Blimps could replace aircraft in freight transport ?  

The Guardian has a somewhat far-fetched article on the prospects for airships replacing planes - Blimps could replace aircraft in freight transport, say scientists.

Fresh fruit, vegetables, flowers and other foreign luxuries could be part of a global revolution by carrying cargo around the world in airships instead of planes, one of the UK's leading scientists has predicted.

The government's former chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir David King, now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford, told a conference that massive helium balloons – or blimps – would replace aircraft as a key part of the global trade network as a way of cutting global warming emissions.

Despite languishing in sci-fi B-movies for most of the last 70 years, King said several major air and defence companies, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, were working on designs, and the US defence department had recently made a large grant to help develop the technology.

As a result, the helium-powered ships could be carrying freight – and even passengers – in as little as a decade's time, King told the Guardian. "There are an awful lot of people we talk to who say this is going to happen," said King. "This is something I believe is going to happen."

King was speaking this week at the World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford, which has made transport a major focus of debate about global efforts to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, which are a major contributor to global warming and climate change. In Europe 22% of greenhouse gases are from transport, compared with 28 from heat and electricity, 21% from industry and construction and 9% each from agriculture and homes, according to the European Environment Agency.