DirigiblesReturning Airships to the Skies

Reintroducing airships into the world’s transportation-mix could contribute to lowering the transport sector’s carbon emissions and can play a role in establishing a sustainable hydrogen-based economy. According to the authors of an IIASA-led study, these lighter-than-air aircraft could ultimately increase the feasibility of a 100 percent sustainable world.

Airships were introduced in the first half of the twentieth century before conventional aircraft were used for the long-range transport of cargo and passengers. Their use in cargo and passenger transport was however quickly discontinued for a number of reasons, including the risk of a hydrogen explosion – for which the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 served as a stark case in point; their lower speed compared to that of airplanes; and the lack of reliable weather forecasts. Since then, considerable advances in material sciences, our ability to forecast the weather, and the urgent need to reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions, have steadily been bringing airships back into political, business, and scientific conversations as a possible transportation alternative.

IIASA says that the transport sector is responsible for around 25 percent of global CO₂ emissions caused by humans. Of these emissions, 3 percent come from cargo ships, but this figure is expected to increase by between 50 percent and 250 percent until 2050. These projections necessitate finding new approaches to transporting cargo with a lower demand for energy and lower CO₂ emissions. In their study published in the Springer journal Energy Conversion and Management, researchers from IIASA, Brazil, Germany, and Malaysia looked into how an airship-based industry could be developed using the jet stream as the energy medium to transport cargo around the world.

The jet stream is a core of strong winds that flows from west to east, around 8 to 12 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. According to the researchers, airships flying in the jet stream could reduce CO₂ emissions and fuel consumption, as the jet stream itself would contribute most of the energy required to move the airship between destinations, resulting in a round trip of 16 days in the northern hemisphere, and 14 days in the southern hemisphere. This is considerably less time compared to current maritime shipping routes, particularly in the southern hemisphere.