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?

Re:Warm Air.

[Ironhandx]

Geo-thermal vents spring to mind, amongst other things, such as using this technique along with the exhaust from a nuclear reactor to increase its power output.

Re:Warm Air.

[Anonymous Coward]

Data Centers! Nothing like reclaiming energy from all those computers.

Re:Warm Air.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the idea is to use industrial waste heat.

This is less efficient than cogeneration, and almost certainly less efficient than preheating, but better than just dumping the heat to the environment since that is 0% efficient.

Re:Warm Air.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's create controlled tornadoes in the immediate vicinity of nuclear reactors.
What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Warm Air.

[PoolOfThought]

I would mod this, but I don't know if it is funny or insightful. Probably both. Oh well, you're anon, so you get NEITHER!

Re:Warm Air.

[EdIII]

Thank You.

I thought this sounded familiar to an Australian idea being floated around a few years back.

Re:Warm Air.

[amRadioHed]

What could possibly get wrong when an puny, artificial tornado that will dissipate as soon as it is removed from its source is created in proximity to a reactor sheltered within a dome strong enough to withstand even the strongest natural tornadoes? I'm thinking absolutely nothing.

Re:Warm Air.

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Why study alternate energy sources at all, when the nukular is so falwless and "cheap". Let's not waste time on that and BUILD MORE NUKE PLANTS!

Re:Warm Air.

[MickLinux]

The solar tower could work.

But it isn't a tornado: at best, it's a permanent dust devils.

  Tornados are inherently driven by DC electric, viz. an amp or two through a potential of several million volts. The circuit consists of rain laying down charge, the tornado picking it up and returning it to the cloud.

Re:Warm Air.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Yes, let's create controlled tornadoes in the immediate vicinity of nuclear reactors. What could possibly go wrong?

When the reactor explodes, you simply use the controlled tornado to carry all the stuff away!

Re:Warm Air.

[mindwhip]

I'm sure I've seen that somewhere before...

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=tornado+reactor+movie&l=1

Re:Warm Air.

[CanHasDIY]

Tornados are inherently driven by DC electric, viz. an amp or two through a potential of several million volts. The circuit consists of rain laying down charge, the tornado picking it up and returning it to the cloud.

...
...



WHAT???

Re:Warm Air.

[magarity]

Just like this solar tower.

This turns into a circular argument pretty quickly. If you use a solar tower in Arizona for the hot air where do you get the COLD air?

Re:Warm Air.

[h4rr4r]

From the edges of the green house at the bottom.
It is shaped like an inverted cone. Their air does not need to be cold, only cooler than the air at the top which was heated to make it rise.

The bigger the delta the better, but it does not mean you can't use normal outside temperatures.

Re:Warm Air.

[guruevi]

Congress?

Re:Warm Air.

[Culture20]

Unless you can teleport it, it will change in temperature/pressure by the time it reaches the new location. And if you can teleport it, why waste teleportation on a mad energy equalization scheme?

Re:Warm Air.

[fyngyrz]

Tornados are inherently driven by DC electric, viz. an amp or two through a potential of several million volts. The circuit consists of rain laying down charge, the tornado picking it up and returning it to the cloud.

This kind of thinking is why people England had to set up Australia as a penal colony. Oh, Mick, you know you shouldn't make things up. We told yer and we told yer. Now say toodles to yer mum, and onto the freighter wit yer. Time fer a new life where yer can't hurt nobody no more.

Re:Warm Air.

[Smallpond]

If you read the press releases from when they started building nukes they promised that electricity would be so cheap they might just get rid of meters. That hasn't quite worked out. Turns out they were right about nukes being cleaner than coal, but try to tell that to people who live near Fukushima.

Re:Warm Air.

[VortexCortex]

There is an enormous temperature differential, as well as pressure differential, between sea level air and high level atmospheric air. I've often thought that fact could be used to make a very efficient and cheap source of power. The same temperature differential exists in the oceans. Very cold deep, and warmer near the surface. Unlimited free energy if you can harness it.

Where does this "heat" come from? Why not just harness it directly from there? You know, solar...

Re:Warm Air.

[TapeCutter]

He's probably read "Electric universe".

Re:Warm Air.

[wbr1]

Yes, let's create controlled tornadoes in the immediate vicinity of nuclear reactors. What could possibly go wrong?

this: http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0281617/

Re:Warm Air.

[AndyKron]

Troy Hurtubise is working on that part.

Re:Warm Air.

