[bryant]

> I haven't read the article,

lol. tl;dr (apropos in this case): "So, 8.5% hydrogen in helium appears to be non-flammable, whereas anything above 8.7% is flammable. Eight percent hydrogen really doesn't provide much in the way of cost savings. You probably ought to consider another question concerning your airship business. Are the cost savings by using a 8.5% mixture of hydrogen worth all the trouble and effort it will take to convince your customers that the mixture is safe, as opposed to avoiding the safety questions altogether by using 100% helium?" [implied: probably not]

> but I presume that the use of hydrogen is a non-starter. No-one wants a flaming fireball raining down on them.

it'll probably work just fine on coastal or oceanic automated shipping routes. And oceanic routes would slightly mitigate the risk of someone catastrophically holepunching one with a Class IV laser.