Welcome to James Banh's blog.
I have had this in my mind for several years already, got it written down last year. I shared it with friends and family. Some say they are good ideas, some say they are pies in the sky. I even posted it to Ask Marilyn as a challenge on whether it is possible, no words from her yet.
Recenetly a friend advised and helped create this blog.
I hope you will find this reading interesting and give me feed back.
Thanks
James Banh
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Taming Hurricane
Is it possible? We have seen Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ike, and many other monster-size hurricanes. People who went through a hurricane know not to take it lightly. Hurricanes cover vast areas; their rain bands reach across multiple states at a time. They easily uproot trees and lift roofs, autos, boats, bridges, or, it seems, devastate just about anything in their paths. Those of us coastal residents have lived through many hurricanes, yet every year, we continue to worry and anticipate new ones with no cures in sight. Each time is no different, we worry about not being prepared enough. People living outside of flood zones probably don’t have flood insurance, but media coverage will make them wonder if this is the year they should begin one. Of course, it would be nice to have the flood insurance policy signed, and then it floods. But the worry goes on until each hurricane weakens or rolls off to neighboring cities.
For most people, it comes as a relief that the hurricane season will pass with little in the way of inconvenience or loss. Life returns normal. At least for the next few months, the people can go back to enjoy their backyard, the cookout, the gatherings with friends and family. As for me, I ask as I always do, “Why do we dodge hurricanes, are they really beyond human controlled?” “Can’t they be tamed? reined in, somehow?”
In an overly simplied description, hurricane is a very efficient heat engine, consisting of multiple power generators, with the main generator being the eye of the hurricane. Each of these generator feeds off the heat from the ocean surface and its surrounding air. Heat drives hurricanes’ strength. In fact, hotter temperature brings stronger hurricanes. Sanity check, why else haven’t we seen hurricanes in the winter? It's because the ocean surface temperature is cool in the winter; there is not enough heat to drive hurricane. And why else would hurricanes downgrade as soon as they landed? That is because the heat absorbed on the land mass is not as easily released as the heat absorbed into water, thus when hurricane makes land fall, it loses its major heat source. Of course, if the remnants of the storm venture across another large pool of heat, it will pick up energy and whirl again.
If heat is the culprit, then the solution should involve removing heat. This is not ordinary heat, it is a vast amount of heat. Most readers probably knew and could appreciate that to brew a hurricane to a size that covers multiple state lines requires astronomical heat quantity, and to remove that astronomical quantity of heat is equally daunting. Several methods have been suggested through the years, from bringing in the icebergs, spraying oil mist, dust & chemical, to pumping cooler water from the ocean deep, wave countering, and even as drastic as a bomb. In general, these methods have been examined.
Face-To-Face with the Hurricane
At present, the most likely scenario we will face is the hurricane is already on the way. The weather forecast has predicted a cone of uncertainty. The hurricane is going to slam a town or a city lying inside that cone of uncertainty. People living in the path of the hurricane will do as they always do, mop up the supermarkets for any available food and water, boarding up windows, maybe duct tapes for some. City officials will call emergency meetings to get ready with shelters, evacuation routes, contra-lanes, etc. Most, who can afford to leave, left. If the hurricane makes landfall at category 3 or higher, everybody knows “it ain’t pretty,” as the media often report, “properties damage, people hurt, and worst of all, dead.”
Readers probably already knew exactly how hurricane works, the vast quantity of heat in the ocean surface water wants to leave the water by means of evaporation. When large amount of heat is involved, coupled with the right atmospheric condition and wind pattern, the hurricane us created. Let's at least look at the basics of the hurricane engine. Warm ocean water releases heat through vaporization. Although the process is the same as the vapor released from a boiling kettle, the volume of vapor in a hurricane is unimaginably bigger. The vapor rises up to form cloud; in the process, it releases heat. The condensated vapor falls back into the ocean. As large volume of condensate falls down, large enough to compress and generate heat. The newly generated heat will be added to the remaining heat in the ocean surface water to continue boiling up more vapor, thus creating an almost self-sustaining cycle. This cycle is most intense at the center of the hurricane, which is the eye of the hurricane. If we could, imagine these heat cycles as heat engines, we can see that a hurricane would have many heat engines, with the most powerful and intense one being the eye of the hurricane. In fact, the eye of the hurricane is the central powerhouse that determines the intensity of the hurricane.
