Rain Maker
If a radical technology is supposed to look radical, then Boston-based Ionogenics has a problem. Its new device is devoid of geeky eye candy.
It's just a circle of steel poles set into the earth, with wires
connecting them to each other and to another pole at the center of the
circle. But Ionogenics officials say that this simple device can fulfill
one of humankind's most persistent longings. They say this odd-looking
machine will make the heavens open and pour forth moisture on the parched
earth. Ionogenics a privately held company launched this month, is in the
weather modification business. More specifically, they're rainmakers.
The very word "rainmaking" calls up old-movie images of con artists and
snake-oil salesmen, so it's no surprise that Ionogenics president Phillip
Kauffman strives to downplay expectations for his product. He stresses
that you can't just turn on an Ionogenics machine and then grab your
umbrella.
"I don't think we'll ever be at a point where we can throw a switch" and
produce rain, Kauffman says.
But he does say that steady use of the system leads to significantly
larger amounts of rain. The technology has been on trial in various parts
of Mexico since 1999, and Kauffman says it's produced about twice the
normal annual rainfall in these areas. These results so impressed
Kauffman, a former marketing executive at Digital Equipment Corp. and
Hewlett-Packard Co., that he invested his own money to launch Ionogenics.
If the Mexican test results hold up, Ionogenics technology could offer a
simple way to wring more water out of the sky. That could ease the threat
of drought, enable the farming of once-barren land. It could even help
stifle forest fires.
All this, Kauffman says, by simply radiating electricity into the air.
When a lightning bolt cracks across the sky, the surrounding air molecules
are ionized -- that is, they pick up a positive or negative electrical
charge. And these ions can come in handy if it's rain you want.
That's because rain doesn't just happen by chance. Like steam on a
bathroom mirror, water vapor in the atmosphere needs something to cling to
in order to condense into raindrops. These are called condensation nuclei.
Usually, they're dust particles. And ever since the 1940s, scientists have
sprayed clouds with silver iodide particles to create artificial nuclei.
This process, known as "cloud seeding," is commonplace in many
drought-stricken areas of the United States, even though scientists are
uncertain whether it actually works.
Ionogenics takes a different tack, though its system also has its
skeptics. Its technology is based on work done by Lev Pokhmelnykh, the
company's vice president of research and development, during his days as a
physicist in Moscow. Pokhmelnykh had the idea that ionized air molecules
can act as condensation nuclei.
The Ionogenics system uses an electric generator to create a constant flow
of current through its circular grid of wires. This current, in turn,
ionizes millions of air molecules, which are supposed to go wafting into
the sky, where they attract water molecules that eventually develop into
raindrops. Each ionizer takes up nine acres of space, and is supposed to
boost rainfall within a radius of 25 miles.
The trick is controling the supply of ionized air molecules. Add enough,
and water molecules start to clump together into raindrops. But add too
many and the molecules become too dispersed to form the right-sized drops
and the water just hangs there like a very fine mist. The science comes in
figuring out how much ionized air to unleash.
"Building these systems is trivial," said Kauffman. "Operating these
systems is very, very complicated."
But Gianfranco Bisiacchi, Ionogenics' director of operations and
Kauffman's brother-in-law, says they're getting the hang of it. Bisiacchi,
former director of the National University of Mexico's Space Research and
Development Program, began working with Pokhmelnykh when the Russian
scientist moved to Mexico three years ago With funding from the university
and the Mexican government, Pokhmelnykh and Bisiacchi set up a network of
13 atmospheric ionizers dotting six Mexican states. The results, say
Bisiacchi, is a marked increase in rain wherever the ionizers are used.
Bisiacchi admits that it's extremely difficult to prove that the ionizers
are the reason for the increase. The tests cover such a short period of
time that some natural phenomenon could also explain the difference.
"I am trying to be as cool and as impartial as I can," said Bisiacchi,
"but of course I am very interested in this project." Still, Bisiacchi
stands by his estimate that the ionizers have increased rain "by something
on the order of 30 to 50 percent."
Brian Tinsley, professor of space science at the University of Texas at
Dallas, says he's skeptical about the Ionogenics system. Tinsley hasn't
studied the Ionogenics process, but he is a student of atmospheric
ionization caused by cosmic radiation. He believes that this ionization
can affect the weather, but says scientists are a long way from
understanding how.
"We think there's some effect there, but the details are still not fully
understood," says Tinsley. As a result, he doubts that the Ionogenics
scientists can fine-tune atmospheric ionization to produce rain by
request. "I wouldn't think these people would be very likely to have a
scientifically valid approach," he says.
Ionogenics can expect a skeptical reception from scientists. After all,
cloud seeding has been in use since the 1940s, and experts still argue
over whether it works. The problem is that you can't test a weather
machine in a lab, under controlled conditions. You can only do it in the
real world. And real-world weather is so complex that it's almost
impossible to know whether that much-needed thunderstorm was caused by
human technology, or would have happened anyhow.
"That is the biggest problem in the field, that you don't have a
controlled experiment," said Earle Williams, a physical meteorologist at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Nature does not put that on a
plate for us."
Ionogenics' main competitors -- companies that use silver iodide
cloud-seeding techniques -- suffer from the same disadvantage. That hasn't
prevented 10 states in the Western United States from spending millions on
cloud seeding in an effort to whip up more rain, or even snow. Colorado is
spending $1 million this winter on cloud seeding in an effort to keep its
ski resorts snowed under. Sure enough, there's more snow on the ground
this year, even though Brant Foote, a weather modification expert at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, says there's no proof
that cloud seeding is the reason.
Kauffman and his colleagues at Ionogenics think they can get a foothold in
the business if they simply keep demonstrating consistently larger
rainfalls in areas that use their system. People will gain confidence in
the system and begin to apply it. Within three years, Kauffman said, he
hopes to be generating $5 million to $10 million in revenues, rising into
the hundreds of millions later in the decade.
Kauffman foresees a variety of likely buyers for his ionizers, which will
cost $250,000 for a one-year lease. Farmers should be interested, as well
as crop insurance companies looking to save on payouts of drought
insurance and government agencies trying to fend off forest fires by
keeping the trees damp. And since adding too many ions to the atmosphere
reduces rain, Kauffman foresees a market in areas plagued by flooding.
His colleague Bisiacchi has an even grander vision. "One of my dreams is
some time to be able to go to Africa and stop the advance of the Sahara
desert," he said. If the Ionogenics system really can deliver rain, he
believes, it could conceivably alter the geography of the planet.