A billion clouds per second. Gates seas tech innovation solution to global warming

Friday, June 04, 2010 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories: Environment, Technology | Tags: research, Bill Gates, eco, Microsoft, Clouds, Greenhouse, Engineering

In the marvelous playground that is the mind of Microsoft billionaire, Bill Gates, the world must look like a Mario Kart video game. Gates is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards, seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth.

Gates has bought into this macro-experiment following the United Nations failed to secure agreement on cutting greenhouse gases. A study last year calculated that a fleet of 1,900 ships costing £5 billion could arrest the rise in temperature by criss-crossing the oceans and spraying seawater from tall funnels to whiten clouds and increase their reflectivity.

Basically, if you press the accelerator button as fast as you can, clouds appear and all the little Mario Brothers don’t melt, or get swept away by rising sea levels. That would be game over.