Artificial Tornadoes

An anonymous reader writes "This inventor is working on a method of creating artificial tornadoes to generate electricity which he calls the "Atmospheric Vortex Engine". He is claiming that it is possible to create a man-made tornado and use wind turbines to capture the energy from the tornado. On the website there is some video footage of some experimental tornadoes that were generated in a prototype vortex tower in Utah. There seem to be several recent media references to his work including The Economist and The Guardian. Sounds like an interesting idea for a renewable energy source, but what happens if one of these tornadoes gets away?"

Comments

Conservation of Energy

[quanticle]

Where is the energy for these tornadoes coming from? To be more specific, how much energy is needed to start up one of these things?

Great for Electricity but...

[PlayfullyClever]

Wind, Hydro, Nuclear... great for electricity but does nothing about Gas and Oil.

Until electric cars become efficient enough to run all day on a single charge with half a day of stored energy still available, petrol is the energy source we need to replace.

I'm betting on Biodiesel. It's still more expensive to refine than crude oil but that gap is closing fast. With current subsidies you can actually buy biodiesel for cheaper than Gasoline...

Re:Great for Electricity but...

[maswan]

And every time someone comes up with the idea of electric cars, I usually see here the argument that there is no point, because "electricty is made by burning oil anyway"...

The fact that fossil fuels are being burnt to generate electricity should give you a hint that better ways to generate electricity is really needed.

Well, that or people getting happy about having a nuclear power plant in their back yard.

Re:Great for Electricity but...

[FLEB]

Well, that or people getting happy about having a nuclear power plant in their back yard.

If better safety controls and protocols were applied, I would be. Maybe I just don't know enough about it, but I think a lot of the problem with nuclear power is the same sort of mistaken impression as flying-vs-driving, or microwaves-vs-stovetop. With nuclear, the damage in the case of a failure can be much more catastrophic, and the risk factors are strange and scary, but the net ecological damage versus something like coal or fossil fuels is actually less, provided nothing goes Chernobyl or TMI. Of course there is the risk of a Chernobyl or TMI, but if people could actually work on the problem, solutions could be found. Me? I'd rather have nuclear now than wind, water, or solar that's always just over the horizon.

"What happens if..."

[heatdeath]

"What happens if one of these tornados gets away?"

This question is about as ignorant as "what happens if a nuclear reactor blows up?" A vortex created and sustained by the energy from the tower wouldn't be able to escape - if it did, it would have no energy source to sustain itself.