for 1000 watts per meter of actual track along the 1000 km route. In fact, the track (with a mere 12 meter wide roadway, 2 meters of which is track and vehicle) will generate anywhere from 100s of megawatts to a gigawatt of power on any reasonably sunny day. Assuming 10 kW per metric ton to move payload at 100 km/hour or better, one can move anywhere from a minimum of 10,000 metric tons up to a maximum of 100,000 metric tons per 10 hours of useable daylight day, for the amortized capital cost of the solar powered roadway. (Don't whack the math too much, these are all estimates and YMMV). The cost of the solar electrification is currently a bit over $1/watt, installation and collection will double that. Call it a $5 billion project (the cost of a couple of weeks in Iraq), build it on an existing rail corridor between (say) Detroit and Chicago square in the heart of the industrial heartland. If one charges $10/ton for transport (pretty cheap, one would think) it grosses close to $1 million/day running the rail at capacity, $300 million a year, payback of the initial investment in 15-20 years.
As is so frequently the case in solar projects, this is maddeningly close but not quite a cigar. For a billion dollar investment it would be a no brainer -- payback in 3 years (more likely 5 with operating costs), pure profit thereafter. For 2 or 3 billion dollars it is attractive -- an effective yield of maybe 5-10% on investment in the long run. For 5 it is right down there at 1-3% yield, implying a fairly long period to wait for a not-too-large ROI, plenty of risk. Drop the cost of solar cells by one more factor of two and it will happen all by itself. Drop it by a factor of four or more, which is entirely plausible given sufficient volume in the market (and this project alone would consume
Funny how we're all experts isn't it. (Score:3)
Sorry but your comments show a fair amount of ignorance of the country where this aircraft would operate, and the reasons why it is even being thought of. It's too bad that you spent so much time looking up numbers like ROI that simply don't apply here.
To build a solar-powered railway as you put it, that would reach the places in Canada that such an aircraft of this type would reach, would cost many billions of dollars more than the development of this aircraft would. Even worse, you cannot actually build a railway to these destinations. Think about huge diamond mines in the middle of the tundra. Or remote arctic communities. If we could have roads and railways to these places, don't you think they would already exist? We're talking thousands and thousands of miles of tundra and wilderness that would have to be crossed. Have you watched ice road truckers? You can't build a road on tundra. Nor could you lay track. Right now the only way in or out of these places to which this aircraft would go is by aircraft in the summer, and if it's possible to reach in the winter, by snow mobile, dogsled, or crazy ice road trucks.
This airship concept has been under study for quite a number of years. It may not turn out to be feasible. But if it is, it will be a boon to Canadian citizens living in these remote places, and to the many companies who mine natural resources in the far north.
Re:A stupid concept... (Score:3)
I think you're not accounting for a lot of important factors in the cost.
Even without accounting for the new technology, such a rail system would realistically cost in the tens of billions. Consider the San Fransisco-Anaheim segment of the California High-Speed Rail project, which was initially estimated to cost around $42.6 billion. It covers a bit less than twice the distance between Chicago and Detroit, so even a more conventional Chicago-Detroit railroad would probably cost a good percentage of that, not $5 billion.
When it comes to the solar portion, keep in mind that the efficiency will be poorer than the best case. Between the relatively poor siting and the lack of features available in a dedicated solar plant (ex. concentrators), the solar panels will not perform at their maximum. You also have a possible issue with the passing trains blocking the sunlight on one side for the solar panels. Lastly, for this particular rail line there essentially won't be any solar energy available during the winter months and clearing snow off the panels will be an issue. Plus, Illinois has an average of 51 thunderstorms a year, so that's a lot of rainy days too. This might be a better idea in a drier, sunnier climate.
Another big issue has to do with uncertainty. Sure, the payloads will eventually get to the other side, but there's no guarantee that it will get there in a timely fashion. You could be having bad weather anywhere along the line, which would strand trains there until the weather cleared up. If you add non-trivial energy storage or transmission to alleviate this problem, expect the up-front costs to increase even further. Also, even in the best case, the train line would still have to reduce capacity or shut down anytime there was not enough energy available overall.
