Vincent Callebaut's 'Hydrogenase' - future vision not just pie in the sky

Giant airships suspended under balloons covered in algae
Powered by hydrogen generated by CO2 and sunlight
Can take off and land just about anywhere

BELGIAN architect Vincent Callebaut has seen the future of air travel and it looks ... slimy.

The design house has made a name for itself in part by dreaming up wild visions of how humans will one day inhabit the Earth without killing it.

Callebaut designs in the past have included floating lilypad cities and farms which soar vertically in the middle of CBDs.

Eyecatching they may be, but Callebaut has always also kept the credibility of his designs by backing his mind-boggling concepts with solid science.

His latest project is called Hydrogenase and features giant airships suspended under balloons covered in algae.

The emission-free airships are powered entirely by hydrogen generated from sunlight and CO2 and were designed to hover over the South China Sea near Shanghai.
Covered in flexible photovoltaic cells and wind turbines, Hydrogenase ships run on "micro-seaweed".

Callebaut claims the energy obtained by farmed algae would be superior to any current biodiesel or bioethanol production.

Colza, for example, produces 1000 litres of oil per hectare. Callebaut reckons 1000 litres of hydrogen can be farmed from just 330 grams of micro-seaweed generated chlorophyll.

"A hectare of seaweed could thus produce organically 120 times more biofuels than a hectare of colza, soya or sunflower,” he says.

Inside - or under - the airships, mini-citadels would survive on bioremediating vegetable gardens which recycle waste, a common theme in Callebaut's designs.

Callebaut says that while the airships are obviously slower than jets, they can take off and land just about anywhere and would be ideal as a way to provide disaster relief to remote areas or be deployed as flying hospitals.

See more of Vincent Callebaut's visions for a sustainable future