Now knowing the heat engines drive the hurricane, we want to find ways to disrupt, or reduce the efficiency of these heat engines. If we disrupted a heat engine’s efficiency, we will have reduced the hurricane force, thus lowering its intensity and destructive power. To achieve this goal, we probably only need to find and disrupt the few main heat engines that are close to the eye of the hurricane, as the heat engines that are farther away from the eye are much less powerful.
I would like to suggest a way to disrupt the heat engine; it is to remove the fuel from the heat engine. The fuel is the heat in the ocean surface water. The most effective and environmental friendly way is liquid nitrogen. In heat transfer calculation, one pound of liquid nitrogen will reduce approximately 188 pounds of seawater one degree Fahrenheit. Once the main heat engine loses efficiency, the intensity of the hurricane will reduce. Keep in mind that no matter what we do, the vast pool of heat will continue to want to leave the water. Thus it is fair to say that we cannot stop the evaporation process. Depending on the remaining heat volume in the ocean water, if there is enough heat along its path, the weakened system will re-strengthen, and as it strengthens to destructive category, we repeat the process of pouring in liquid nitrogen. At this point it is only a matter of how soon do we administer liquid nitrogen to prevent a hurricane from landing at category one strength.
Keep in mind, this paper is not about eliminating hurricanes. Our goal is to protect lives, and maintaining a balance between the storm intensity such that our infrastructures have been designed to withstand. Let's say if our infrastructure is already capable of withstanding a category one hurricane with minor damages, then we should aim to tame the hurricane such that it does not land higher than category one. How about the cost of liquid nitrogen? The answer is the same, how much damage does a category 2 or 3 cause over a populated metropolitan? We will return to this subject later.
Ocean Heat Management
In addition to taming hurricanes, we can also manage the heat on the ocean surface by doing a number of things. Remember, our goal is to manage the heat on the ocean surface. Any method that can reduce heat is a good candidate for consideration, but at the same time, that same method must yield minimum negative impact to the environment.
1) Waterfall Heat Exchange:
This method is an array of floatation waterfall devices. Each floation device lifts ocean water over a waterfall design with minimum height and free fall back into the ocean. We can utilize pumps (solar, or wind energy if possible) to lift water. The waterfall height will be design in accordance of pump capacity. Note, spraying water into the air may maximize the water-air heat exchange surface, but it requires larger pump capacity then necessary.
But this is exactly how hurricane releases heat into the atmosphere? Will this method in itself be the initiator of hurricane? The answer is not likely. This method releases the heat before the ocean surface temperature reaches the hurricane threshold temperature. If it works correctly, it will reduce the amount of heat available on the ocean surface to feed a hurricane.
This method has an added benefit in that it increases the amount of water vapor in the air. The water vapor in the air block direct sun heat to the ocean water, thus further reducing ocean water temperature.
2) Cool Water Heat Exchange:
As someone had already suggested, it is to lift cold water from underneath the warm water layer to the surface, thus cooling the surface temperature. The lift mechanisms may use the same lift mechanism (solar or wind powered) as described in the Waterfall Heat Exchange above.
3) Blocking Heat with Floating Solar Panels:
Install arrays of floating solar panels over the ocean surface. These floating panels will absorb solar energy while converting it into useful energy.