I wonder how this idea would compare to other possibilities: situating the solar plants in a centralized plant (in Arizona for instance) and transmitting the power to the track, using solar power to charge an electric train at the station, turning the solar energy into a different form (like hydrogen, ethanol, or diesel) and feeding it to a train powered by that source, etc.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't use up the helium though .. once it's filled it's full.
Second.. from Wikipedia "In 1996, the U.S. had proven helium reserves, in such gas well complexes, of about 147 billion standard cubic feet (4.2 billion SCM).[80] At rates of use at that time (72 million SCM per year in the U.S.; see pie chart below) this is enough helium for about 58 years of U.S. use, and less than this (perhaps 80% of the time) at world use rates, although factors in saving and processing impact effective reserve numbers. It is estimated that the resource base for yet-unproven helium in natural gas in the U.S. is 31–53 trillion SCM, about 1000 times the proven reserves."
Even if they are wrong by a factor of ten that still gives us a few centuries of helium left .. by which time hopefully we'd be either creating helium via nuclear fusion power plants or able to bring back abundant quantities from Jupiter.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
It doesn't use up the helium though .. once it's filled it's full.
Yeah, I kept those party balloons I got at my 15th birthday, I reuse them every year and they're doing great...
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:5, Informative)
The interesting thing is that, if they are mylar (or 'foil') balloons, you could do just that. It is the latex, and most plastics like polythene, that leak helium.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Mylar party balloons will typically only hold enough helium long enough to float for a couple of days.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
It doesn't leak out through the mylar though, it leaks out through the cheap-ass seams and the badly tied knot at the bottom.
If you get a good one they can float for months (I had one that did...)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:4, Insightful)
But the same problems would face the designers of a large airship. The helium may not leak through the skin itself, but it will be challenging to keep all the seams tight enough to prevent leakage. Also, after a while, microscopic cracks could develop due to flexing and bending in the wind.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Why ? Even if the helium is going to run out, we could still waste it for a few more decades.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:4, Informative)
Actually the helium shortage is strictly a manufactured shortage, created by the US Government when they (principally the Navy) decided blimps were not its platform of choice. The Government decided to dump its huge reserve of helium at submarket prices, and as such nobody bothers to extract helium from all the natural sources where is has historically been obtained.
Government passed a law shutting down the helium reserve. The law stipulates that the US National Helium Reserve, which is kept in a disused underground gas field near Amarillo, Texas – by far the biggest store of helium in the world – must all be sold off by 2015, irrespective of the market price.
There could still be as much helium produced today as ever, were it not for cheap government surplus sales, as it is, nobody bothers to extract it.
See article here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-the-world-is-running-out-of-helium-2059357.html [independent.co.uk]
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
don't need thick just dense. just line the helium tank with a lead or gold foil.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
As long as we're in fantasy land, why not get it from the Sun ? It's a lot closer.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
The ship is heavier than air, helium isn't. And because of it's small size, helium can escape through the tiniest leaks. Most likely, the airship will require regular helium refills. Once helium is in the atmosphere, it's too hard to purify, and it will also leak into space.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:5, Funny)
But since it is a lot hotter in that direction, all those missions to the sun would have to be done at night.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
As long as we're in fantasy land, why not get it from the Sun ? It's a lot closer.
I was going to say because of the gravity well - it is much harder to lift things from the Sun's deeper well.
But then I remembered we were talking about helium, so you can just float it up. Getting it down to ground level from earth orbit is the hard part.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
It was the "Helium Privatization Act of 1996", which would have been passed by the Republican congress at the time and signed by Clinton:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve [wikipedia.org]
It usually only takes a moment to verify something you "just heard", and it really helps to avoid the echo box effect.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
They could fill it with hydrogen.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh the humanity...
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Cargo is what they're proposing, yes, and given the number of containers that fall off ships every year I suspect the risks of using hydrogen would be *less* than sending it by sea.
