Weather Balloons Gone Wild

In today's catastrophic risks and resilience seminar, perhaps the most disturbing presentation was by J. Storrs (Josh) Hall, who gave a talk on “The Weather Machine: Nano-enabled Climate Control for the Earth.”

Josh offered a simple proposition: once molecular manufacturing is achieved, it should not be difficult to create a design so a nanofactory can produce a tiny transparent balloon fitted with GPS and radio (for sending data and receiving instructions) and a simple set of thrusters to maintain location and to control altitude.

So far, so good. But there are a few additions to this balloon that make its impacts pretty wild: first, it includes a mirror to be used either for reflecting sunlight back into space or directing it to a solar energy collector on earth; second, the mirror can be turned as instructed; and third, because the balloon is made by a nanofactory, as many of them as desired can produced and put into operation in a very short time.

Basic calculations suggest that, in maybe a week or less, ten million tons of raw materials could produce enough balloons to cover the entire earth at twenty miles altitude. That may sound like a lot of material, but in fact it's about the same amount that goes into building 100 miles of a modern highway -- so it's well within reach of even a small nation to acquire the materials if they have the hardware and software and a desire to control the weather of the earth.

Shifting mirrors inside balloons to make some areas warmer and others colder, to make some wetter and some drier gives at least rudimentary power for Josh's "Nano-enabled Climate Control for the Earth." These balloons may well be helpful in slowing, stopping, or even reversing the trend of global warming, as long as we recognize the very real danger of unforeseen, unintended, and possibly irreversible consequence.

Of course, having the means to control weather also allows controlling agricultural production, by improving or degrading climate conditions in growing areas. That implies using the balloons as a form of friendship or for hostile intent -- not to mention that aiming a set of mirrors at a city could instantly annihilate it. 

However the capability is used, if the simple manufacture and deployment of a basically low-tech thing like a bunch of balloons can provide enough power to totally dominate the earth, then it seems we're only beginning to understand the implications of advanced nanotechnology.

Mike Treder

Comments

[jim moore]

I do think that there is a big future for carbon nanotech and balloons. A single atom thick layer of graphene is an excellent gas barrier to hydrogen and helium. I think that Josh’s newest idea (let’s call it the Hall Shell) is so cool, let’s continue to play with the idea.

After you have your layer of graphene balloons all of the individual balloons should join with their neighbors to form a continuous gas tight bubble around the planet, thus creating a roof over the whole planet. (Probably more important for terraforming other
planets.)
You could hang stuff from the Hall Shell, maybe even homes and communities.
You can place a whole bunch of sensors on the Hall Shell looking down at the earth and out at the universe creating a true panopticon.
With simple mirrors and gratings you can route all the light hitting the sunny side of the Hall Shell potentially any ware on the planet creating magnificent art on the sky, something like the whole world going through the powers of 10 video (or maybe horrid advertising filling the sky.)
The Hall Shell could trap the oakster and all of his descendants on the earth forever, subjecting him to CRN’s socialistic control ;-)

[AdvancedAtheist]

I don't know why you still take Hall's science fictional fantasies seriously, Mike. I have yet to see any progress towards the "utility fog" Hall wrote about 15 years ago.

[jim moore]

advanced atheist,
google: claytronics
They are working on a type of Utility Fog,
They working in both 2 and 3 dimensions, on software and hardware and looks like they are making real world progress.

[brian wang]

Claytronics is funded by Intel with work at Carnegie Mellon. They have millimeter size elements now (2D and 3D) and believe they have a clear design path to micron size elements within five to ten years.

Claytronics highlighted at Singularity summit

Claytronics and all digital radios

MIT center for bits and atoms has twenty year or so plan to get to programmable matter. Avogadro scale computing. Conforming computing.

Avogadro scale computing

[AdvancedAtheist]

Great, another futuristic something that might become practical and "change everything" around the time I turn 70, if I live that long. I've heard that so many times in my life that I can't take it seriously any more.

Neil Gershenfeld would do better with the remainder of his career to promote the Fab Lab technologies which happen to work in the here and now. Otherwise he could wind up in his 80's like Marvin Minsky and wonder why he wasted so much of his life chasing after a technological mirage.

[Tom Craver]

>why he wasted so much of his life

Yeah - like Robert Goddard. Such a waste.

Not to mention the gal who invented fire and guy who invented the wheel...