Mad Science of the Week: THE TORNADO MASTER!

[athelind]

Tornado Master!Ontario Louis Michard proposes using the waste heat from a conventional power plant to create a tamed tornado, and generating far more power using turbines that tap into the vortex's energy

Comments

[tprjones]

"...cool off the whole damned planet."

I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Our current trend is well within the normal cycles of the planet's changes in temperature, and there's still no verifiable scientific evidence that any of the change is man-made. We're overdue for an ice age, and I'd rather not see us set one off because we went and mucked about with the climate just because we assumed we were already mucking about with the climate when in fact we may not have been.

Perhaps we are messing things up. Perhaps we aren't. But if we're so worried about messing things up shouldn't we try to have some sort of proof before we do something that is specifically designed to mess things up?

[cpxbrex]

LOL. That's all I can do is laugh.

[tprjones]

And that's what worries me. These days everyone has their own flavor of insanity that is a sacred "scientific" truth regardless of the evidence that can be studied and quantified, from Intelligent Design to Scientology to Anthropogenic Global Warming.

What ever happened to rationality? When did it become so rediculous to be logical before you go mucking about with this sort of thing?

[cpxbrex]

Dood, every scientific agency from the National Academy of the Sciences, NASA, even the US military innumerable peer reviewed studies have all concluded with confidences in the .95 area that human activity is responsible for at least some global warming. The science is overwhelmingly and conclusively on the side of human activity causing at least some global warming. The only thing that's seriously being argued over, now, is how bad and to what extent.

You've brought to the table . . . a guy's blog? Is this supposed to outweight the numerous conclusive studies by the most respected scientific organizations in the world on the subject?

Please. it is true that many people have their own insanity masquerading as science, but at least in this case it's the people who continue to deny despite the overwhelming evidence that global warming is happening. The scientific consensus is extremely clear -- clearer, even, than in the debate between intelligent design and evolution.

[hafoc]

I'd love to see this as a trial project. Um.. wouldn't it cause some crazy changes to the rain patterns, though?

[cpxbrex]

Oh, bugger you, hehe. I liked the idea a lot more until you brought up the idea that there might be broader consequences. ;)

[athelind]

Oh, most definitely. I'm one of those people that Michard mentions who get all twitchy at the thought of climate engineering.

Frankly, I think that deliberately generating cyclones on the equator would just be askin' for all new and different hurricane activity.

That's why we call it MAD science!!

...wait, could you sustain a vortex engine along the equator? Natural storms almost never form there...

[cpxbrex]

A great idea, but the article itself was AWFUL in a lot of ways. But the IDEA is pretty cool. I hope he can get it to work. Greenhouse powered power? COOL.

[doc_mystery]

I'm reminded of a pulp villain I once came up with who artificially augmented hurricanes on a lonely island south of Cuba to make them into a 1930s weird science particle accelerator.

::B::

[tombfyre]

Sounds crazy enough to try! :D I wish the guy luck.