This story was originally published in our Nov/Dec 2022 issue as "Targeting Typhoons." Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.
Taiga Mitsuyuki, a marine systems engineer at Yokohama National University in Japan, holds a small plastic model in his hands. The 3D-printed ship, sporting twin hulls and rigid sails mounted on an A-frame, was built to illustrate a seemingly impossible purpose. If a full-scale version of the boat is built, it could draw energy from one of nature’s most destructive forces.
Mitsuyuki and his colleagues have high hopes for such a vessel: the scientists want to make storm engineering a real prospect by 2050. Once deployed, these ships would enable the team to capture and store a typhoon’s energy with propellers and batteries. At the same time, an accompanying drone armada would inject a cooling agent into the storm, helping to weaken it.
This mission feels ...
