Will this be tomorrow's transportation?

[MossRoad]

I think developments in lighter than air heavy lift has potential for long distance shipping in the future. Instead of venting helium in order to reduce bouyancy the helium is compressed, so issues with the ship being hard to manage on the ground are alleviated. Imagine shipping a container of your household goods cross country in a container while you relax in a stateroom. The ship could make stops, dropping off a tractor to a farmer and picking a container of produce. Emergency supplies, even portable MASH units could be delivered to disaster areas while serious cases could be medivaced out by the same ship. NY to LA could theoretically be done in 56 hours carrying 150 tons.

Blimps and other lighter than air craft have some major issues. One being they aren't real good in a headwind. Another being they can't fly all that high. I can't imagine a blimp flying into thunderstorms and they are too slow to fly around them. They also take a tremendous support crew and lots of preventative maintenance.

As for disaster support.... have you ever seen them try to control a blimp at ground level in the wind, let alone dock a blimp to a mooring post in the wind? Holy #$%!. If the thing is 200' long, it needs at least double that to swing around the post. And way more than double that for approach and take-off.

I just don't see them being all that cost-effective or efficient for those uses.

 

[vvanders]

Tesla is a stupid joke who takes money from fools with liberal arts degrees who don't know diddly squat about science or engineering. Any high school science student can tell you that the tooth fairy doesn't put the electricity in the socket to charge those idiotic things so all they end up doing is burning coal in the most inefficient manner possible. Only if and when they find a decent way to power the grid can those things make any sense at all. Till then they are the biggest environmental and economic disasters on the roads today. The gas guzzlers from the 50s and 60s are more environmentally friendly than Tesla's so called clean cars. The same jerks who pay Tesla those subsidies to exist are the same idiots who brought us the Solyndra debacle.

Shoot, why didn't anyone tell me, I want my free liberal arts degree now!

I think one thing important thing that hasn't been considered is reducing our dependency on foreign energy sources. The electric car is perfectly suited for this since you can drive generation from solar, natural gas(which is much cleaner than coal and currently transforming the energy generation industry), etc. Heck, I know more than a few people who run their electric cars 100% from the solar panels on their roof.

In my mind Tesla could be the modern American muscle car. You have a car designed in America, built in the US and growing the number of manufacturing jobs domestically. It's a company that has entered in incredibly difficult market and yet now builds one of the fastest production cars in the world. How can you not love a car that can put down over 1,000hp and is also a great family car(seriously they're incredibly roomy). Yes they had help from the government, but what industry hasn't? All of the things they used were available to other companies and today the ZEV credits/etc make a pretty small portion of Tesla's overall profits.

Sure, battery prices are high now but what many people don't consider is that batteries are a technology, not a resource. When economies of scale kick in they get orders of magnitude cheaper rather than more expensive due to scarcity. Just look at the price of HDTVs over the last 5 years. All of the physical components are readily available, it's the precise manufacturing process that's expensive. Just like the chip in your modern computer starts out as sand just(silicon) same with Li-Ion batteries.

To me they're a marvel of American thinking and engineering. I think that's something we could use more of these days, I'd much rather take that then companies that are moving production out of the US.

 

[JamesHW]

Blimps and other lighter than air craft have some major issues. One being they aren't real good in a headwind. Another being they can't fly all that high. I can't imagine a blimp flying into thunderstorms and they are too slow to fly around them. They also take a tremendous support crew and lots of preventative maintenance.

As for disaster support.... have you ever seen them try to control a blimp at ground level in the wind, let alone dock a blimp to a mooring post in the wind? Holy #$%!. If the thing is 200' long, it needs at least double that to swing around the post. And way more than double that for approach and take-off.

I just don't see them being all that cost-effective or efficient for those uses.

One of the new developments of compressing helium is that mooring masts become a thing of the past, basically the Aerostat becomes very heavy (especially with cargo) and can simply lay on the ground. These are not your daddy's Zeppelin. Here is a brief article on the technology: http://http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aerospace/2013-06-19/aerostats-could-make-heavy-cargo-fly

 

[Egon]

Our problem with hydrogen as an energy source is that its a disruptive technology. All of our current delivery mechanisms for energy rely on it being in a liquid pumpable state. To switch to hydrogen is going to take major capital investments in infrastructure. Ultimately, its cleaner, but its till not a grand leap away form combustion.

Infrastructure is important. At first there were not very many gas stations either. Hydrogen making plants could also come into play for peak power production times or even work solely off green energy.

 

[Egon]

One of the new developments of compressing helium is that mooring masts become a thing of the past, basically the Aerostat becomes very heavy (especially with cargo) and can simply lay on the ground. These are not your daddy's Zeppelin. Here is a brief article on the technology: http://http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aerospace/2013-06-19/aerostats-could-make-heavy-cargo-fly

Many years ago there was mention of developing blimps for freighters in areas such as northern Canada with no airfield or roads. The idea seemed to drop by the wayside at that time.

