Click image for link to a posting on air ship design
Click lower image for link to recent Guardian article
The thing about petrol is energy density. it is an incredibly compact way of storing energy, very handy for things like airplanes, which consume a lot of energy and are very weight sensitive. If you try and run a jet plane on bio diesel then the whole payload of the plane ends being the fuel, as i understand it. So it make the whole exercise pretty pointless. Aside form the environmental damge they do, and the fact that global oil supply is peaking and climate change, planes needs loads of infrastructure, like airports and runways. airships dont need any of that… and as most of lift comes from the helium all they need is a little engine to push them forward, you can run them on chip fat, with lots of possibilities for solar powered, in part anyway. It changes everything.
The Graf Zeppelin in its hayday in the 1930′s flew from Paris to New York in 20 hours.. a much more sedate speed than concord and still workable, without the noise, expense and pollution. Think about this though, no more road freight, no more trucks, or even big ships potentially. The future is airships, get on board.