[mikael]

I would hope they could use solar power. Otherwise, the energy used to create hot steam would be better off just driving a steam turbine, or just being fed directly into the grid if it electricity.

Re:Warm Air.

[neo8750]

They were right it took an iceberg to sink that....

Re: Warm Air.

[skitchen8]

Wrong. They never ran the Titanic into an iceberg to test, and never ran complex computer simulations to test. Concrete and steel regularly go through both tests.

Re:Warm Air.

[yndrd1984]

But we already do that in the ocean and it does work (even if it isn't that impressive).

Re:Warm Air.

[yndrd1984]

Where does this "heat" come from? Why not just harness it directly from there? You know, solar...

Just some ideas: you wouldn't need to catch the rays in anything special (cells or mirrors) because the already existing landscape does it for you, and a simple big tube might be pretty cheap in comparison.

Re:Warm Air.

[lister king of smeg]

if it runs on hot air on a hot day it could once started possible run off of ambient heat then destroy the nuclear plant

Re:Warm Air.

[mysidia]

Sure... but the original argument of $0.03 / kwH. Is very similar to the idea of having a perpetual motion machine, or "harnessing free energy from the vacuum"; with a new label stamped on it.

The use of geothermal heat makes sense, in which case it's just Geothermal power, or "Power produced by tapping exhaust heat" which requires more energy than suggested, and there are already other Geothermal power production methods.... so this is of benefit, only if more efficient, or it can harness exhaust heat that cannot be harnessed through other methods more safely/efficiently.

Re:Warm Air.

[mysidia]

if it runs on hot air on a hot day it could once started possible run off of ambient heat then destroy the nuclear plant

Hot air on a hot day alone is likely not sufficient to produce even a F3 strength tornado; let alone a F5+ supertornado/superburst capable of damaging the plant

Re:Warm Air.

[mysidia]

Controlled nuclear reactions in the immediate vicinity of nuclear reactors. What could possibly go wrong? (A lot)

Re:Warm Air.

[crutchy]

no actually Thomas Andrews knew that the Titanic was sinkable... it was the stupid greedy corporates (like Bruce Ismay) who had absolutely no ounce of technical clue about them that assumed the Titanic was unsinkable

often is the case with many man-made (and even some natural) disasters that those with the power to prevent such event are warned by those with knowhow (such as engineers) and are routinely ignored in the name of profit margins, bureacracy or politics.... as much a problem today as it was in 1912, unfortunately

Re: Warm Air.

[crutchy]

you don't need to run a ship into an iceberg or perform a complex computer simulation to ensure a ship can withstand an iceberg... there are certain industries that require testing of everything, such as civil aviation, but engineers are trained to make conservative assumptions and simplifications based on material data, generic empirical testing, past experience with what works and what fails, as well as common sense (also more recently legal risk has become a significant factor in an increasing level of conservativity in engineering decisions). engineers sign off on their work, legally certifying their design as safe in accordance with whatever standards they reference, so despite assumptions and simplifications there is no implication that what engineers do is questionable; engineers make things work, and for things to work they also have to be affordable, and not everything can be tested to the nth degree.

the engineers who designed the titanic knew it was safe within the intended limits of its operation. unfortunately, while engineers can recommend safety measures and precautions, they can't prevent the idiot factor (if you try to idiot-proof something, someone will invent a better idiot). engineers have limited power to stop business managers ordering the removal of lifeboats or politicizing critical design decisions (fortunately engineers have much more clout when it comes to issues that have direct safety implications, with fairly strong representative organisations to support them). the titanic was as safe as a ship could be designed at the time (structurally it was actually built much stronger, with much higher safety margins due to uncertainties such as materials, than modern ships). it was really actually a testament to the engineers that the ship held up for as long as it did.

the Titanic was a human disaster, not a technical or engineering disaster; the ship was designed to carry more lifeboats than it did, and Thomas Andrews (chief design engineer for the Titanic) originally wanted watertight bulkheads up to B deck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_%28shipbuilder%29#RMS_Titanic) but as often still happens today, profit (and other) motives carry more weight than any kind of technical logic or safety considerations.

if something is designed by engineers, you can be reasonably sure that it will be safe for its design life, but it may be a little more expensive than something designed by accountants. consumers nowadays can be easily mislead by clever marketing into thinking that something designed by accountants will be as safe as if it were designed by engineers. if they only knew the difference in the ethics of accountants and engineers they might shudder at the thought of an accountant designing anything and pay the extra money for the assurance offered by something that has been properly engineered.

Re:Warm Air.

