Re: Mother nature

Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Thu, 16 Sep 1999 19:21:59 -0700 (PDT)

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 EJ of energy to normal atmospheric conditions.

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