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Environment

Terrifying Eco Idea Hopes to Generate Energy From Man-Made Tornadoes

Dec. 19, 2012 6:32am Liz Klimas

There’s an environmentally friendly energy source that an entrepreneur is hoping to tap — and it’s terrifying.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, water spouts, whirlpools, dust devils are all naturally occurring vortexes that Canadian engineer Louis Michaud wants to “control” and harvest the energy from by recreating them artificially.

AVEtec Energy Corporation Receives Grant to Move Forward With Tech Harvesting Energy From a Vortex

Prototype showing the man-made vortex. (Photo: AVEtec Energy Corporation)

Michaud’s company AVEtec Energy Corporation is working to create a Atmospheric Vortex Engine (AVE). The AVE, according to the website, “uses an artificial vortex to capture mechanical energy produced when heat is carried upward by convection in the atmosphere.”

Watch this test of a prototype uploaded to YouTube last year:

The concept of harvesting energy from artificial tornadoes is not as outlandish as you might think. In fact, AVEtec recently was awarded a $300,000 grant from the Thiel Foundation‘s Breakout Labs to continue research, according to R&D Magazine.

R&D stated that the AVE power source doesn’t produce carbon emissions nor does it require energy storage. It is also projected to be a low-cost form of energy.

“The power in a tornado is undisputed,” Michaud said in a statement. “My work has established the principles by which we can control and exploit that power to provide clean energy on an unprecedented scale. With the funding from Breakout Labs, we are building a prototype in partnership with Lambton College to demonstrate the feasibility and the safety of the atmospheric vortex engine.”

GeekOSystem explains more about how the AVE, 130-foot column would contain the vortex and harvest the energy:

According to the company, the creation of a vortex begins by blowing hot air at an angle into the AVE. Even the hot air that fuels the process is recycled, collected from sources such as power plants, factories, data centers, and politicians.

From there, the difference in temperature between the hot air and the above atmosphere will present the opportunity to manipulate the spinning air into a vortex, which in turn powers a series of turbines that will generate energy process while producing zero carbon emissions or harmful pollutants.

(Image: AVEtec Energy Corporation)

So far, according to a presentation, AVEtec has spent 30 years developing the idea and has tested a couple prototypes.

“Power output increases geometrically with size, so commercialization will become economically viable when we build a 40m diameter prototype in 2015,” Michaud said in a statement.

If you’re worried about such a vortex spinning out of control, the company points out that unlike a real tornado, this vortex can’t go anywhere because it’s “anchored” to the heat source.

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Comments (23)

kralspaces
Posted on January 8, 2013 at 9:35am
A Thorium Molten Salt Rector is so much more practical.

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Old Ogre
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 5:53pm
Oh great… You don’t fool with mother nature comes to mind… I wonder how long it will take some genus to decide to hook a giant one of these up to a nuke plant…

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- AbrahamsSheepdog
  Posted on December 19, 2012 at 6:56pm
  A fan and a cone. @>~ Seem like alot more work his way. My plan took 30 seconds though, his 30 yrs.
  
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DZ-015
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 4:20pm
Wouldn’t you have to locate such a plant far away from urban areas due to the noise it would produce? Also, like windmills, wouldn’t vortex generators kill birds and bats that get too close? The small prototype shown in the picture accompanying this article shows a visible vortex extending well outside the generation structure. Is this natural, or was smoke fed into the vortex to make it visible? Note that it appears to have been bent by a breeze. If a full scale vortex is not visible, would it represent a hazard to air traffic? Just asking.

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raderby
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 3:04pm
I have been waiting for this – the real usage of this technology would/could be to alleviate areas prone to real tornadoes – sort of suck off the imbalance so bad twisters do not form – lots of little “pipes” to allow the heat to get up and out of an occluded hot air mass. Be good if they were mobile- but 100 meter diameter is a bit big for that.

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pap pap
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 1:42pm
I hope he makes it work. Sounds like a good idea. Very innovative.

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paulusmaximus
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 11:33am
Private investment in a idea not public money on a boondoggle. Will it be viable time will tell and part of the idea is to use heat already wasted even a low energy producer would be cost effective.

