“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.”
From the DailyMail Online article:
Saud Abdul Ghani, head of the mechanical and industrial engineering department, told Gulf News the ‘clouds’ are made from a lightweight carbon structure carrying a giant envelope of material containing helium gas.
Four solar powered engines move the structure via remote control.
All I can say is: with their recent track record in launching climate related missions, don’t let NASA build it. Beyond the artist rendition below, I have not found any actual plans, drawings, or other indications that the ‘port-o-clouds’ are even engineered yet.
Solar powered? I guess nobody noticed the megawatts worth of electrical transmission lines nearby to run a/c unit if needed, as seen below.
From the Guardian, it seems there is even more trouble:
Al-Rayyan stadium, Qatar. Preparations for the 2022 World Cup will involve the ‘possible enslavement of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of impoverished south Asian migrant workers’. Photograph: Fadi Al-Assaad/Reuters
See more at: whyqatar2022.com
Does the proximity of April 1st have anything to do with it?
By comparing the size of the baloon thingy with the size of its shadow it appears that the sun is at most three or four kilometres away.
Looks like it would shade only about 1/10 of the stands.
I’d imagine that InTrade will have a “wager” going on that blimp at some point!
They’re going to be like Canada and have to fly in a real Zamboni.
I would remind you that many do not really care about impoverished South Asians. See: Walmart.
Do we fly in Zambonis? I rather thought we pretty much had them lying around.
I blame Sepp Blatter , president of FIFA. The UK bid for 2018 was rejected in favour of Russia, which is fair enough. Then Australia’s bid for 2022 was beaten by Qatar! You can’t make this stuff up.
The world cup will be reduced to a laughing stock after this. In my opinion the Champions League is a better competion. All the world’s best players are there and the final this year is at Wembley. With any luck it will be Barcelona v. Chelsea, a game and a venue worthy of the contest’s name.
Sure. This will work. ///
What a bunch of bullshit. Just like those silly sand and coral islands off of Dubai now falling apart. If the country is not undergoing some bizarre Islamic revolution when the Olympics are scheduled, I still would not have these morons hovering anything over me.
Solar powered engines do not work at night! Does this cloud land at night? Is it tethered at any time to prevent it floating away? Will they use searchlights to power the engines in the same way that the Spanish use strong lighting to generate electricity at night from solar panels,because the solar panel electricity earns more revenue than the cost of the fossil fuel generated electricity used to power the lamps at night.
We will know the answer to that question, if the cloud is built with solar panels on both upper and lower surfaces.
P
Unfortunately there is as much corruption in Fifa as there is in climate science. If you have enough cash then you can buy the right to host the world cup even if the bid is full of flaws.
@ur momisugly John Edmondson – Chelsea in the champions league final?, I think not. Spurs will be the only english club there 🙂
I can attest to the truth of GarryP’s statement about the Shamal. Dull cloudy very hot and very humid days full of wind blown sand. Great atmosphere to play football.
Or they could just buy some of the LEMVs being built by Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd for Northrop Grumman. http://www.hybridairvehicles.com/
Must be some solar panels. To produce enough electrical power to lift themselves, plus motors and chassis and stuff, of the ground.
Might be easier to move it to England and build an artificial sun!
Since they’re going to spend trillions of oil dollars in any case, why not just move the stadium underground? Bring in air through long subsurface pipes. They’d need little if any air conditioning, just a lot of flow.
at least they’re using Helium, so we’ll be spared a “Hindenburg moment.”
although it would probably raise ratings substantially.
Given that this is the middle east, how long before someone remembers “Black Sunday” (1977)? yep, Bruce Dern as the crazed Vietnam Vet who wanted to blow up the Super Bowl with a blimp.
… enslavement … employment …
We are all slaves to our employment one way or another.
that first pic looks like something out of harry potter!
They could just get a hold of Goodyear , Met-Life, and all the other companies that have been flying blimps over over sporting events on a daily basis for decades. A small fraction of the existing global fleet could handle this function and it wouldn’t cost them a cent.
I just hope that its really windy that day.
BTW, What are they going to build those “12 eco-friendly, carbon-neutral stadiums” with. Cement production is one of the leading contributors to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Steel is hardly carbon neutral. I have no plans to attend, but if I was, I’m not sure how confident I’d feel sharing my place with tens of thousands of soccer fans in a stadium built from recycled soda bottles.
They could save billions if they simply held the World Cup there in January instead of July.
January is nice in Qatar. Typically a max of 70F to 80F and dry.
Nothing like a story about stupid, dumb ass ideas to bring out the anti-soccer crowd. Oh well you can have your opinions but do yourself a favor and watch a Barcelona game sometime. Pure bloody poetry in motion! This ball is ours, you want to play go find one of your own! Damn brilliant.
Diving isn’t limited to soccer. Wayne Gretzky in hockey and Michael Irving in football just to name a few also did it to great effect.
As to the story I suppose it is too easy to suggest playing the World Cup at night or in the winter break when temps would be bearable? Why do the easy, practical thing when you can float a dirigible around and shade things.
Seriously that is all this is. One big honking dirigible….. oh yea WITH TONS OF SPACE FOR ADVERTISING. Now it all makes sense.
Cheers
At the rate of political instability in the Arab World now demonstrated, I doubt that Qatar will even exist as a country in 2022. Certainly there will be a re-appraisal by FIFA concerning security, and it would be prudent of them to make alternative arrangements.
So far as the magic solar powered cloud is concerned, it looks too small in the artists illustration in your article. The Qatar authorities should have involved someone like Richard Branson to build a giant airship which could not only have served the purpose of shading out the sun, but he could have sold hundreds of passenger seats with a bird’s eye view of the matches. $$$$$ bucks banked by Branson and zero cost to the Qatar soccer authorities. Branson would personally pilot the craft, and power it by refelecting the suns glare from his own dazzling teeth, onto a super-efficient solar array which is yet to be invented, let alone manufactured.
…….. or why not get those “chemtrail” guys over from the old US of A to lend a hand. Just a few hours work with a couple of dozen wide-bodied jets, can fill the entire sky over Qatar with chemtrail spiders webs of “clouds” and obscure the sun completely.
The added bonus could be that we could drug the entire Qatar population with the chemical fallout from such “clouds” and make them easier to control.
– Hat tip to Mssrs. Kissinger & Brzezinski.
‘A lightweight CARBON structure’…??
How very DARE they…!
I think I’m going to have an attack of what Victorian ladies called ‘the vapours’….