Building airships sounds a lot cheaper than building container ships, too. Those things are expensive.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Oh the humanity...
The Hindenburg "disaster" to which you allude only killed 36% of the aircraft's occupants. To me, that seems a pretty good survival rate, given that a 747 hitting any obstacle very rarely results in a mortality rate of less than 100%.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
I thought this, too. Surely we're at the point (technology-wise) where hydrogen is viable for airships.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3)
IIRC, hydrogen is more buoyant than helium.
Hydrogen is half as dense as helium. Trouble is, the number that counts is the difference in density between the lifting gas and the surrounding gas. Run the numbers, and you'll find a hydrogen-filled balloon will lift about 5% more than a helium-filled one.
rj
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Right after I posted that I remembered about things called 'parachutes'. Surely a modern passenger airship could be fitted with a parachute system which triggers if fire is detected so you float gently to the ground.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:3, Interesting)
Shoot. Prior art from the 1600s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship [wikipedia.org]
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
His patent application was eventually denied on the basis that it was "wholly theoretical, everything being based upon calculation and nothing upon trial or demonstration."
If only the patent office still thought this way, maybe we could do something about the patent trolls (at least the ones who generate their own patents, the ones who buy others patents already granted wouldn't be affected).
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:4, Interesting)
Short answer: no.
Longer answer:
It's very difficult to achieve a vacuum in the first place. If there is even the slightest leak the air will be rushing in with the force of a one atmosphere pressure difference. With a lighter than air gas the pressure difference is quite low and any leak can be handled with a periodic "topping off" to keep out the air. Even if we had the technology to produce a "vacuum ship" it would not likely be cost effective since the lift gained by a pure vacuum is very small compared to that of helium or hydrogen gas.
An envelope that held a vacuum for lift would be under considerable forces. There is the force of holding back the outside air. There is the force of the gondola which carries the cargo. There would be wind, birds, stupid rednecks shooting at it, among other things that would try to punch holes in it or rip it up. It's just not practical.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
It would be roughly equivalent to a submarine at 10m, right? That said, building the pressure hull of a submarine isn't cheap. Of course, a sub can take 10 or more atms, not just 1.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
More importantly, water has a much higher density than air (10 meters of water give the same pressure as the whole atmosphere!) and therefore gives a much larger lift. Which means much heavier constructions still get sufficient lift to swim.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
OK, I'll do the engineering then.
10L of air (the inside of a SCUBA tank) weights 12g. A SCUBA tank can hold 400 atm, and weighs about 15kg (note, this is generous). Everything involving pressure tanks scales linearly, so you could have a 10L tank holding 1 atm and weighing 37 grams, displacing 12 grams of air, for a net of -25 grams of lift.
So you need materials about 3 times the strength/weight of good SCUBA gear, preferably 6 times (so you can actually get a noticeable amount of lift). That's assuming there's no challenges in manufacturing much thinner but much lighter tanks. Oh, and that buckling won't be an issue (since we've moved from tension to compression) - that can be solved my making really small tanks, but then you are trying to make the walls very very thin.
You're right - it wouldn't be easy.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
And most submarines are too heavy to float in the air.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
"It's very difficult to achieve a vacuum in the first place"
Maybe that Dyson guy can have a go at it, he seems pretty good at designing vacuums
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:5, Informative)
I would love to know this. My physics isn't great, but I did a quick Google.
It looks like the consensus is that it is not possible, those materials do not exist.
The other thing is that is would not make much difference than using helium:
Density of air is 1.2 kg/m3 [wolframalpha.com].
The density of helium is 0.166 kg/m3 [wolframalpha.com].
If we had a balloon filled with air, and replaced it with helium, the density reduces to 14% [wolframalpha.com]. This means that that much helium could support 86% of the weight of the air. A vacuum's density is 0, so it was possible it would support the weight of 100% of the air it 'displaced'. So a perfect vacuum is only 16% [slashdot.org] better at lifting (in air) than helium is.
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
The short answer is no. At one atmosphere of pressure, any structure would either be too heavy or be easily crushed.
