Regarding solving the problem of a hurricane.
A typical Caribbean hurrican has 38 EJ (eta-joules)
of energy. See:
http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/Energy/
So, the to deal with the problem, you have to
negate that energy. The simplest way to do this
would seem to be to freeze it. So the suggestion
of dropping "vacuum" spheres has merit. I don't
know however whether that would be the best approach.
It certainly requires a *large* volume tanker to hold
the spheres. Perhaps closer to current technology
would be dropping a volume of material that can absorb
that much energy. Hydrogen is abundant and is
liquified at very low temperatures. I would suggest
large tanker planes dropping liquid H2 into the eye
of the hurricane.
Now, the only problem is that 38 EJ is *a lot* of energy
so one may need a lot of tankers to deliver the hydrogen.
I would guess a qualified reader can balance the equation
and figure out how much LH2 is required to normalize 38
Now, the really adventursome can compute the cost of that quantity of LH2 and tell us how much turning off a hurricane would cost (pre-nanotech, since post-nanotech it probably costs nothing).
Robert