From: Doug Jones (random@qnet.com)
Date: Thu Sep 16 1999 - 14:29:39 MDT
David Lubkin wrote:
>
> Come on, folks. This is a crowd that casually discusses melting
> planets over school vacation and who will bring the dip to a
> party 10 billion years from now. Rise to the challenge.
>
> Hal has suggested a strategy for gradual weather modification.
> Can anyone add some numbers? How do you actually introduce the
> counter-air streams?
There was a science fact article in Analog a coupla years back, in which it
was suggested to build very tall "cooling towers" (~7000 m tall by 2000 m
diameter) which would produce strong updrafts, including cloud formation
and precipitation inside. The rain would be captured for potable water
use, the winds tapped by turbines, and the sea surface for many km around
cooled by evaporation, thus removing the power source for hurricanes.
These would have to be spaced on a 20 km grid on the water throughout the
hurricane belt, but as a side benefit would produce great amounts of fresh
water and electrical power (some of it by running the rain through hydro
turbines- 3000 to 7000 meters of hydro head is not trifling).
And with elevators and a few diving boards, it would ba skydiving mecca...
Just don't land too close to the base, or you'll get sucked in and passed
through the meatgrinder. Hell on seabirds, too- you think the wind
turbines in the Altamont pass kill a lot of birds, you ain't seen
nothing...
Put a venturi in it and you have the ultimate skydiving wind tunnel as the
wind howls upward at 60 m/s. Entry and exit without getting asphyxiated
above or chopped up below is an exercise for the reader.
If the weather is very humid, you end up freefalling in the rain, though,
and raindrops at that speed *hurt*.
-- Doug Jones, Rocket Plumber Frustrated grounded skydiver
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