In another stroke of genius marked by the excess that only an oil rich nation can give, Qatar is to build artificial clouds to shade the stadiums and training grounds of the 2022 World Cup. These clouds will be made up of an ultralight carbon frame work with a larger synthetic bladder for air stretched over it. These clouds will be kept aloft by solar powered generated fans that will allow them to be controlled and remain stationary. You can see the cloud in action here.
In the rest of the world, these artificial clouds would be called blimps, but apparently Google hasn’t landed yet in the Qatari engineering community. Either way, this seems to be one of the most practical ideas for lowering the ground temperatures in the area for the games, until you consider the environment these machine would be operating in. The top surface of these airships will be exposed to the full glare of the sun. As we all know from driving our cars, heat increases the pressure within a tire. These blimps would be under enormous stress as a result, and it would be seriously difficult to keep the things from bursting.
Also, Qatar is beside one of the largest deserts in the world, and sandstorms, which wreak havoc on machines, especially aircraft, will be an issue. Now obviously the players won’t be training in a sand storm, but the blimps will be to large to put inside, and therefore be left out in the elements.
But the most serious problem with this idea is one fact. Wouldn’t it be simpler to build a lot of enclosed and roofed training grounds? It seems it would be less expensive, and would certainly require less time and effort. Either way, ti should be an interesting few years leading up to the World Cup.
Posted by: Matthew Wall, editor, soccerprose.com
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