Wilma the Capacitor and Particle Accelerator

Sterling D. Allan writes "In a story at the new Open Source Energy Network site, Paul Noel says: "Energetically speaking, the vortex that forms in these storms is also a natural particle accelerator, and a massive capacitor bank. As the harmonic circuit develops, it resonates acoustically and functions as a capacitor, extracting the heat from the storm and transmitting it away. Without this electrical circuit, the storm would fail almost instantly due to the accumulation of heat from condensation of water." He also asserts that understanding these phenomena better could help us harness the power of nature, seen and unseen."

Comments

Possible way to kill hurricanes . . .

[SpeedyGonz]

before they do any damage to us: Detonating an EMP bomb inside?

Functions as a capacitor

[JumperCable]

"and functions as a capacitor, extracting the heat from the storm and transmitting it away." -Article The author doesn't have a clue what a capacitor is.

Re:What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell

[utexaspunk]

I'm more shocked that it got through when the article submitter works for the source website. Surely waiting for some qualified thirdparty to confirm the news isn't nonsense would've been wise?

Are you new here? Practically every other article is submitted by a party related to the article source websites. Nothing here is really news, but more just fodder for discussion. Or at least bitching (as the case may be here).

Imagine you're at the nerd table in high school, and people are continually coming up to the table peddling their wares or ideas. Maybe a couple people at the table chime in with something they heard in the news every now and then. In any case, it's all subject for discussion. We can talk about how something is crap, discuss the implications about this or that, or at least see if we can make milk come out someone's nose. That's really all /. is about. If you're coming here expecting a peer-reviewed scientific journal, or actual journalism, I'm afraid you're in the wrong place.

They are, but they're cranks

[Engineer-Poet]

FTFA:

During its transit of Florida, satellite photos showed that areas of the high clouds of Wilma covering more than 1/3 of the state were below -135 F. (The lowest temperature for the IR satellite chart). It was actually close in a large area to -175. Some areas exceeded that. This is what happens when you dump the arctic into the tropics. Explosions happen! The forecast of a weak Cat 1 became a strong Cat 3 due to this temperature shock.

Actually, that's what happens when you take huge amounts of air and loft them tens of thousands of feet; they expand and cool (even as they drop moisture and release heat to power the lift process) and get very cold at their tops.

None of this is strange physics. All of it is accounted for by current weather models. Talk of "particle accelerators" and "capacitor banks" is silly; there's a lot of energy converted to lightning in thunderstorms, but it's small and secondary compared to the heat engine which drives it.

The authors of this piece are first-class cranks.