Tornado Generator May Create the Energy of a Coal-fired Power Plant

Posted by Heartmind Alternative Energy, Technology Friday, January 4th, 2013

John Roach | NBC News

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s foundation recently invested $300,000 in a start-up company that aims to harness energy from tornadoes. A single twister-generator machine could produce as much energy as a coal-fired power plant without the downside of greenhouse gas emissions.

Atmospheric Vortex Engine

The Atmospheric Vortex Engine is the brainchild of Louis Michaud, a Canadian engineer who first started talking about the concept in the early 2000s. He’s successfully proven it works with 13-foot diameter version.

The investment money from Thiel “will allow us to carry out well documented development experiments in an academic environment,” Michaud told NBC News in an email. “Such results are required to get financial and power industry support to move to the next stage.”

He is working with Lambton College in Ontario on a 26-foot-wide-by-20-foot-tall outdoor prototype that will produce twisters up to 1.6-feet wide and 164-feet tall.

The twister is created by injecting warm, humid air tangentially into a circular area. This causes the warm air to spin as it rises, forming a small, anchored tornado-like vortex, he explained. The heat source can be solar energy or waste heat. For the prototype, he will use propane burners or steam…