Monday, July 7, 2008

Inventor Uses Tornadoes as Energy Source

Harnessing the energy from a tornado. Nice. One night while I was listening to late night radio a few years ago, they were talking about some of the incredible damage that a couple of tornadoes did to small towns in the Midwest. I remember a caller asking if it was possible to harness the tornado's tremendous amount of energy. Well, apparently a budding genius is on his way to figuring out how to create a tornado in a controlled environment.

"A tornado may sound like a tough thing to create, but all you need to do is find a way to heat an elevated layer of air so that the temperature is much higher than that of the air below, which will create a vortex."

From the article it's not clear if the temperature fluctuations are generated by renewable sources but this is definitely a neat way of generating energy. Only $60 mil to build the tornado facility. Pocket change right?

To generate a tornado, you just have to radically heat the "elevated" air. I wonder what the difference in temperature is in order to generate a tornado. Is there a NOAA scientist out there?

No comments:

Wishful Thinking

*Before adding PV, wind, or solar thermal to your residential or commercial structure, the first step is to analyze this structure's energy consumption through a professional energy audit. I'd like to see some public education on the importance of an energy audit for any structure. Remember Smokey the Bear's forest fire shtick drilled into our heads over the last few decades? How about something like, "Henry the House" desperately wanting to know how much energy he consumes and wastes throughout the day?

*With over 300 sunny days a year on the Front Range is it too much to ask for solar PV and thermal modules on every residential and commercial unit (after an energy audit of course)?


*How about affordable plug-in electric cars that go more than 100 miles on a charge with PV and wind powered recharging stations?

*Dreaming of companies large and small adopting business sustainability practices to maximize profits, reduce their carbon footprint, and enhance the lives of their employees and the communities that surround them.

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