Artificial Clouds To Cool Qatar World Cup Stadiums

An anonymous reader writes "In anticipation of extreme heat during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, scientists and engineers at Qatar University have developed a solar-powered gas-filled cloud that will shade spectators and athletes from the intense sun. The $500,000 artificial clouds can be positioned over any of the stadiums in Qatar and can be maneuvered with a remote control from the ground to keep the passing sun off the field."

Comments

The New Golden Age

[NotAGoodNickname]

It is nice that the world is so wealthy we can spend billions of dollars of extra money watching grown men kicking balls into nets. We truly have entered the Golden Age.

Re:The New Golden Age

[SimonTheSoundMan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN1WN0YMWZU

Re:The New Golden Age

[NotAGoodNickname]

No I'd rather have them spending billions on neither of the two options. Are you saying there are only two options to spend billions of dollars on?

Re:The New Golden Age

[NotAGoodNickname]

Riiiight. Thats just bullshit. The owners get huge taxpayer breaks and often taxpayer funded stadiums to conduct their businesses in. The fact that 1000 people might get a $10/hr job doesn't compensate for the billions wasted on children's games.

Re:The New Golden Age

[nitehawk214]

It isn't your choice , it is theirs and humans are a very selfish group by design.

Why worry about the future, when your not going to be around for it?

And this line of thinking got us to where we are today. Companies breed executives to be intentionally short-sighed, not even looking past the next quarter, much less the next decade or generation.

Hopefully...

[LaminatorX]

...the Emir will keep up his payments to the Spacing Guild for weather control.

Just use a dome instead?

[KBentley57]

I know it would be a question of retrofitting a stadium if not already equipped, but wouldn't a dome be much more flexible in its use? What if there is a strong wind, or rain? wouldn't that make the balloons unstable, whereas a dome would still work perfectly? With a dome, you could even have a massive HVAC unit to cool it down somewhat.

Re:Kitten block

[jiteo]

Dismissing the message because of the messenger is akin to racism, in which you dismiss the person because of the race. I don't like the Daily Mail any more than you do, but this particular article had no ZOMG FOREIGNERS content, so I didn't mind. Yeah, it squeezed two sentences of information into 10 paragraphs of text, but everything does that nowadays. Also, did you really need to tell all of Slashdot about your super Firefox extension? Don't want to read the Daily Mail? OK, don't read it in private. Bragging about it makes you look like a wanker, not an intellectual. (Man, who peed in my Cheerios this morning? I don't normally post bile like that...)

Re:Blimps

[value_added]

Didn't the Romans have sunshades over the Coliseum...?

They did, and it was called a velarium. The real question is what, aside from inventing the velarium, have the Romans ever done for us?

did they ever hear of the roof?

[Punto]

did China start a new trend of coming up with complicated schemes to avoid building roofs on buildings?

Re:did they ever hear of the roof?

[DaveGod]

$500k is probably a lot cheaper than adding a retractable roof, especially when it may be saleable after, or shared during the event.

Roofs also impact on the sport. For example in some sports (e.g. rugby) it may be desirable to retain the variable introduced by wind (I daresay most fans do not like a kicking game). Then there's the atmosphere: obviously a roof has a considerable effect on the acoustics. Not to forget grass needs sunlight, tens of thousands of supporters in an enclosed space are going to generate some heat of their own... I think it's fair to say roofs are considered to be a significant compromise in favour of the reliability from reducing weather effects.

I could well be totally wrong on this but I was under the impression certain sports - or rather certain sporting events - require an open roof, or allow retractable roofs to be closed only under certain conditions and when approved by an official of the governing body.

Re:Blimps

[c0lo]

Congratulations, Qatar, you have reinvented blimps!

Graf Zeppelin would be so proud.

Except that the blimp is "in the cloud" and is using "renewable energy" - making those blimps fashionable.

Re:Blimps

[thedonger]

The real question is what, aside from inventing the velarium, have the Romans ever done for us?

They sparked the imaginations of filmmakers to produce highly romanticized depictions of Roman life while glossing over their incredible feats of engineering.

Cloud Computing

[Anonymous Coward]

Would the Cloud be controlled from a cloud computer?

Re:Cost and environmental concerns?

[thewils]

Or they could simply play at night. When it is cooler.

Re:Let's hope by then

[Nidi62]

better yet hand it over to Belgium, so they don't feel left out, when's the last time they had a colony of their own?

Well, there was the Belgian Congo. Lovely little place. The king of Belgium persuaded Europe that he should have personal control over it, and ran it as his own personal plantation for his own enrichment. If you couldnt fill your quota of rubber, you could bring in severed hands instead. Eventually people stopped trying to harvest rubber and just focused on hands. Best estimates are that roughly 20-50% of the population died during the king's control. Eventually Belgium had to force the king to cede control to the government of Belgium. So, yeah, I think that was one of the last times Belgium had a colony.

Re:Blimps

[pjt33]

Whoosh