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Huge, lighter-than-air craft that extract moisture from the air/clouds and turn it into rain, spraying parched landscapes with regular precipitation.
Basically self-maintaining, they can be used to make deserts bloom, or to assist cities where water supplies are falling to unsustainably low levels.
The
skin of the dirigibles can be made from flexible solar panels, to allow for power generation to assist manoeuvrability or water production.
Water condensation may be as simple as running humid air over sheets of coolant tubes. Perhaps the propulsion units could force air through giant venturis, running the length of the craft. This would be preferable to mounting them on the outside of the vessel.
Other uses for continuously soaring dirigibles
http://www.halfbake...l_20Resting_20Place
[theircompetitor, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
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Annotation:
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Clever acronym + blimps + healthy dose of hubris = [++] |
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Mind taking on some cargo -- see link |
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Fertiliser, too? I'm not so sure about that, [tc]. |
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Seems these would be better suited to block out the sun over cities you dislike. + |
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"Ground to GOD. Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day."
"Uhh, roger that." |
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How strange...I was thinking about something like this just a couple of weeks ago...mainly to put out brush fires more quickly, but also for areas that hardly get any rain. I think you've been spying on my brain, [UB]. [+] |
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Electron microscopy has come a long way. :D |
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Wouldn't the sprayed water simply be reabsorbed back into the atmosphere before it reached the ground? |
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Not when it's dropped as rain. You've seen rain, haven't you? It comes in big, wet drops. |
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How huge you talkin' here? |
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Not huge, just lots of 'em. They could flock together, to bring famine relief to Eritrea, for instance. |
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This could easily work with a fuel cell system and a hydrogen electrolysis plant. |
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Solar panels provide electricity during the daytime - this electricity is used to split part of the harvested rain into hydrogen which is used to power the dirigible at night - and the next day the cycle starts over. |
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You could station these platforms in the Intertropical Convergence Zone - this is where most of the world's rain falls and where the skies are continuously pregnant with thick moist clouds. |
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From there it's just a few thousand kilometres to places who need the water. |
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*also: this is much easier than airlifting icebergs to Arabia, although that would be fun too. |
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Oftentimes the moisture is already in the air. It simply needs a catalyst, to precipitate. |
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I have no need for a protocol droid. What I really need is a droid who understands the binary language of dirigible moisture condensers. |
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As a person in a place that tends to suffer long term droughts this sounds freaking cool.
(one thing, why in heavens name drop the rain on the city, where it's just going to spot up cars and roll to the streams? just poour it over the reservior) |
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I've always complained that it's bloody inefficient that every year there are floods in certain parts of Texas (for example) and other parts of that state are dry as a bone. If the derigibles were large/sturdy/stable enough they could harvest moisture over the western atlantic during hurricane season and cut down on the cat. 5 hurricanes. Anyway Bun. |
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