Bill Gates quiere detener los huracanes

Fuente: New York Post

La noticia aparecida en TechFlash, un blog de Puget Sound Business Journal, da cuenta que Bill Gates ha patentado un invento para detener a los Huracanes. La idea se basa en que los huracanes incrementan su fuerza según la temperatura del agua marítima se ponga más caliente. Claro, debido al cambio climático, se prevé que las temperaturas de la superficie marina se caliente cada vez más y se produzcan súper huracanes.

Ahora bien el sistema contempla que una flota de barcos provistos de una suerte de inmensos tubos, mezclen las aguas, bombeando el agua helada hacia la superficie con lo cual se reduce o anula la fuerza del huracán antes que llegue a Tierra

Vessel 100 is a tub-like structure having one or more walls 110 and a bottom 115. Vessel 100 may be held buoyant in the water by one or more buoyancy tanks 120 which may be used to maintain the buoyancy of vessel 100 and further may be used to control the height of walls 110 above the water level. Vessel 100 also includes a conduit 125 whose horizontal cross section is substantially smaller than the horizontal cross section of the tub portion 130 of the vessel defined by walls 110. In an exemplary embodiment, conduit 125 extends well below the ocean surface including depths below the ocean's thermocline.

In most circumstances, most of the sunlight impinging on the ocean surface is absorbed in the surface layer. The surface layer therefore heats up. Wind and waves move water in this surface layer which distributes heat within it. The temperature may therefore be reasonably uniform to depths extending a few hundred feet down from the ocean surface. 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.

Therefore, the lower depths of the ocean may be used as a huge heat/energy sink which may be exploited by vessel 100. When vessel 100 is deployed at sea, waves 135 may lap over the top of walls 110 to input warm (relative to deeper waters) surface ocean water into tub 130. Tub 130 will fill to a level 140 which is above the average ocean level depicted as level 145. Because of the difference between levels 140 and 145, a pressure head is created thereby pushing warm surface ocean water in a downward direction 150 down through conduit 125 to exit into the cold ocean depths (relative to near surface waters) through one or more openings 155. In an exemplary embodiment, the depth of opening 155 may be located below the ocean's thermocline, the approximate bottom of which is depicted as line 160. This cycle will be continuous in bringing warm surface ocean water to great depth as ocean waves continue to input water into tub 130. If many of vessel 100 are distributed throughout a region of water, the temperature of the surface of the water may be

Fuente: TechFlash

Ahora bien, la idea no ha sido exclusiva de Bill Gates, el invento va firmado por una docena de científicos. Sin embargo, por ser una figura resistida en muchos ámbitos por su manejo al frente de Microsot, el proyecto tiene sus detractores naturales.

Otros, como el New York Post, se preguntan hasta dónde Bill Gates no está jugando a ser Dios, en el sentido, que la madre naturaleza tiene una finalidad y cambiar su rumbo puede ocasionar otros desastres naturales. Me pregunto si existirá algún estudio donde se analice el efecto que puede causar un desbalance de la temperatura de los mares. Se entiende que el invento detendrá los huracanes y no las lluvias.

Con respecto al financiamiento, es evidente que los más interesados en llevar a cabo el proyecto son las grandes aseguradoras y el Estado debido a los billones de dólares que se pierden así como miles de vidas humanas que son más importantes.

Creo que de alguna u otra forma el hombre deberá dominar la naturaleza si queremos seguir viviendo en este planeta.