Silver iodide furnaces developed by the China Aerospace Technology Corporation (CASC) will be located in the Himalayas at elevations of over 4,900 meters. These furnaces are designed to use steam plumes coming from the Indian Ocean to produce rainfall, but the plumes themselves cannot produce rainfall due to their geographic location in the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau and the Qaidam Basin. These northern areas enter the so-called rain shadow because the clouds are blocked at low altitudes by the southern Himalayas.

But what is the principle? To induce rainfall, chemical fuels are burned in a furnace, producing smoke containing silver iodide. This is because as the silver iodide rises and mixes with the clouds, it crystallizes, starting a chain reaction that induces precipitation. To increase efficiency, the furnace is connected to a computer network that uses weather satellites to ensure that silver iodide is released when the sky is overcast.

Such weather modification has had some success in history, but never on such a large scale. China has already built hundreds of rainwater reactors in Tibet with promising results, including a stand-alone rainwater reactor that produces clouds as long as 5 kilometers. If the project is successful, the 10 billion tons of rain will be used not only on the Tibetan Plateau, but also for other Chinese water projects, such as the South-to-North Water Transfer, which will channel water from the Yangtze River to the Yellow River to irrigate the deserts of the Tarim Basin in northern Tibet. Both rivers flow from the Himalayas and would have a positive rainmaking impact. However, the implementation of such projects also contributes to the growing need for new water sources caused by global climate change, namely the melting of the Himalayan glaciers that provide most of the fresh water to the Asian continent.