Genius | Calculating Hydrogen Needs for a Constantly Flying Blimp

[threadmark]

Hi.

How much hydrogen dose it take to keep a blimp in flight. Let’s say I want 2000 kg of lift, and to keep it flying constantly. How much hydrogen would I need per day or hour? If I had a steel cable with a reinforced tube to keep hydrogen pumping into the blimp from the ground, what amounts of hydrogen am I looking at?

TM

 

[berkeman]

Hi.

How much hydrogen dose it take to keep a blimp in flight. Let’s say I want 2000 kg of lift, and to keep it flying constantly. How much hydrogen would I need per day or hour? If I had a steel cable with a reinforced tube to keep hydrogen pumping into the blimp from the ground, what amounts of hydrogen am I looking at?

TM

The amount of hydrogen in the blimp is constant, AFAIK. Why are you thinking you need to pump it in? It's not fuel, it's just for bouyancy. Are you familiar with how to calculate buoyant force?

 

[threadmark]

Since you asked
I have been making some early designs for a blimp I can hoist with steel cable about one kilometre in the air. The cables will span over a large area which will be tethered to the blimp to anchor it to the ground. The cables will be controlled by motors on the ground to regulate its height and if needed can ground it if winds are to strong and the motors will help to stabilize the blimp. 4 cables will be attached equally around the blimp to allow a support cable around the 4 cables to attach things to. The idea came to me when I was thinking about wind power generation an how much potential it has when there is wind. Since the wind is not constant it makes it hard to rely on it in everyday use until after about 6 moths of pondering the idea hit me as I played my flight simulator. At about 1 kilometre in the air the wind is so great it would power turbines constantly, so I started thinking how to get turbines up that high. Something similar has been done on top of buildings but nothing to this level. I don’t believe I should patent it because when it comes to saving the environment everyone is responsible and everyone is rewarded. So if you are a large engineering company please start building this now, if you don’t I will.
But back to the pump, if winds exceed the crafts and turbines tensile specs I need to be able to ground it almost immediately so I need an emergency regulation to vent the hydrogen and use the motors to land the craft safely. It can't be created if there is a risk of it flying away. I don’t think the authorities would be like a hydrogen blimp flying loose. So that’s why I need to pump the hydrogen to regulate its altitude.
TM

 

[berkeman]

Since you asked
I have been making some early designs for a blimp I can hoist with steel cable about one kilometre in the air. The cables will span over a large area which will be tethered to the blimp to anchor it to the ground. The cables will be controlled by motors on the ground to regulate its height and if needed can ground it if winds are to strong and the motors will help to stabilize the blimp. 4 cables will be attached equally around the blimp to allow a support cable around the 4 cables to attach things to. The idea came to me when I was thinking about wind power generation an how much potential it has when there is wind. Since the wind is not constant it makes it hard to rely on it in everyday use until after about 6 moths of pondering the idea hit me as I played my flight simulator. At about 1 kilometre in the air the wind is so great it would power turbines constantly, so I started thinking how to get turbines up that high. Something similar has been done on top of buildings but nothing to this level. I don’t believe I should patent it because when it comes to saving the environment everyone is responsible and everyone is rewarded. So if you are a large engineering company please start building this now, if you don’t I will.
But back to the pump, if winds exceed the crafts and turbines tensile specs I need to be able to ground it almost immediately so I need an emergency regulation to vent the hydrogen and use the motors to land the craft safely. It can't be created if there is a risk of it flying away. I don’t think the authorities would be like a hydrogen blimp flying loose. So that’s why I need to pump the hydrogen to regulate its altitude.
TM

Using teathered blimps for wind power generation has indeed been explored, and there are some systems being actively tested right now. I googled blimp wind power, and got lots of hits:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS301US302&q=blimp+wind+power

.

 

[russ_watters]

Somewhere on PF is a thread on this very subject. You should be able to find it with a search.

 

[threadmark]

The system I am thinking about uses a number of turbines to generate electricity. The blimp is simply a hoist for the turbines using 4 main cables and cross cables underneath the blimp to dangle the generators from. I was thinking about a water pump to fill bladders underneath the turbines to stabilize them when its really windy. I am thingking for one blimp I want 15,000 watts. TM

 

[MagnetDave]

The system I am thinking about uses a number of turbines to generate electricity. The blimp is simply a hoist for the turbines using 4 main cables and cross cables underneath the blimp to dangle the generators from. I was thinking about a water pump to fill bladders underneath the turbines to stabilize them when its really windy. I am thingking for one blimp I want 15,000 watts. TM

Some perspective - most powerplants I know of produce megawatts, not kilowatts. The big nuclear stations even get to the gigawatt range.

 

[threadmark]

I’m thinking 15,000 watts is plenty considering it’s a home project. 15,000 watts would power two or three energy efficient homes. The good thing is it will be running all the time so I don’t need to be dependent on solar or ground level winds.
Ya see Dave, can I call you Dave?. Not important. The power plants you are talking about consume fuels that are damaging to our environment. My power plant does not. So I am not dependent on the power services to watch TV. TM

 

[JaredJames]

I’m thinking 15,000 watts is plenty considering it’s a home project. 15,000 watts would power two or three energy efficient homes. The good thing is it will be running all the time so I don’t need to be dependent on solar or ground level winds.
Ya see Dave, can I call you Dave?. Not important. The power plants you are talking about consume fuels that are damaging to our environment. My power plant does not. So I am not dependent on the power services to watch TV. TM

Where would you get your hydrogen and at what cost? What about materials cost? Maintenance costs?

