• poVoq@slrpnk.netOPM
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    2 days ago

    Kerosene in airplanes is actually significantly more dangerous. Airships with hydrogen are the only realistic option and the safety of it is only a minor engineering problem today.

    • perestroika@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      Hydrogen is a nuisance of a gas, though - it has a very wide combustible range of mixtures.

      But an airship envelope containing multiple lifting units of hydrogen could be passivated by filling the envelope with a non-combustible gas like helium.

      So, there’s a big sausage providing structure and that’s full of helium (or nitrogen, or CO2, or anything else which doesn’t react with hydrogen in normal conditions)… and it contains balloons full of hydrogen. If one of them springs a leak, the leak won’t be going into an environment that supports fire. And if the leak then proceeds into surrounding air, the hydrogen is hopefully diluted beyond its combustible range.

      Considerably less expensive than using helium only. But considerably safer than using hydrogen among air.

    • humanspiral
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      2 days ago

      SK plane crash had all deaths from fire, not impact.