Hark to the bark. Snark in the dark.
Come on, lose those blues and greens!

   Subscribe with Bloglines

Powered by Blogger

Good reads
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
<< current

Check to have links open new windows.
October 06, 2005
What's that whooooosh?
Louis Michaud, a Canadian engineer, believes he's found a way to create artificial vortexes (think "mini-hurricane") using the atmosphere as a "heat engine" to generate power. The idea is similar to what's called a "solar chimney", where air at the bottom of a column is heated by the sun and can only escape through the top of the chimney, drawing in more air at the bottom as it rises. Power can be pulled out by putting a turbine on the intakes. Michaud's idea turns this into a vortex, operating very much like a hurricane does.
It sounds pretty cool, and he estimates that a 200m diameter vortex could produce 200 MW (yeah, that's megawatts) of power. I have to wonder, though....what's the failure mode? And what's it going to do to weather patterns in the surrounding area?