Controlled tornadoes could fix climate and energy problems

Abstract

Stationary tornadoes will be produced by having warm humid air enter the bottom of a hollow tower tangentially. A large atmospheric vortex engine (AVE) could generate 2 GW of electricity. 2000 AVE’s could provide current world electricity needs. The tower would look like a 200 m high natural draft cooling tower. The vortex is started by heating the air with steam or fuel. Subsequently, the vortex is sustained by warm humid surface air, warm sea water spray, or waste heat. Mechanical energy would be produced by expanding air into the low pressure at the base of the vortex via peripheral turbo-generators located at grade and not by harnessing the kinetic energy of the swirling tornado wind. The intensity and size of the vortex can be controlled because the energy is produced by the expansion of surface air which is in a metastable state. Vortex diameter could be 10 m to 100 m. Vortex height could be up to 15 km. The Singapore Science Center fire whirl producer demonstrates that tangential air entries plus a heat source can produce vortices. The technology needs scaling up. Waterspouts demonstrate that low temperature heat sources can produce stable vortices.

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18686/cest232

Journal

Clean Energy Science and Technology

Year

2024