Ballooning hopes.
Companies are betting that diesel-powered zeppelins will be part of the next wave of innovative air travel that will be remarkably safer and greener than Hindenburg-era balloons, according to a report.
Eco-friendly airships are being brought to market by several start-ups, which believe that the newfangled zeppelins could satisfy a market niche of tourism and cargo shipping, the Washington Post reported.
Companies LTA Research, which is backed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin; FLYING WHALES, which is backed by the French government, and Hybrid Air Vehicles are designing the ships to replace the old aluminum, copper and wood with carbon fiber and titanium.
LTA Research has begun testing zeppelin-esque aircraft Pathfinder 1 — which is a rigid airship that made its first untethered outdoor flight at NASA’s Moffett Field in California just last year, the BBC reported.
Hybrid Air Vehicles is aiming to build two dozen ships at a British factory by 2030 that will focus on carrying cargo and tourists, WaPo reported.
French-backed venture FLYING WHALES will aim at building a factory in Quebec by 2027 and start business operations by 2029, the report stated.
Advocates say the use of zeppelins will cut down on carbon emissions as they consume only a few gallons of diesel fuel per hour in combination with electric battery power — contrasted to jet engines in commercial airplanes that burn thousands of gallons of kerosene per hour, WaPo reported.
Yet, fire-wary engineers have designed the ships to float using nonrenewable, nonflammable helium instead of hydrogen, which some critics suggest deflates the eco-friendly stance of the projects, according to the outlet.
Skeptics, including zep-expert John J. Geoghegan, author of “When Giants Ruled the Sky,” don’t believe in the viability of this new push.
“The next generation of airships today are quite effective at reducing carbon emissions. The question is whether the market will support enough of them for them to make a significant contribution to reducing climate change,” Geoghegan told the outlet.
Other balloon poppers point to economic constraints, as the technology relies on nonflammable helium, which faces regular shortages and price hikes due to it being a scarce and nonrenewable resource.
But zeppelin developers seem to think the float-substance change is necessary to hedge against concerns over the explosion of the Hindenburg, which came down in a fiery crash in 1937.
