Microsoft founder Bill Gates and a number of scientists and engineers have filed a patent application for a system of giant ocean-going tubs that would control hurricanes by draining warm water from the surface and sucking cool water from the depths through long tubes.  Under the plan, as many as 200 of these vessels could be placed in the predicted path of a hurricane.  The tubs could be moved into place by towing or dropped from airplanes.  A second patent application explains how part or all of the cost or building and maintaining the vessels could be offset by selling insurance to coastal residents whose risk would be reduced by the new system.  Gates is an investor in Intellectual Ventures Lab, the company pursuing the idea.

Bill Gates Envisions Disarming Hurricanes (New Orleans Times-Picayune 7/15/09)

July 21, 2009