Bill Gates Sets His Sights On Controlling the Weather
July 10th, 2009Via: Popular Science:
Truly this is the age of Greenfinger: Billionaire Bill Gates has patented the idea to halt hurricanes by decreasing the surface temperature of the ocean.
The patent calls for a large fleet of specially equipped ships which would mix warm water from the ocean surface with colder water down below, according to five new patents that include Microsoft’s chairman as a co-inventor. That could then reduce or perhaps eliminate the heat-driven condensation which hurricanes feed upon, thus significantly reducing their intensity.
Patent-watcher “theodp” first spotted the new patent filings, and told TechFlash that the scheme reminded him of something Mr. Burns might have concocted in “The Simpsons” — if the fictional industrialist hadn’t already blown his master plan on blocking out the sun.
The hurricane-stopper plan apparently hatched from a meeting of Intellectual Ventures, a patent house which regularly gathers scientists and technologists to brainstorm together. TechFlash notes that the official filings came through an Intellectual Ventures affiliate, Searete LLC.
One of the five patents also suggests how to pay for the massive seagoing fleet, including selling insurance policies in hurricane-prone areas — so much for the billionaire backer.
I wonder how many viable weather-influencing technologies exist, who has them, and what political procedures, if any, precede their activation.
I’d wager that a mid-sized company could easily influence the weather, to say, destroy a crop it had shorted, or to wipe out a competitor’s crops. The possibilities are endless.
I ran across this website last year, Kevin. Weather modification offered by a NZ group:
http://twm.co.nz/services.html
Man, this is a good one:
http://twm.co.nz/wmfaq.html