The Canadian North has serious supply chain issues.
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The Canadian North has serious supply chain issues. Some communities (and all of Nunavut) are cut off from road networks. Goods need to be flown in with cargo planes, leading to crazy grocery prices + housing shortages.
One solution is to use airships to fly cargo in, dramatically reducing the cost. Apparently there were some companies looking into that: https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/possibility-of-using-airships-in-the-arctic-studied-by-canadian-north-french-company/ But this article was published 07/23. Does anyone know if there’s been any updates since then?
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The Canadian North has serious supply chain issues. Some communities (and all of Nunavut) are cut off from road networks. Goods need to be flown in with cargo planes, leading to crazy grocery prices + housing shortages.
One solution is to use airships to fly cargo in, dramatically reducing the cost. Apparently there were some companies looking into that: https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/possibility-of-using-airships-in-the-arctic-studied-by-canadian-north-french-company/ But this article was published 07/23. Does anyone know if there’s been any updates since then?
AIUI, none of these proposals ever work out because of one fundamental issue: airships have huge surface areas and destinations in the Far North tend to have few wind-free or low-wind days.
Ultimately, the solution would be to build permanent roads (expensive, environmentally destructive), leverage the fact the Climate Change is breaking up the ice in the north and build deep-sea ports, or else keep using air (but perhaps electric solutions could bring down costs?)
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AIUI, none of these proposals ever work out because of one fundamental issue: airships have huge surface areas and destinations in the Far North tend to have few wind-free or low-wind days.
Ultimately, the solution would be to build permanent roads (expensive, environmentally destructive), leverage the fact the Climate Change is breaking up the ice in the north and build deep-sea ports, or else keep using air (but perhaps electric solutions could bring down costs?)
@evdelen @chimpchomp I attended Expo86 as a kid and distinctly remember companies pitching airships as the next big thing for remote areas back then complete with scale models etc. I think its an idea that's been investigated a lot over the years and nobodies ever made it work.
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AIUI, none of these proposals ever work out because of one fundamental issue: airships have huge surface areas and destinations in the Far North tend to have few wind-free or low-wind days.
Ultimately, the solution would be to build permanent roads (expensive, environmentally destructive), leverage the fact the Climate Change is breaking up the ice in the north and build deep-sea ports, or else keep using air (but perhaps electric solutions could bring down costs?)
@evdelen I could be mistaken but, from what I heard, it would still be prohibitively expensive to build roads to Nunavut even once the permafrost melts because huge stretches of the landscape are swampy, muddy mush, and it’s very deep. So to build a road you would need to pour a gravel hill into the mud to secure the road on (thats how they built the railroad up to Churchill MB, apparently it still needs to be toped-up regularly). In some areas it’s still unclear how deep the mud is
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@evdelen @chimpchomp I attended Expo86 as a kid and distinctly remember companies pitching airships as the next big thing for remote areas back then complete with scale models etc. I think its an idea that's been investigated a lot over the years and nobodies ever made it work.
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@evdelen I could be mistaken but, from what I heard, it would still be prohibitively expensive to build roads to Nunavut even once the permafrost melts because huge stretches of the landscape are swampy, muddy mush, and it’s very deep. So to build a road you would need to pour a gravel hill into the mud to secure the road on (thats how they built the railroad up to Churchill MB, apparently it still needs to be toped-up regularly). In some areas it’s still unclear how deep the mud is
@chimpchomp Precisely!
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Don't. It's like Data Centres in Space, the issue is fundamentally physics, not any kind of human surmountable issue.
In the case of data centres in space, the issue is thermals: computers generate heat and without convection, the only way to dissipate that heat is radiation, and that is incredibly inefficient.
In the case of airships, it's surface area: airships are big and vulnerable to wind. Barring the creation of a new gaseous element which is smaller than Hydrogen (1 proton, 1 electron) or Helium (2 proton, 2 neutron, 2 electron) it's impossible to create an airship with a smaller envelope.
People have tried mechanical methods to reduce the size of the gaseous envelope, check out the Piasecki PA-97 Helistat & related disaster for why that didn't work out.
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Don't. It's like Data Centres in Space, the issue is fundamentally physics, not any kind of human surmountable issue.
In the case of data centres in space, the issue is thermals: computers generate heat and without convection, the only way to dissipate that heat is radiation, and that is incredibly inefficient.
In the case of airships, it's surface area: airships are big and vulnerable to wind. Barring the creation of a new gaseous element which is smaller than Hydrogen (1 proton, 1 electron) or Helium (2 proton, 2 neutron, 2 electron) it's impossible to create an airship with a smaller envelope.
People have tried mechanical methods to reduce the size of the gaseous envelope, check out the Piasecki PA-97 Helistat & related disaster for why that didn't work out.
@evdelen @mike there are still details to explore here. Like, how big would the airships be? what wind speeds would cause issues with an airship of that size + what are the average wind speeds up north? And for mitigating harm: are there any route/altitude changes that minimize wind exposure? is temporarily anchoring in place feasible? etc.
Imo until we explore all these questions its premature to rule the possibility of airships out completely. But im willing to have my mind changed!
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@evdelen @mike there are still details to explore here. Like, how big would the airships be? what wind speeds would cause issues with an airship of that size + what are the average wind speeds up north? And for mitigating harm: are there any route/altitude changes that minimize wind exposure? is temporarily anchoring in place feasible? etc.
Imo until we explore all these questions its premature to rule the possibility of airships out completely. But im willing to have my mind changed!
"What wind speed would cause issues with an airship of that size"
A light breeze:
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