A renowned inventor claims to have developed a way of preventing hurricanes using a squadron of sea planes – and giant CRISP PACKETS.
Rear Admiral Nicholas Goodhart, 90, saved thousand of lives in the 1950s after designing the first system to guide planes onto aircraft carriers.
He now claims to have invented a way of stopping hurricanes – which are created when energy is absorbed from the ocean’s warm surface.
Experts believe that cutting sea surface temperature by 4.5C under the eye of the hurricane could actually kill the storm before it happens.
Nicholas’ invention – called Albedo – would see solar radiation reflected back into space using giant plastic sheets – like ”potato chip” bags.
As soon as meteorologists spot a potential hurricane four giant sea boats – made up of 100 smaller sea planes – would each drag five miles of reflective material across the sea.
Nicholas says this would reflect some of the solar energy back to space and disasters such a Hurricane Katrina could be stopped.
Rear Admiral Goodhart, of Teignmouth, Devon, is now taking his idea to American computer billionaire Bill Gates who is also developing a method of battling hurricanes.
Nicholas said: “All the other ideas have tried to fix hurricanes. That’s ludicrous. They’re far to powerful. I just try to stop them starting.
“It all starts from the basis that hurricanes, at the beginning of their life, are weak and require huge amounts of energy from the sun to turn them into the destructive power that eventually wreaks such devastation.
”Each of the sea boats would carry four strips, each 8.5km long, that can only be described as the inside of a chip packet. In other words, thin, tiny plastic.”
Nicholas says his system could be deployed in trouble spots in the Atlantic Ocean, Carribean or Gulf of Mexico where hurricane season brings around six storms a year.
Crews would wait to be tipped off by hurricane watchers at National Oceanic Atmosphere Administration where the storm is brewing before flying into action.
A spokesman for the Met Office said hurricanes are created when the sun provides energy to heat up the oceans which is then released into the atmosphere.