[crutchy]

the air at the bottom of the funnel just needs to be warmer than the air at the top, but it seems unlikely that temperature differential and some tangential baffls will be enough. tornadoes are fairly complex beasts and apparently they actually start their lives as horizontal vortices.

having said that, dust devils (as mentioned in TFA) are probably entirely different to tornadoes, so i'm not sure where this idea that an AVE could produce a tornado came from, but this is slashdot

Re:Warm Air.

[crutchy]

if you live near a nuclear power plant in an area prone to tidal waves and earthquakes, you would surely have to assume a certain amount of risk

that risk was probably found favorable by most living nearby compared to living next to a coal-fired plant chugging out dust and pollutants (which would also likely cause significant environmental damage if hit by a tidal wave), not to mention cheaper electricity (money talks after all).

anti-nuclear (same as greenies) are a hypocritical bunch... happy to bad-mouth a cost-efficient technology (not to mention generally more environmentally friendly), but hate the thought of paying higher prices

most of you use as much electricity as anyone else, so without nuclear, how would you propose to make up equivalent base load electricity demand if nuclear plants were all shut down? the answers usually come in the form of solar, hydro, gas, etc... which are all fine for peak supply, but you would have to cover half the country in solar panels (costing god knows how much) to generate enough base load supply (solar panels aren't all that efficient), and hydro has lots of benefits but also often has some pretty severe environmental and social effects too (try telling the Chinese who were displaced from upstream of the Three Gorges Dam how awesome hydro is).

not that i think nuclear has all the answers, but it shouldn't be discounted because of risks that are often blown out of proportion by sensationalist media. i would like to see more investment into development of potentially much safer thorium reactors. unfortunately i've read that thorium has been a victim of the corporate and political machines keen to maintain the status quo with plutonium/uranium reactors pretty much from its inception in the 50's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power)

Re:Warm Air.

[mysidia]

so i'm not sure where this idea that an AVE could produce a tornado came from, but this is slashdot

Yeahp.... ambient hot air would likely shut it down, as the differential no longer exist.... and people accuse Microsoft of creating FUD :)

if strong Tornados had such simple requirements to form on their own; there'd be a heck of a lot more natural tornados ravaging the lands.

Re:Warm Air.

[tragedy]

Actually, the engineers knew that that the multiple watertight sections in the Titanic should make it extremely resistant to sinking. The marketing people went around making claims like "unsinkable". Statements like "God himself could not sink this ship" seem to come exclusively from the movie _Titanic_. The engineers also knew that the Titanic didn't have a double hull and that the watertight sections weren't as watertight as they could be since they didn't run all the way to the top like in the original plans before the budget cutbacks. They may or may not have known about the substandard riveting.

No Carbon Emissions?

[yotto]

So the generator has no carbon emissions, but without heat it doesn't work.

So where do they get the heat, and how much better is it to use the heat for this instead of any of the dozen other electrical generation methods? /off to RTFA.

Re:No Carbon Emissions?

[yotto]

Ah.

The heat required to get the mini-tornado started would be provided by a temporary heat source, such as a heater, or steam. However, AVEtec states that once the vortex is thus established, the continuous heat could then be provided by a more sustainable source – such as waste industrial heat or warm seawater.

Seems a little hand-wavey, and I'd still like to see how "potential" this 3 cents per kilowatt hour prediction is.

But the idea of parking one over a geothermal vent or floating them on the ocean tethered to already-existing wind turbines seems less ludicrous to me now.

Re:No Carbon Emissions?

[hrvatska]

Perhaps something like a molten salt solar concentrator. The molten salt would retain a lot of heat and would permit the facility to continue operating when the sun wasn't shining.

Re:No Carbon Emissions?

[Dasher42]

You don't need a geothermal vent. A large number of mirrors and a receiver filled with molten salts is itself already a proven technology. Concentrated solar thermal chimneys are actually part of the basis of this design, and they've been generating megawatts for decades in sunnier parts of the world.

We should have been using this technology already, but skewed money comparisons that ignore pollution and military expenditures make oil *seem* cheaper than these, which it really isn't overall.

http://www.csp-world.com/tags/khi-solar-one

Re:No Carbon Emissions?

[Jarik C-Bol]

waste heat from other processes. (data centers, industrial fabrication, geothermal, and so forth, the article even mentions using naturally warm sea water for a heat source.) The idea being, this process does not add * additional* carbon emissions, it simply allows us to more efficiently generate power from the emissions we already create.

