Great, most of us merely talk about the weather, but how many

Published 7:00 am Monday, July 13, 2009

Great, most of us merely talk about the weather, but how many invest in it? Gizmodo and Popular Science and Tech Flash report that Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his former employee Nathan Myhrvold have filed patents to combat Gulf Coast hurricanes, like Katrina, with a fleet of vessels that would pump warm ocean surface water down into the depths to offset the thermal power that drives such storms. The venture is affiliated with Myhrvold’s underperforming IP investment fund Intellectual Ventures, which has raised $5 billion to generate and acquire patents–then later profit from them.So could averting hurricanes and protecting New Orleans from another catastrophe be profitable? Or feasible? Probably only if it were a federal effort, with thousands upon thousands of these hypothetical water-pumper boats spread out all over the Gulf Coast. In which case, Gates and Myhrvold wouldn’t be building their own pirate fleet (though Myhrvold certainly looks the part), but licensing the patent back to the government. And on the tech side, if such a scheme were possible, it would put Gates and Myhrvold into the energy market, since their patents are related to what’s generally called ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), which uses the thermal gradient between very cold (deep) and warm (surface) water to generate alternative energy. So even if they can’t save New Orleans, the might end up producing some of our electricity–not a bad hedge strategy for all our power-sucking PCs and servers.