Hey y'all,
If this NG is running out of steam, it's because we need some fresh
Hydrogen to oxidize. (It's distasteful to see our potential squandered
in a feeding frenzy over some stale overstatement.) Try this: On an Aerostat searching/surfing spree lately I spotted a ref on an Airship
site, that some British airships had routinely burned Hydrogen right out
of their balloonets to supplement their regular fuel. This supplement worked
out to be (by the report) an appreciable cost savings, but that's not the
issue. (Since fuel production and marketing are so fundamental to the basis
of an industrial economy, fuel price structures are _always_ artificial; thus comparative energy cost studies can _never_ produce objective results.) To burn your own lifting gas for fuel smacks of auto cannibalism.
Yet a quite conceivable ship design would be a dirigible, driven by engines
fueled by liquid Hydrogen. These same tanks would provide a resource to
ensure that the H2 balloonets stayed fat and happy, enclosed within an
envelope structure flooded with Helium (to isolate the reducing lifting
gas from the oxidizing ambient air outside the envelope.) A combination of
functions does tend to save weight and mechanical complexity. Thus the
cryogenics assemblies are put to dual use, in the aerostatic buoyancy control
subsystem as well as the fuel subsystem. This fuel is used to provide all
the ship's electrical power, in addition to driving the engines.
This illustration, I suppose to demonstrate quite feasibly one scenario,
wherein the engines might burn the 'same' Hydrogen as is used to fill
the gas bags which provide lift to the vessel. If this can't raise a
head of steam around here, why I shall issue a much less feasible
proposal, for burning lifting gas, reserving provisions to ensnare nay-
sayers!
Lightly,
Johnny Thunderbird
heavyLight Books http://www.oocities.org/~jthunderbird
Lifting Gas for Fuel sci.energy.hydrogen 980605