Re:No Carbon Emissions?

[gtall]

How do military expenditures make oil seem cheaper. Last I checked, Republicans in Congress was rebuking the Navy for their investments in alternative energy sources. Turns out the Navy is big on those since it means they wouldn't have to rely on oil. So far, the Navy has been able to tell Congressional Republicans to shove it up their stove pipes.

Re:No Carbon Emissions?

[Dasher42]

Because you pay for the cost of keeping oil supply under control not at the gas pump, but through taxes, yet you pay for it all the same, because other energy supplies would not oblige the military to defend the interests of oil companies.

Re:No Carbon Emissions?

[khallow]

because other energy supplies would not oblige the military to defend the interests of oil companies.

And what would we blame that spending on next? US military spending exists at the level it's at due to wildly successful, political rent seeking, not handouts to petroleum-based industries.

Three cents

[Dasher42]

Three cents for a kilowatt hour, and that's *without* externalized costs like oil spills, oil wars, blown up mountains, and polluted air and water. You could even use concentrated solar thermal heat to drive this thing.

Anyone who says renewables aren't ready isn't paying attention.

Re:Three cents

[pixelpusher220]

Indeed, also see 'game changer' since if it pans out it is ridiculously lower than anything else available.

Re:Three cents

[siddesu]

Of course. And you don't even need this kind of equipment, there are easier ways. I, for one, have a prototype that can harvest electricity directly from the clouds. All you need is a good kite and some wire. The electricity is plentiful and really cheap, maybe at $0.0004 per kwh, if that.

Re:Three cents

[wonkey_monkey]

How much is that per jiggawatt?

Re:Three cents

[siddesu]

Five brazillian, give or take an odd Gcal.

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...

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, I assume that the cost of heating that air at bottom is already calculated in.

No.

Re:Interesting

[TubeSteak]

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...

Coastal flooding is the least of our problems if global warming gets out of control.
The real kick in the balls would be changing weather patterns fucking over our agricultural industry.
Floods will displace people, but if the breadbasket dries out, everyone goes hungry, including the displaced.

I guess you could use AVE to desalinate water and irrigate the entire country, but that would be the kind of infrastructure project beyond the means of private industry and our current political environment would not be conducive to getting anything done.

Re:Interesting

[EdIII]

Dude. It's the End Of The World Today.

Let's be excellent to each other just today :)

Re:Interesting

[h4rr4r]

How hot it is matters not one bit, the limit to how much energy you can extract is the temperature difference. Your doubt of global warming seems likely cause by a lack of basic scientific understanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot's_theorem_(thermodynamics)

Re:Interesting

[Spinalcold]

This proposal utilizes entropy, like any energy source, not heat. Sure, if it provides a clean energy source, that will help global warming. I listened to an interview on the radio and what they want to do is use the waste heat from fossil fuel plants to produce these high entropy states, and thus tornadoes. It's a great idea, but in the larger context will it increase our reliance on fossil fuels? Or it can be used on nuclear plants to increase their efficiency. I don't know which way it could go.

Re:Interesting

[h4rr4r]

Either way it would reduce reliance on fossil fuel. If you have a coal burning power plant making X megawatts and you can get another Y megawatts for "free" that means either less peaking plants need to be run or X can be reduced by some amount by burning less fuel.

Re:Interesting

[fyngyrz]

Let's be excellent to each other just today :)

Ted? Ted, is that you? Bill?

Re:Interesting

[Smallpond]

Coastal flooding is the least of our problems if global warming gets out of control.
The real kick in the balls would be changing weather patterns fucking over our agricultural industry.

Worst US drought in decades deepens to cover 60 percent of lower 48 states

Re:Interesting

[Curate]

Sucks to be in one of those 28.8 states.

Re:Interesting

[TapeCutter]

Either way it would reduce reliance on fossil fuel.

I'm all for reducing emissions but I find it difficult in the extreme to believe a modified exhaust pipe can extract significant amounts of electricity from the heat that leaks out of a coal plant. Coal plants are already designed to use the heat as efficiently as possible. The laws of thermodynamics say that nature will never allow you to use 100% of that heat, the laws of economics say it probably not worth the capital expenditure to suck any of the residual energy from the exhaust pipe. There's nothing new about these kind of ideas, I remember hearing about similar ideas as far back as the 70's, the fact is that if it was economical all installed coal plants would already be using it.

OTOH, they have a vortex, and we all know you get a lot more energy from air traveling in circles than you do from air traveling in a straight line, right?.