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logjammr
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 11:28am
LOL! Recycling hot air from “politicians”. Good one! =)

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Dunchaka
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 11:05am
I’m no physicist, but…wouldn’t the amount of energy to create the tornado necessarily be greater than the energy produced by the tornado? If that weren’t the case, then you could just simply produce the tornado, then hook it’s power back into keeping it up and running and then taking the excess energy. That’s better than a perpetual motion machine!

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- PapaTex
  Posted on December 19, 2012 at 11:24am
  If that’s what they were doing yes. They’re talking about using wasted heat like comes out of power plants or steel mills.
  
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- dflocks80
  Posted on December 19, 2012 at 11:28am
  The inventor touches on this in the article. The heat used to sustain the vortex would be “waste heat” from factories, power plants, data centers, etc. Instead of being lost as an energy source, it would allow for us to harness it and make it into usable energy.
  
  Given the source of the heat, more energy is indeed required than to start this up. However, the vortex allows for an offset for some of this wasted energy. Think of the heater in your car. It uses the heat from the engine (in most cases) that would otherwise just be “lost” to keep you comfortable. No one would champion an internal combustion engine as a sole heat source due to inefficiency and cost, but using the engine to propel a vehicle is a fantastic idea, and given that it already accomplishes this goal, there is nothing wrong with doubling it as a heater. Essentially, all of the gas you purchase will turn into heat. Most of that heat will be wasted, but you can harness some of it for your personal comfort. Same concept here.
  
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maples
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 10:44am
This article reminds me of HAARP which I have read about over the last year. It’s really scary and sometimes I wonder about the tornadoes that the poor Midwest suffered last year.

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YouCantExplainThat
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 10:33am
I’ll buy one, if I can strap a saddle and ride it around the yard.

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- Lotus503
  Posted on December 19, 2012 at 2:26pm
  Didn’t I read somewhere that Pecos Bill did that with a twister?
  
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Dougral Supports Israel
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 10:31am
Since the vortex will extend high above its anchor point, I wonder if its possible for it to become detached and become an actual tornado. Most of the mass of the spinning air would be above and outside the structure of the plant so it seems that such a scenario would be possible.

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BasketFullOfPuppies
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 10:13am
Hey Bob?
Yeah.
Your tornadoes out again.
Sorry about that Bill. Any damage?
Just a little bit of roof.
I’ll be over Saturday to help fix it.
That’ll work, Bob.

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Skee
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 9:34am
How many watts would this prototype produce?
Energy production may be cheap but what is the
initial cost. It may take a hundred years to get a
return on the investment.

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panick
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 9:30am
Unfortunately, this idea is a typical of a lot of green BS. The energy and capital that will have to be spent to build and run this Rube Goldberg device will more than negate any energy benefits generated by the turbine. Assuming you can actually capture the low level energy from warm air, it suggests a perfect machine will direcly turn that low level energy into some useful high level energy. No such devices exist. I would like to sell the Thiel Foundation a bridge I have in my back yard.

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- dflocks80
  Posted on December 19, 2012 at 11:39am
  How so? This device is designed to work in conjunction with our conventional “non-green” energy sources to help squeeze more usable energy from them. Trust me, I’m no fan of pie-in-the-sky, green energy boondoggles myself. Something like this though has the potential to help us be more energy independent while utilizing the energy sources we already have. Providing there is an actual ROI, I don’t see an issue with this.
  
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DadRocked
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 8:38am
Oh, I think a speculative investment by this administration in the amount of $1.7 to $2.6 Trillion should do the trick…

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- starman70
  Posted on December 19, 2012 at 10:59am
  Another green boondoggle, albeit Canadaian.Obama is already licking his chops waiting to fund another green energy loser.
  
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ThePostman
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 7:57am
Already been done by the austrailians, and they have a working machine.

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kickagrandma
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 7:45am
Why don’t these idiots figure out a way to get the progressives to go back under the rocks from which they have slithered? Now that would be a WONDERFUL energy design!!!

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