Strange But True: Clean Energy From Man-Made Tornadoes
SustainableBusiness.com News
Is it possible to transform the awesome power of
tornadoes into a viable alternative energy source?
The resulting vortex is actually more like a dust devil or a waterspout. It acts like a low-cost virtual chimney, one that is controlled and anchored to its heat source.
Website: http://vortexengine.ca/index.shtml
Paypal co-founder and early Facebook backer Peter Thiel
thinks so. The Thiel Foundation's Breakout Labs program just gave Canadian
company AVEtec Energy Corporation a $300,000 grant to develop the prototype for a
system that uses man-made tornadoes to produce energy.
The idea behind the Atmospheric Vortex Engine
(AVE) is to harness the waste heat from thermal power
plants to create an additional source of electricity – one that costs less
than $0.03 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to produce, according to the
information on the AVEtec Web site.
Here's the company's description
"An atmospheric vortex engine (AVE) uses a controlled vortex to capture
mechanical energy produced when heat is carried upward by convection in
the atmosphere. A tornado-like vortex is produced by admitting warm or
humid air tangentially into a circular arena. Tangential entries cause
the warm moist air to spin as it rises forming an anchored convective
vortex. The work of convection is captured with turbines located at
ground level around the periphery of the arena. The heat source can be
solar energy, warm water or waste heat."
The resulting vortex is actually more like a dust devil or a waterspout. It acts like a low-cost virtual chimney, one that is controlled and anchored to its heat source.
The photo below shows an small-scale example of what the
system looks like.
The prototype being developed by AVEtec and its partner
Lambton College will be 40 meters high with a diameter of 30 centimeters. The test system
will be used to drive a 1-meter diameter turbine. Power output increases
geometrically according to the size of the vortex.
"The real prize will be using a large-scale AVE to
drive turbines," says Louis Michaud, the inventor and president of AVEtec.
"Using the low-temperature waste heat from a 500 MW thermal power plant
could generate an additional 200 MW of power, increasing the capacity by 40%
and producing perfectly green electricity at less than three cents per
kilowatt-hour."
The prototype being funded by Breakout Labs should be
operational by 2013. A 40-meter diameter prototype isn't likely until 2015.
For more about AVEtec:
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