this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20607081

Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared to double down on her Hurricane Helene conspiracy theory over the weekend, following up a baseless claim that “they” can control the weather with an assertion that such a scheme might involve lasers.


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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So, it is possible to incentivize clouds to rain with lasers. It's part of "cloud seeding" tech that is already done today in Dubai.

But this just triggers rain on certain clouds, it's not going to trigger a hurricane.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2021/07/28/dubai-is-using-laser-drones-to-shock-rainwater-out-of-the-sky/

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It also isn't going to make a cloud produce rain if it wasn't going to anyway. It's just an attempt to get it started early.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A big enough laser pointed at the ocean would probably get a hurricane started; just gotta get enough moisture and heat into the air.

Now, powering the thing would be tricky, and doing it all unnoticed...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I like the way you think, but I don't think Three Mile's remaining reactor has the output you'd need.

Actually, I wonder what the wattage of an average hurricane is. Somebody has to have done the math, probably Randall.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

yeah, to be real, I'm not convinced our total global generated power would even be on the same order of magnitude.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I was thinking tera or exa watt output would be needed, which is less than our global energy consumption, but hilariously more than any individual power plant could produce, regardless of whether it's fission, fusion, natural gas, or coal.

An antimatter powered generator might be able to hit the mark, but good luck with that; both building an antimatter power plant, and creating enough antimatter in the first place

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Reminder: none of the currently available methods of cloud seeding are proven to work.

https://www.wired.com/story/new-gods-weather-rain-cloud-seeding-emirates/

Yes, it all works in theory and in the lab, but in practice we have no idea if cloud seeding "makes it rain" or if it would have rained anyway (to make a long story very short).

So take anything anyone says about "them making it rain" with, like, two grains of salt.