Since we do not want to, and cannot possibly cover the entire ocean surface, we want to know the amount of heat we want to block off based on historical temperature data. Then we will calculate the total surface area blocked in order to achieve that heat reduction. The total surface does not need to be continuous; it can be scattered or checkerboard pattern. The floating panels will cover a strip of surface along and at a distance from the coast. The intent is to help reduce the hurricane strength as it approaches land. In addition, we do not want to block sun light year-round, so the floating panels must be retractable (into the ocean) during off-hurricane-season. They must be retracted to a depth that is undisturbed by a live hurricane whirling above.
4) Blocking Heat with Satellite Solar Umbrella
This concept is the same as the floating solar panels above. Instead of floating on the ocean surface, the solar umbrellas are flown in orbit. They function like umbrellas blocking the sun. The added benefit here is that these solar umbrellas may fly over areas of drought, or forest fire to alleviate the situation.
5) Floating Forests
Cultivate green plants floating on certain part of the ocean to absorb the solar heat. We can strategically cultivate them along the coast. The idea here is that these green plants will use the photosynthesis process to convert solar energy into plant material, thus reducing heat on the ocean surface. And photosynthesis consumes carbon monoxides, an added benefit to reduce global warming.
As in any system, the floating plants/forests require regular maintenance to prevent overgrown, or dying off. In addition, we certainly want to manage the location of these floating patches to avoid interfering with sea transportations.
Any one of the above methods on-its-own will not be sufficient to reduce heat on the ocean surface. We must employ all of the above, plus any not-yet-thought-of method, to achieve our goal. After all, hurricane in itself is an earth-size matter, thus, our solutions, in terms of cost and size, must be measured in the same earthly scale. Otherwise, we might be fighting forest fire with a garden hose. Such grand scale projects require grand scale budget and grand scale equipment and structures. We cannot complete these structures, projects without thinking in terms of years. We must look to the long term and chart our progress gradually.
At the same time, we must scrutinize these solutions to make sure that they will not negatively impact, or permanently changed the landscape of the earth. An important note is that any of the above methods maybe started and tested in small scale for their effectiveness before implementing on large scale.
Environmental Impact
The environmentalists will ask probing questions. On liquid nitrogen, for example, “What would liquid nitrogen do to the ocean water, to the atmosphere?” Once liquid nitrogen mixes into the ocean water, it will soak up the heat, expand to become air and bubble up into the atmosphere. Because liquid nitrogen is generated by extracting the nitrogen from the air in the first place, in theory, putting it back into the air should not constitute air pollution, or harming the environment. But “where did the heat go?” a sharp minded individual will notice. It is true that we cannot create nor destroy matter. The ocean heat does not just evaporate into thin air. In essence, the heat from the hurricane is transferred (indirectly) from to ocean to the location where the liquid nitrogen is generated. Most likely, the location will be a place on land. Therefore, a large amount of heat is generated as a byproduct from producing liquid nitrogen.
Even Ocean Heat Management solutions will affect the eco system of the ocean. Therefore, we will be naïve to assume there is no impact to the environment with any hurricane remediation methods. The question is “How do we justify our actions?” “How many human deaths and how much material damages can we afford?” “Where do we draw the line?” We can think of it this way, in the do-nothing scenario, we still incur a cost to our eco system, because material damages do have negative environmental impacts. For example, when a house is blown, a roof lifted, a window shattered, or a bridge unseated, it takes energy to repair, and/or rebuild them. Similarly, when trees are uprooted, it takes time for new ones to grow, which in effect, negatively impacting the environment. Using any type of non-renewable energy contributes to global warming. Sad as it sounds, even the acts of preparing for hurricane have the same adverse effect to our eco system, take boarding up windows, stocking up the essentials, evacuation en masse, these are all non-productive activities and they all consume energy.
The benefits may justify leaving the heat on land so that we can save lives and large scale destruction from hurricanes. However, this justification must be short term. We must seek to balance the equation of human lives, material damages and environmental impact in our long-term planning. In the case of liquid nitrogen, the ultimate goal is to generate liquid nitrogen with renewable energy.
