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Japanese telecom NTT, suggests high-altitude solar-powered drones could be 5G base stations in Africa. With coverage of 200 sq km per drone, approx 150,000 of them could blanket the continent with 5G (interestingengineering.com)

submitted 10 months ago by Lugh to c/futurology

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[–] crazyminner@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why not just use blimps?

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Not sure you can have a solar powered blimp. It would rely on helium if hydrogen to float which would mean resupplying it on a regular basis as it will never be completely sealed and always have some slow gas losses over time.

Unless you can somehow have a lightweight solar powered hydrogen producing machine which splits water taken from the air.

[–] curiousaur@reddthat.com 3 points 10 months ago

Solar powered blimps can use hydrolysis to break apart water and get hydrogen using electricity from solar panels. That same hydrogen can then be used for both buoyancy and as energy storage using fuel cells to turn it back into electricity when needed.

[–] crazyminner@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's what first came to my mind. Water from air to hydrogen from water. Would need to do r&d tho to see if it's possible.

[–] SchizoDenji@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure the only R&D you need to do is thermodynamics 101.

[–] crazyminner@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

Is the energy from the sun that could be harvested from a blimp sized footprint enough to convert enough hydrogen to account for the leaks in a blimp and to power propellers to keep it in one spot.

I don't know those numbers.