Wait... I've seen this episode...

[razorh]

This sounds like an episode of Sliders to me...

Energy from nothing...

[pitchpipe]

Energy from nothing and chicks for free. That ain't workin'.

Re:Energy from nothing...

[razorh]

Yeah. There's no such thing as chicks for free.

Re:Energy from nothing...

[fyngyrz]

"Money can't buy love, but it sure can buy you a yacht to pull up next to it" ...I think that was a Van Halen member, not sure. :)

All I wanna know is

[stevegee58]

how do I make one because it looks totally cool.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

This is an old idea ...

[timholman]

Google "Tornado Turbine" and look for the January 1977 issue of Popular Science. This idea has been around for a long, long time. Back then, the idea was to take advantage of solar heating of the tower to drive the vortex. I've seen similar ideas that were supposed to take advantage of natural pressure / temperature differentials along cliffs and mountains, etc. None have ever been made to work in any practical way.

When someone fails to check the prior art and starts trumpeting about his or her re-invention of the wheel, then you can just about discount the claims from the start. Why should anyone trust the opinion of an engineer who can't even be bothered to do any background research?

Re:This is an old idea ...

[mcloaked]

You posted what I was about to say in much the same way - an old idea from decades ago when all manner of weird and quirky ideas was bandied about from solar panels in orbit many miles square beaming microwave energy back to a receiver on earth (except any living thing in its path would be fried!), to shipping Antarctic icebergs to the desserts for water, to the captured vortex idea driven by a huge bonfire in the middle of the circular building with angled entrance ducts as in the reference for this article. Great fun on the same day that the world didn't end after all!

Re:This is an old idea ...

[h4rr4r]

Everything in its path would not be fried at all with those plans that use microwaves to transmit power from space. The amount of energy per square meter is held low enough to ensure that. Then a very large(in area coverd) antenna grid is used to relieve this. Are you afraid of being burned to death by your cell phone?

THE MORE YOU KNOW .::::'*

Re:Rain shadow creator?

[pixelpusher220]

It's all self contained, it's not like its using 'real' thunderstorms out in the 'wild'. It won't effect the outside world at all realistically. And the winds generated won't be anywhere near actual tornado force as that would be an actual tornado with associated damage to the turbines.

Wind

[sugarmotor]

I assume it's obvious that it's going to be windy around the power station. How windy, and how far away will there still be strong winds?

Link

[sugarmotor]

Popsci opened up their archives a while ago. http://www.popsci.com/archive-viewer?id=FgEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=78&query=1977%20Tornado%20Turbine

Whats next? Bremsstrahlung?

[technosaurus]

Next we will be ionizing the air and letting it pass between some plates to generate electricity directly. (no moving parts)

Use the generated power to heat the air

[Gothmolly]

Brilliant !

Low quality Heat Sources

[avandesande]

This would be a good way to tap the remaining energy from a low quality(low delta) heat source such as a power plant cooling tower.

Re:Low quality Heat Sources

[Hentes]

This is basically a cooling tower, that's also capable of recycling some of the waste heat.

But ...

[PPH]

... think of the ecosystem as a whole.

If you tap the energy of tornadoes to generate power, it will reduce their remaining energy. Tap enough energy and they might become nearly extinct. If this happens, mobile homes, with no remaining natural predators, will multiply out of control.

Re:But ...

[Xifer]

Perhaps we could make a large ocean going tug with the 200 meter enclosure in its center to go cowboy tropical storms and jump start them to hurricanes and then park them so that their cloud bands feed into the Sahara or other deserts. It would be one way of keeping maverick hurricanes from assaulting the populated coasts and balancing the global heat engine nevertheless. I know the New Mexicans like an occasional hurricane coming up the Rio Grande Valley or so my uncle used to say. .

Re:Rain shadow creator?

[c0lo]

It's all self contained, it's not like its using 'real' thunderstorms out in the 'wild'. It won't effect the outside world at all realistically.

Self-contained you say... Won't affect, eh? TFA quote:

the vortex could be 50 m in diameter at its base and extend up to the tropopause

High cost

[Guspaz]

The company proposing this says the cost could potentially eventually be as low as $0.03 per kilowatt hour. Translation: it costs way more than that.

Meanwhile, the next province over from where the company is based in Sarnia, Ontario... HydroQuebec is charging $0.05 per kilowatt hour, today, for real-world use.

