Bill Gates want to use cold seawater to stop hurricanes

OTEC@hexayurt told me about a system which would use hot seawater to power a process to bring up cold seawater to the surface, and that way “steal” some of the energy which a hurricane uses. This has been mentioned in several places, but here is a sample article about it. Seems to me that a back of the envelope calculation on the thermodynamics of this can give a quick answer to the question: would it work?