If you factor all of this in, it isn't going to be cheap to use such a system for only a few homes. It's why we don't each have a mini power plant in our back garden (solar/wind aside, although as everyone is aware they aren't consistent and so can't be solely relied upon).

Generators aren't lightweight and would need a lot of hydrogen to maintain buoyancy, especially if you start pumping water into it.

 

[JaredJames]

Just thought I'd shove this in:

http://www.ecogeek.org/wind-power/1616

According to the article they recently tested it:

Magenn Power Inc. has moved forward and begun testing a prototype of their MARS (Magenn Air Rotor System) inside an old US Navy airship hangar before beginning outdoor trials at a customer's site in a few weeks. The MARS is a lighter-than-air turbine which is tethered to the ground between 300 and 1000 feet (roughly 90 to 300 meters) with conducting cables that transmit electricity to the ground. It is basically a blimp with its body configured with blades to catch the wind in order to generate power.

Note that it goes only a third (maximum) of what you are designing yours to operate at.

Have you performed any calculations or are you just making up some numbers and hoping they stick?

 

[threadmark]

I have not provided any numbers for you to look at chum. I don’t know if you have read the news lately but they have invented these hydrogen cars WOW. They actually dispense hydrogen at the fuel station down the road. It is not hard to get and the amount of hydrogen needed to fly the blimp is not that costly for the payoff. I know you have been on google to read up on blimps and the only reference to what I am doing is a hydrogen blimp which is the turbine not a hydrogen blimp to lift many turbines.

 

[JaredJames]

I have not provided any numbers for you to look at chum. I don’t know if you have read the news lately but they have invented these hydrogen cars WOW. They actually dispense hydrogen at the fuel station down the road. It is not hard to get and the amount of hydrogen needed to fly the blimp is not that costly for the payoff. I know you have been on google to read up on blimps and the only reference to what I am doing is a hydrogen blimp which is the turbine not a hydrogen blimp to lift many turbines.

Oh look, numbers:

2000 kg of lift

about one kilometre in the air

I want 15,000 watts

Anyhow, you do realize how much energy it takes to extract hydrogen from water?
What I am saying, quite simply is that instead of you taking energy from the grid, you would be using hydrogen, which is harvested using energy from the grid, which means you are adding additional energy use to the equation, therefore overall you are adding a step and increasing overall energy use.

With me?

Power plant to Home

Power plant to hydrogen extraction to hydrogen transport to hydrogen pumping to home

 

[threadmark]

Yes, and what about the coffee machine for the workers that make the hydrogen. Your insight has opened my eyes lol.

 

[JaredJames]

It all adds up, however much you like to joke about it.

I'm actually really interested in these technologies, but I think you need to scale things up to make it feasible. I can understand small scale for testing, but it would never take off (pardon the pun) economically on such a small production setup.

Every additional step you add in the process of producing your own electric has to be taken into account. If those costs (monetary and environmentally) are greater than buying energy off the grid it just isn't worth doing.

 

[russ_watters]

Yes, and what about the coffee machine for the workers that make the hydrogen. Your insight has opened my eyes lol.

If you don't take your own idea seriously, how can you expect any of us to? Have you done any calculations yet? Like how much hydrogen it takes to keep 2000kg aloft? (what you asked in the OP?)

 

[threadmark]

This is an open thread for any contribution of relevant information. I posted this because I had a spare minute and was interested in some feedback on the posted topic. I am not interested in feeding your curiosity in my progress or estimations. Do you have anything useful and relevant to say on the topic? Because its easy to say what could go wrong or why it won't work. This thread is for a thinking session to get the idea off the ground. TM

 

[threadmark]

FYI
hydrogen is not the only buoyant substance.

 

[JaredJames]

This is an open thread for any contribution of relevant information. I posted this because I had a spare minute and was interested in some feedback on the posted topic. I am not interested in feeding your curiosity in my progress or estimations. Do you have anything useful and relevant to say on the topic? Because its easy to say what could go wrong or why it won't work. This thread is for a thinking session to get the idea off the ground. TM

You want feedback, but nothing negative?

I can blow smoke up your a** all day long but the fact is, the numbers you have given don't stand up to much and don't show any real advantages of using your system over the national grid. Negative feedback is important, perhaps use it to alter your ideas to make them more efficient.

You proposed a device which at first appearances is expensive and not producing a feasible amount of power to justify the costs.

However, as per previous requests, why don't you do some calculations. You want feedback, but you haven't given us any real numbers to work with. We can't just throw calculations your way because they won't mean anything.

Without your "estimations" we can't do anything for you.

Cutting down your posts so far we come to this:
"I want to fly a 2000kg airship at an altitude of 1km, tethered with 4 cables attached to motors and it has to produce 15,000kW of power."

Why not do some calcs and show us you're attempting it. So far all you've said is here's my specification, do the maths for me.

FYI
hydrogen is not the only buoyant substance.

Don't be sarcastic and try to be clever. People here will help you and encourage you. But you have to show some effort, not just post a concept and expect everyone else to do the leg work.

Helium would be far safer, however, it isn't cheap.

 

[russ_watters]

Locked pending moderation.