The answer to peak oil is...

[sabotabby]

...airships!

(I'd meant to blog this when frandroid first posted it, but of course I've been terribly busy.)

Anyway, I keep seeing posters around town for this fellow Monbiot and his new book about how we are all fucked. I like him, if only because his solution to the energy crisis is to replace airplanes with pure, unmitigated awesome.

Airships fly much lower than planes – typically at about 4000 feet – which means that their emissions of water vapour have very little effect on temperature. If they were powered by hydrogen fuel cells, they would be almost silent, greatly reducing the effects for people on the ground. Though they are slower than jets, the cabin can be built much wider, which means that travelling by airship would be rather like travelling by cruise ship, but at twice the speed and using a fraction of the fuel.

y/y?

He also lists a bunch of disadvantages, but they're all outweighed by how hardcore it would be to travel by dirigible.


I mean, really.

EDIT: I am jealous of this guy's jetpack.

Comments

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Please read Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books whenever you are free.

Yes, it is totally relevant.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

I tried reading one of those, but I kept wanting to throw it out the window. I found the writing very self-indulgent and overly amused by its cleverness. Yet many people I like, people of taste and good sense, seem to like them.

Perhaps I was just cranky that day. I shall have to give them a second read.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Woe! I am cut to the quick! *grin*

Nah, my reading tastes are eclectic, and if everyone liked what I did Sarah Waters would have a lot more money. *nodnod*

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

It's more that lots of people I like and respect like these books. Makes me think that I might have not been in the right mood. Or I am just the wrong reader for those books.

And yes, it would be a very boring world if we all liked the same things.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

OMG, shake hands. I have tried reading the first one about three times and keep completely bouncing off it. The writing is self-indulgent, not even one-third as clever as it thinks it is and the whole idea is ripped off from Woody Allen's old short story anyway. And I couldn't stand the heroine.

Then again, I am a curmudgeonly old bat....

[fannishnonsense]

That would be awesome. As long as it's just the airships, and not the Cybermen to go along with them anyway...

[canonfire.livejournal.com]

Yes, that thought DID come to mind...

[joxn.livejournal.com]

Hm, I totally need to write that blog post about zeppelins I've been meaning to write.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

Please do!

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

One creative mind has an answer to our oil wars: Get back on horses! I think we should combine that with the ariship idea.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Is that screen shot from The Golden Compass? if not, it looks similar.

[sabotabby]

It's from Doctor Who's "Rise of the Cybermen," where they journey to an alternate England called the People's Republic, a.k.a. where I want to live one day. Minus the actual Cybermen, because they are unpleasant.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

....AWESOME.

[esizzle.livejournal.com]

to the future!

[jamie-miller.livejournal.com]

UM, YES.

[canonfire.livejournal.com]

Oh, the humanity!

[ironed_orchid]

Hell yes! Sign me up.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I skimmed because I'm incredibly distracted and off this morning but I take it from comments and pictures we are essentially talking about travel by blimp? I would be so into that. Being 4000 feet in the air is for some reason dramatically less scary than being 35,000 feet in the air.

[flintultrasparc.livejournal.com]

Demand the Currently Possible!

[daysofthegun.livejournal.com]

Anything that makes the world look more and more like Final Fantasy, I fully support.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I'm for human-powered though.
And here is a fragment from "Blockade". 2:30-4:30 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4RdjV28qYY). No, no apparent reason or connection.

[sabotabby]

Hot commie blimp pilots for the win.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Thanks to you I know 4 good words: dirigible, zeppelin, air-ship, blimp.

[robotar.livejournal.com]

DUDE I AM SO FUCKING INTO DIRIGIBLES
THEY ARE SO COOL
THIS HAS BEEN MY DREAM FOR A LONG TIME
is that screenshot from dr. who? i feel like i remember that one.

[sabotabby]

It's "Rise of the Cybermen."

And yes, that is my dream too.

[frippy.livejournal.com]

A few days ago, I watched The White Diamond, a rather disappointing Werner Herzog documentary about a guy who builds a small airship to hover over the rainforest canopy. What was NOT disappointing was the intro, during which Werner Herzog fills us in on the history of zepellins and how awesome they used to be*, until we realized how explodey they used to be, too.

(I dunno about anyone else, but a German nihilist talking about blimps gets me kinda hot and bothered.)

*There were fancy dining rooms with pianos on blimps!

[sabotabby]

I am turned on just reading your comment about it.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I have ALWAYS wanted to live in an airship-based world. I grew up twelve miles from Cardington, where the R101 was built, and when I was a kid they were still making airships that used to fly low over our school during football games and we would all stop the game to wave. It was awesome.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

This post is filled with awesome.

[roter-terror.livejournal.com]

there was a news article yesterday about how much more efficient boats are as compared to planes; if these airships are even more efficient than sea-ships, i think you're all on to something.

I seem to be one of the few people on the interents to have no particular interest in them, though. nor do I like ninjas, robots, or pirates. But bears I like. Those are internets popular, yes?

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

TONIGHT
ON THE INTERNETS

NINJAS IN AIRSHIPS

VERSUS

PIRATES ON BEARS

LIVE AT NINE

RICK ASTLEY SUPPORTING

[sabotabby]

You forgot the kittens.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

PLUS AS A SUPPORTING ACT, WE PRESENT GOD, MASTURBATING