Mini-Tornadoes For Generating Electricity

cylonlover writes "Tornadoes generally evoke the destructive force of nature at its most awesome. However, what if all that power could be harnessed to produce cheaper and more efficient electricity? This is just what Canadian engineer Louis Michaud proposes to achieve, with an invention dubbed the 'Atmospheric Vortex Engine' (or AVE). It works by introducing warm air into a circular station, whereupon the difference in temperature between this heated air and the atmosphere above creates a vortex – or controlled tornado, which in turn drives multiple wind turbines in order to create electricity. The vortex could be shut down by simply turning off the source of warm air. Michaud's company, AVEtec Energy Corporation, reports that the system produces no carbon emissions, nor requires energy storage to function, and that further to this, the cost of energy generated could potentially be as low as US$0.03 per kilowatt hour."

Comments

Warm Air.

[BradleyUffner]

And where does the power from heating the air come from?

Interesting

[Janek Kozicki]

ok, I assume that the cost of heating that air at bottom is already calculated in. This would mean that this AVE is pulling energy out of atmosphere (thin air, yeah), which means decreasing the air temperature. Because gas stores energy using kinetic energy of its molecules (temperature). This would mean that AVE will produce energy exploiting the global warming effect. Doubly cool solution. Even if I doubt global warming, I was always thinking, that the hotter it is, the more energy we have, the more power to us (skpping the floods of some coastal regions). I wasn't however sure how to exploit this energy. Well, perhaps AVE is the answer...