 

[STx]

Shoot, why didn't anyone tell me, I want my free liberal arts degree now!

I think one thing important thing that hasn't been considered is reducing our dependency on foreign energy sources. The electric car is perfectly suited for this since you can drive generation from solar, natural gas(which is much cleaner than coal and currently transforming the energy generation industry), etc. Heck, I know more than a few people who run their electric cars 100% from the solar panels on their roof.

In my mind Tesla could be the modern American muscle car. You have a car designed in America, built in the US and growing the number of manufacturing jobs domestically. It's a company that has entered in incredibly difficult market and yet now builds one of the fastest production cars in the world. How can you not love a car that can put down over 1,000hp and is also a great family car(seriously they're incredibly roomy). Yes they had help from the government, but what industry hasn't? All of the things they used were available to other companies and today the ZEV credits/etc make a pretty small portion of Tesla's overall profits.

Sure, battery prices are high now but what many people don't consider is that batteries are a technology, not a resource. When economies of scale kick in they get orders of magnitude cheaper rather than more expensive due to scarcity. Just look at the price of HDTVs over the last 5 years. All of the physical components are readily available, it's the precise manufacturing process that's expensive. Just like the chip in your modern computer starts out as sand just(silicon) same with Li-Ion batteries.

To me they're a marvel of American thinking and engineering. I think that's something we could use more of these days, I'd much rather take that then companies that are moving production out of the US.

We already produce enough oil in the US to not need foreign sources anymore and have a lot more available that isn't currently cost effective to produce. The primary reason we import oil isn't that we don't have enough, it's that our refineries are setup to refine their heavier crude. EPA and other government regulations make it cheaper to continue to import and refine that oil than it would be to refit the refineries for US produced oil. Eliminate the government involvement, or at least make it more reasonable, and that would probably change.

Fuel cells are the future, this battery powered electric vehicle thing is just a middle step. Limited range with a long recharge period isn't going to be acceptable.

 

[jerrybob]

Blimps and other lighter than air craft have some major issues. One being they aren't real good in a headwind. Another being they can't fly all that high. I can't imagine a blimp flying into thunderstorms and they are too slow to fly around them. They also take a tremendous support crew and lots of preventative maintenance.

As for disaster support.... have you ever seen them try to control a blimp at ground level in the wind, let alone dock a blimp to a mooring post in the wind? Holy #$%!. If the thing is 200' long, it needs at least double that to swing around the post. And way more than double that for approach and take-off.

I just don't see them being all that cost-effective or efficient for those uses.

Had a chance to ride in the Goodyear blimp a few years back.......went all over LA and flew over the Rose Bowl two days before the game......beautiful on a calm day. You are right......takes a big landing area and a big crew.

 

[houstonscott]

Will the transporting industry be converted? The technology seems to look Good. Video Link: https://electrek.co/2016/07/20/tesla-semi-truck-business-cargo/

No one wants an electric truck that will use 5 gallons of fuel to charge it to move one mile. No thanks. HS

 

[dickfoster]

Infrastructure is important. At first there were not very many gas stations either. Hydrogen making plants could also come into play for peak power production times or even work solely off green energy.

Currently the source for hydrogen is the oil pump so it's no answer until you can somehow produce hydrogen with a grid powered with cheap, clean and avaliable energy and produce hydrogen with electrolysis. I know of only one technology that has any promise for a near term solution today. It is not solar nor is it wind and it is not nuclear as we know it today.

 

[dickfoster]

Shoot, why didn't anyone tell me, I want my free liberal arts degree now!

I think one thing important thing that hasn't been considered is reducing our dependency on foreign energy sources. The electric car is perfectly suited for this since you can drive generation from solar, natural gas(which is much cleaner than coal and currently transforming the energy generation industry), etc. Heck, I know more than a few people who run their electric cars 100% from the solar panels on their roof.

In my mind Tesla could be the modern American muscle car. You have a car designed in America, built in the US and growing the number of manufacturing jobs domestically. It's a company that has entered in incredibly difficult market and yet now builds one of the fastest production cars in the world. How can you not love a car that can put down over 1,000hp and is also a great family car(seriously they're incredibly roomy). Yes they had help from the government, but what industry hasn't? All of the things they used were available to other companies and today the ZEV credits/etc make a pretty small portion of Tesla's overall profits.

Sure, battery prices are high now but what many people don't consider is that batteries are a technology, not a resource. When economies of scale kick in they get orders of magnitude cheaper rather than more expensive due to scarcity. Just look at the price of HDTVs over the last 5 years. All of the physical components are readily available, it's the precise manufacturing process that's expensive. Just like the chip in your modern computer starts out as sand just(silicon) same with Li-Ion batteries.

To me they're a marvel of American thinking and engineering. I think that's something we could use more of these days, I'd much rather take that then companies that are moving production out of the US.

You might want to look into where most of the lithium is mined. Here's a clue, it ain't here.