Re:High cost

[Guspaz]

My point is that whenever you see somebody come up with what seems like some new way of generating power and cites some "could be as low as" cost, it invariably ends up costing far more. And since they're not even claiming substantial cost savings over what we're already using for all of our power (in Quebec, anyhow), it's of questionable utility.

Re:High cost

[Issarlk]

There's only so many place where you can put a dam. What good is $0.05 per kwh if you can't buy any ?

Re:High cost

[Guspaz]

We already get all of our power from hydro, and there's still lots of untapped capacity. I don't think not being able to buy any is a risk anytime soon.

Re: Congress, obviously!

[almechist]

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

Congress! Where else? Studies have shown that multiple tornadoes worth of hot air can at times be generated by even a single congressperson, it's just a matter of finding the right one. Yeah, I lost the link to those studies, but hey, you know it's true.

Re:Rain shadow creator?

[pixelpusher220]

Hmmm, I guess my assumption was this would be inside a building...with a roof ;-)

So you're right it does go outside and up, but I'm still guessing the actual wind speeds aren't going to be anywhere an actual tornado and not likely to seriously effect the local climate. But probably worth of some study.

sounds like the syfy channel movie of the week

[Joe_Dragon]

sounds like the syfy channel movie of the week

Re:Solar Kills. Wind Kills. Hydro Kills.

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Alternative to the status quo, retard. Read my previous post again, maybe you'll notice the crucial word "study", meaning "research".

Hot air!

[CHIT2ME]

Why don't we tap all that hot air coming out of Washington? Should be good for a megawatt or two!

Re:Solar Kills. Wind Kills. Hydro Kills.

[pbjones]

your statements are too generic to have any credibility.

Let me google that for you.

[MickLinux]

FWIW, it also has appeared in Physics 101 texts that tornados have DC currents.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=electric+current+inside+a+tornado

Sometimes old ideas suddenly become practical.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

an old idea from decades ago when all manner of weird and quirky ideas was bandied about from solar panels in orbit many miles square beaming microwave energy back to a receiver on earth (except any living thing in its path would be fried!),

Except that:
  - Things wouldn't be fried, microwave-oven style, because microwave oven makers picked a frequency that is strongly absorbed by water (to heat food) while space-solar people picked on that passes through water very well (to not waste power heating clouds, birds, cows, ...). Intensity of the microwave heating would be about a tenth solar input - and birds in outdoor tests of such systems at realistic power levels mostly ignored them (except on cold nights when they huddled near the transmitting antennas)
  - This might have been practical even back in the '70s when it was first proposed - except NASA shot it down with high priced lift-to-orbit systems and an analysis with a fundamental error (turbine size) that made a specialized lift system look far too expensive.
  - Recent developments (privatization of space launches, improvements in the technology of photovoltaic collectors,power radio, and high-efficiency lasers for ground-based lift systems) have made the cost and price/performance equations better - by orders of magnitude. (See Keith Henson's recent papers on this.)

Which doesn't say squat about whether something similar may apply to the atmospheric vortex hack.

Airplanes?

[Kergan]

Begs the question: what happens when a plane flies through? Does it get shredded to pieces?

Not new

[jamarsa]

This was being investigated in Spain as soon as 1980, as I remember from reading an article in a spanish scientific journal in that year. Sadly, i cannot locate the reference. But I remember a photo of the PM of that time, Adolfo Suarez, visiting the facility, and complaints of the researchers of lacking funds.

Hot air

[fyngyrz]

It's over. Long over. Get over it. Sheesh.

Should I still be bitching about England's tea taxes? Hardly. I likes me a nice, smart English wench just fine. They have manners, and they still know how to wear suspenders and a dress without becoming all confused about who they are, unlike most American fems these days.

Anyway, you wanna indulge in angst, there are all kinds of contemporary reasons that actually call for it as they remain unresolved. Australia as a penal colony and England's goal of empire... isn't one of them.

Sounds Like a Gas Turbine Only Less Efficient

[kjhambrick]

WtPHq ?

Industrial Waste Heat

[Cephacles]

New or not, it has at least some potential. The article states the vortex could be maintained with industrial waste heat. This might improve efficiency for power generation plants that have waste heat effluent. The nice thing about that is the grid connection and switchgear is already local.

Slapping one of these generators on any other industrial heat source could help power the plant itself, but could prove challenging to connect to the grid.

I wonder what it sounds like.

Well, I suppose doing it backwards is good enough

[krashnburn200]

... to call it new. There have been numerous posts covering articles about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_(downdraft)

Interesting

[Ferretman]

What a novel idea. I wonder if it will actually be practical?

Ferret