Best known as the former chairman of Microsoft, billionaire Bill Gates now has reportedly filed several patents aiming to help one day be able to stop hurricanes that plague the Gulf of Mexico each year.
“Theodp,” a well-known patent watcher, discovered the patent and then passed on the news to TechFlash. In the patent filings, Gates and several other inventors plan to use large fleets of vessels to mix warm Gulf of Mexico surface water with colder water under the surface.
Conduits would extend from one vessel beyond the ocean’s thermocline, which is an invisible line separating the warmer, mixed layer of water closer to the surface from the cooler and calmer water that is seen further below the ocean’s surface. Sunlight routinely is captured by the surface layer of ocean water, and a different vessel would be used as a heat/energy sink for water at deeper depths.
The following is an excerpt from one of the patent filings:
Below this mixed layer, however, the temperature decreases rapidly with depth, for example, as much as 20 degrees Celsius with an additional 150 m (500 ft) of depth. This area of rapid transition is called the thermocline. Below it, the temperature continues to decrease with depth, but far more gradually. In the Earth’s oceans, approximately 90% of the mass of water is below the thermocline. This deep ocean consists of layers of substantially equal density, being poorly mixed, and may be as cold as -2 to 3.degree. C.
Lovely. He has a patent to fuck up the deep ocean circulation.
#16
What a dumb answer, Ah_Yea.
They should do this just because it sounds like fun.
What other applications could this patent be used for? That’s my question. I need to give this patent a read to understand it better.
#20 Lou,
Vista’s fix comes out October 22nd.
Clive Cussler called, he wants his book back Bill!
Super rich guy with hurricane machine. Isn’t that the plot of a James Bond movie?
Well at least Bill is doing something good. Not like that Steve Jobs who is sucking his iSheeps and getting liver transplants. iSheeps love to pay for Steve Job’s medical bills.
Way to go Bill…
#28 Why? he’s an American. Don’t you wish death to him too?
Ok first of all Im a Carpenter and I have a 2 year college degree. So Im no expert but Id want to venture to guess that that would not be a very good Idea. Lets see arent we dealing with Global warming now. Polar Ice caps and such. So lets take the cold water from the bottom of the ocean. Then Put Warm water back in its place. Won’t that kill the animals on the ocean floor turning a good bit of the water red. Sounds kinda biblical if ya know what I mean. Also. Have you ever been in a hurricane? do you know what it takes to build a house and how catastrophic these storms are? it would take alot of barges to pump the amount of water needed. Billions of dollars to pump the cold water out of the sea.
I’ve been traveling around the net checking out how this patent pending technology is being covered and reader responses. My impressions remains the same:
1) April Fools!
2) ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’ AKA: ‘A fool and his money are soon parted.’
3) See what happens when you skip out of college and start a software company instead? You should have taken that physics class Mr. Gates.
4) Anybody want to buy a perpetual motion machine? Going cheap! Today only!
5) Yeah, there must be LOTS of lead in the water over there in Redmond.
I’ve seen this idea before. Win Wenger published an article about it 4 years ago.
Some of the bloggers have it exactly right others are completely clueless. I can’t believe there is even a discussion about such a ludicrous idea. Hurricanes (typhoons, cyclones) are all extremely large heat engines. You dissipate one by changing the temperature of the ocean (Gulf Stream, Gulf of Mexico) that alone would have unintended consequences. If you’re successful in actually dampening down a hurricane, what happens to the energy that needs to be equalized??? More hurricanes, more intense hurricanes, changes in the sea surface temperature? This would cause so much havoc with the ocean currents and atmosphere that global warning would look like a walk in the park..