Dyn-O-Mat, a company based in Florida, USA, has announced the successful invention of Dyn-O-Gel, a polymer capable of absorbing water up to 1,500 times its own weight.
This substance, when introduced into the eye of a hurricane, absorbs moisture and diminishes the storm’s energy, thereby reducing wind speed and flooding potential. Upon falling, Dyn-O-Gel takes the form of a gel and is harmless when it comes into contact with seawater. According to the manufacturer, it would only take 8 million USD to treat a storm using this method. This price is considered very low compared to the potential damages that can reach billions of dollars caused by each hurricane.
Peter Cordani, the company’s director, envisions aircraft dropping Dyn-O-Gel into storms to extract their moisture and energy. “If you can slow a storm down by about 12-15 miles per hour, you can reduce its category,” he stated.
Cordani’s Dyn-O-Storm aircraft successfully intervened in a storm 15 kilometers off the coast of Palm Beach on July 19, 2001. It released 40,000 USD worth of Dyn-O-Gel into the swirling clouds. This powder effectively dehydrated the storm.
Kevin Sullivan, a supervisor at the Palm Beach air traffic control tower, supported this claim: “Everyone at the control tower confirmed they saw a column of cloud get vertically uplifted, and a few minutes later, it disappeared.” A weather radar station for a Miami television station also detected that the storm had lost moisture.
Cordani’s efforts evoke memories of the Stormfury Project initiated by the U.S. government from 1961 to 1980, which aimed to modify weather, but by the end of the project, it remained unclear whether the planes dispersing silver iodide crystals had any impact.
However, Cordani noted, “We have technologies at our disposal that they did not have 40 years ago.” In addition to silver iodide, the United States has also battled storms using cement, which can absorb water approximately equal to its own weight, but this method is only 1/1,500 as effective as Dyn-O-Gel.
Despite this, Cordani’s initiative has not received widespread support. Some scientists contend that humans have misjudged the scale and power of tropical storms and believe that attempting to control hurricanes is futile.
T. An (according to Telegraph)
