Wind energy at its finest. We're not in Kansas, anymore, Toto.
[MNN] In the 1980s, a project in Spain used the sun to warm air near the ground and then funneled up to a turbine to create energy. While solar chimneys have been around for centuries, working on a scale capable of meeting larger power needs would require an incredibly tall chimney. But tornadoes are nature's chimneys in a way, so why build a chimney when you can just make a tornado?
One way to make a big vortex is power plants. Power plants generate a great deal of heat waste already, so why not harness that waste to create a tornado that will turn some turbines?
An AVE would gather up all that heat waste and use it to maintain the vortex. The inventor said this process could "increase output [of the power plant] by 10 to 20 percent, without using any additional fuel." If you're wondering how big this tornado created by a power plant would be, the answer is about 9 miles high. Most tornadoes only clock in about 5.6 miles.
Oh. A man-made 'tornado'. |