An interesting question to the geek community... maybe crunch some numbers... Is a vacuum sphere that only operates at extremely high altitudes and low pressures feasible?
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
Re:A bit short sighted (Score:2)
A flying submarine? ;) You know they are design to withstand several atmospheres of pressure.
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
Well, there's always hydrogen as a plentiful alternative... it's not quite clear whether these craft are intended to be manned or unmanned, but if it's the latter, then the safety issues inherent with hydrogen might be less of a problem.
(and I, for one, welcome our new solar-powered FedEx Air robot deliverymen!)
Re:Helium? (Score:3)
Airships with hydrogen could easily be made as safe as modern airliners. However airlines are just that much faster, fly higher and are much less sensitive to weather and wind in particular. I don't see airships coming back any time soon. Even without the perceived dangers from hydrogen or a unlimited supply of helium.
As for a reduced CO2 footprint. Give people the one day trip option at the same price as the 2 hour option will not be enough (TSA are used in both). People care on a forum, not with real time or money. For cargo I can't see this beating rail or ships either with cost or CO2 footprint.
Re:Helium? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two places where airships have an advantage over jets:
The first is carrying a lot of cargo that isn't particularly urgent. Modern designs can go at about 80 miles per hour, which competes well with any form of ground transport - even trains once you remember that they can go in a straight line - and they can do this all day, and this adds up to quite long distances.
The second is tourist travel. Think of an airship like a cruise ship that can go over land. Quite often, being able to see the scenery moving slowly by is a selling point.
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
This is a common misconception. A hydrogen airship that catches fire does not go 'pop'. In fact, the most likely scenario (assuming a properly constructed airship) is a safe emergency landing where everybody walks away unharmed.
The pure oxygen inside an airship cannot burn or explode. It must be mixed with oxygen first. Hence any burning will take place on the outside of a leak. Hydrogen is lighter than air, so a hydrogen flame is mostly vertical. It is also nearly invisible, which also means it does not radiate much heat. Hence it takes a long time for a fire to spread to neighboring segments.
Even the Hindenburg, which had several construction flaws, allowed most of the passengers and crew to get off alive. A modern airship would not be covered in extremely flammable cellulose nitrate.
Re:Helium? (Score:3)
A modern airship would not be covered in extremely flammable cellulose nitrate.
Exactly. If you look at the newsreel of the Hindenburg disaster, you can see it obviously on fire. Hydrogen does not burn like that. It explodes. Small hydrogen leaks can even act as fire suppressants, because the explosion blows out nearby fires (and makes a loud pop). Getting a steady flame from hydrogen is really hard, as anyone who has destroyed glass equipment in a chemistry lab trying knows.
I'd have thought hydrogen made more sense for a solar powered airship, because you can top it up easily by electrolysing sea water. Helium gives less lift, is more expensive, harder to obtain, and not really much safer. If the hydrogen balloon is not surrounded by anything inflammable, then even a big leak will just cause the hydrogen to escape (quickly, upwards) and cause the airship to coast towards the ground.
Roads (Score:3)
Note that this is a Canadian company.
There are lots of places in Canada that have no roads or very poor quality roads. The same can be said of a number of other places around the world.
If you are moving a thousand trucks a day it is probably worth it to build a thousand miles of road to accommodate them. If you are moving the equivalent of one truck every three days to a camp that changes location every three years, it is probably NOT worth it, and a cargo airship may well be the most cost-efficient choice.
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
I'm sure we wouldn't want our mail disappearing in a high-pitched 'pop'! And I wouldn't really want to be under the large containers as they crash down to earth.
There's actually an invention called a 'parchute'...
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
When helium is "lost" it gets back in the atmosphere, and then it theoretically could be get back by liquefiing air.
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
When helium is "lost" it gets back in the atmosphere, and then it theoretically could be get back by liquefiing air.
Well, not really, when helium is lost it gets back into the atmosphere, and then since it's lighter than the other gasses in the atmosphere it drifts off into space...
