The Vancouver Sun is reporting that “billionaire Bill Gates is funding experiments to explore using “artificial” clouds to cool the planet.

Scientists say the experiments are in the early stages and confined to the lab, but critics say they are laying the groundwork for a trial to whiten clouds in a 10,000-square-kilometre patch of the Pacific.

“Bill Gates and his cloud-wrenching cronies have no right to unilaterally change our seas and skies,” says Jim Thomas of the Montreal-based ETC Group, part of an international coalition calling for a moratorium on geoengineering experiments.

Gates, one of the world’s richest men, has given $4.5 million to climate researcher David Keith of the University of Calgary and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science to fund research on planet-cooling ideas. Keith is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

Caldeira says the money has gone to different researchers, including about $300,000 US to researcher Armand Neukermanns, who is also involved with the Silver Lining Project, which is working on plans to run the world’s first cloud brightening trial.

The Silver Lining Project would use “cloud” ships to blast tiny droplets of sea water about a kilometre into the atmosphere in a bid to create bright white clouds to reflect sunlight back into space and cool the atmosphere.

“David Keith and I allocated funds to Armand Neukermanns to use laboratory experiments to establish whether it would be technically feasible to produce sea water sprays,” says Caldeira. He stresses that Gates’ money is not going directly to the Silver Lining field trial.

The distinction is lost on Thomas. If Neukermanns succeeds in designing a working spray to brighten clouds, Thomas says the technology is likely to be used on the Silver Lining trial.

Robert Wood of the University of Washington is one of the scientists collaborating on the Silver Lining Project. He says the concept of whitening and brightening clouds has been around for years and is still unproven. But he and others say it may be one of the most benign ways of cooling the planet if governments cannot agree to cut the greenhouse gases warming the planet.

A study commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, a European think-tank, has estimated that for $9 billion, a wind-powered fleet of 1,900 ships could be built to cruise the world’s oceans, spraying sea water from towers to create and brighten clouds.

Wood says the idea is still being tested in the lab, and it will likely take $25 million to $30 million to get the proposed 10,000-square kilometre Silver Lining trial up and running.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.”