2023-08-14 15:00:12
Installation of cloud seeding equipment in Lyons, Colorado (United States), December 3, 2022. BRITTANY PETERSON / AP
In July, the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture launched a new phase of national cloud seeding program in the northern and northeastern states of the country. Since 2020, and a severe drought in the state of Baja California, this technology has been regularly used to put out fires, fill dams, save livestock and crops. Seeding campaigns financed both by the National Commission for Arid Zones (Conaza), a branch of the Ministry of Agriculture, and by local governments.
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Each of these operations to cause rain was carried out by the Mexican company Renaissance, with technology “pioneering and unique in the world”according to its founder and CEO, Alejandro Trueba Carranza. “We use silver iodide, as do other companies, but our method is different: we apply it in liquid form and below the clouds, which allows us to direct them where we want, explains this agricultural engineer. On the other hand, the liquid form can be used in the summer and in the desert, whereas the application by rocket, as is done in the rest of the world, cannot work with high temperatures. »
The first trials of Renaissance took place in 1977 in Iowa in the United States and in the State of Puebla in Mexico. From 2013, the company developed its “Rainmate” product which contains, in addition to silver iodide, chemical additives and acetone, without its precise composition being known. Seven years later, Renaissance carries out its first mission in Baja California on 1 million hectares. Since then, it has carried out 277 flights (until June 2023) in ten Mexican states and claims to have increased the rainfall there by around 70%.
“Not an effective solution”
Faced with the repeated use of this technique, the scientific community has been asked to assess both the benefits and the possible consequences on the environment. But, in Mexico as elsewhere, there is a lack of solid scientific studies to decide.
Sergio Raul Canino Herrera, a researcher at the Faculty of Marine Sciences of the Autonomous University of Baja California, analyzed in 2021 fifteen samples of rainwater after cloud seeding in different localities. “The silver iodide concentration was very low (about 0.01 ppm). None of the samples had a level of concentration that could be measured with the equipment we have, explains this teacher. On the one hand, we hope for more efficient equipment to redo the analyzes and, on the other hand, we should also look for the other chemical components used in their product. »
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