Re:Helium? (Score:2)
Its possible to make helium out of heavy hydrogen, and you can get a lot of energy in the process. Stars have been doing this for umpteen billion years.
Getting a sustainable reaction here on earth has so far not been achieved, but it will be done in a few decades or so.
Re:Seems like this would work better if it were bi (Score:2)
there's a 30 ton model...should be enough for the truck replacement problem.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe that some helium /does/, in fact, escape the Earth, because it's so light that it can break free of the gravitational field. (At least, I believe that that's the principle in play.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
I don't think this is a significant effect on Earth, there might be more helium coming in from solar wind than escaping.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
Wikipedia says that if all of the world's air distillation plants were retooled to capture helium, they would supply about 1% of global demand. Helium is going to get a lot more expensive.
Who gives a shit. If you really think it will be expensive just buy out all the supplies now and reap instant profits. What? No one is doing it? Wonder why ...
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:3)
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
Because people think quarters, not decades.
Chinese think long term. They dont stock on Helium.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
You mean they aren't telling you.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
Actually, no. Helium is light enough that it escapes the atmosphere entirely when not contained. It's gone forever. There's still quite a bit left - you find it in natural gas in the southern US, and other places, and we still have trillions of cubic meters of helium-bearing (to some extent) natural gas. But when it's gone, it really is gone. That will be something of a catastrophe, since helium has all sorts of industrial uses (like welding) for which we will not find an easy substitute.
Airships we can fill with hydrogen, at least the unmanned ones.
You can make hydrocarbon fuels if you have energy. In theory we could build a whole bunch of nuclear power plants and manufacture fuel from the air, essentially reversing the process of burning it.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
.... if we on slashdot had enough Verbs it would be possible in theory....
and with capitalization sentence structure grammar punctuation in out of reach - NOT possible!
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:4, Informative)
In fact helium, once lost to the atmosphere, is irrecoverable in any useful quantity. The only way we can get more is to filter it out of natural gas trapped underground. Helium could therefore be considered a petroleum byproduct.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Helium is the least reactive noble gas, and much lighter than air. Common sense says that it will rapidly leave our atmosphere. I dont remember the exact details (I had this brought up in a class once), but it was some combination of the ascending helium reaching escape velocity and solar wind peeling off anything that might try to settle in a super high orbit. The impending heium shortage is a well known problem, and a significant part of the reason I get an overwhelming urge to punch clowns in the face every time I see them handing out balloons.
And frankly, almost every alternative energy solution has serious if not fundamental flaws. If they didn't, we would already have been using them. Seriously, this "you're all just pessimists who work for oil companies and kick puppies" crap is getting old. Going off half cocked with some doe-eyed fantasy of a technotopian future filled with helium blimps and solar farms the size of small nations isn't going to fix anything. It took a hundred years and a lot of ignorance to get stuck in this energy policy quagmire, and logic dictates it will take twice that amount of time to get back out. You dont extract yourself from quicksand by thrashing about in a panic.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
And frankly, almost every alternative energy solution has serious if not fundamental flaws. If they didn't, we would already have been using them.
Really? So when the Wright brothers got their rickety and ridiculous bundle of sticks airborne, you'd have scoffed at the notion of intercontinental jets routinely ferrying hundreds of people, would you? Because, if it was going to work, it would already exist, right?
Look up Desertec for your further edification.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
And when that time comes, well, we'd damn well better have the techontopian future you're talking about or the problem is going to solve itself, likely in a very unpleasant way (starvation, war etc). We don't have a choice - no matter how inferior the renewable energy sources seem compared to fossil fuels, they're our only hope in the long run. The faster we can make the transition, the better.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
Actually we can make a pretty much infinite supply of oil and therefore gas. The problem is that making gas from alternative oil sources is not as efficient or economical especially with cars in use today.
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
Re:is there a helium shortage? (Score:2)
Re:hmmm (Score:2)
Re:Thanks for that extra .4 miles (Score:2)
Well, at least he used significant digits.
Re:Just what the world needs... (Score:2)
Re:Just what the world needs... (Score:2)
Um, no. None of those things are bullshit.