In Reply to: And how much would that cost? * posted by BluBlood on December 03, 2024 at 21:02:25
"Hollingsaeter estimates that running such a warm-core eddy patrol would cost about $350 million per hurricane season. For comparison, the damage wreaked by Katrina in 2005 cost nearly $180 billion in today's dollars and that of Hurricane Ida in August $65 billion, according to NOAA.
"There is no way we could stop a Category 4 hurricane," Hollingsaeter said. "We have to do it when they are still small and relatively weak."
Before deploying such a solution, the company would have to prove that cooling the water doesn't harm marine life. But Hollingsaeter is not too concerned. "We are just reducing the temperature to a normal level because it's too high to begin with," he said. "In Norway, we have been using bubble curtains for years and there has been no negative effect on marine life."
In fact, he added, the company is in talks with wildlife organizations who are interested in testing bubble curtains as a way to cool down overheated coral reefs."