Taming the Tornado to Generate Electric Power

Taming the Tornado to Generate Electric Power

Louis Michaud's atmosphere vortex engine would harness waste heat from power plants and other heat sources, creating a stationary tornado and capturing the rotational force.

by Harry Valentine
for Pure Energy Systems News

A Canadian engineer named Louis Michaud has proposed to generate electric power by creating a controlled tornado that would remain at one location. He and his associates have already built a small test version of their vortex engine in Utah. It consists of a hollow tube that measures 50-ft high by 100-ft diameter in which they have already generated swirling masses or air or vortices. Michaud is conducting further tests using a 13-ft high scale model. (Ref.)

The vortex engine concept is related to the solar tower, a thermal air engine that output 50-Kw, built in Spain several years ago. A solar skirt, of approximately the same diameter as the ~350-meter tower, heats the air, which rises into the chimney, turning turbines at the base of the tower. (Ref.) California’s forest fire of 2007 near San Diego illustrated the power of heat driven updrafts after a fully-grown tree was uprooted by such an updraft.

Proponents have proposed to build solar towers and chimneys to heights of over 3000-feet to utilize the power of heat driven updrafts. The operation of these engines may be sustained by solar thermal energy, by geothermal heat pumped from deep in the earth, by the exhaust heat from thermal power stations or by heat rejected by large nearby commercial refrigeration and air conditioning systems. The latter forms of heat may be carried to the solar air engines through insulated water pipes.

Research suggests that hollow tubes and towers that are made from concrete could be built to a maximum height of 1500-feet. A solar tower concept from Greece proposes to use a floating chimney that is lighter than air to increase the height of the hollow tube to 5000-feet so as to maximize efficiency. (Ref.)

Michaud has proposed to build his vortex engine to a diameter of 1300-feet and to a height of 330-feet (400-meters x 100-meters), even though that height could be increased to over 1000-feet. The angle between the air intakes and the tangent of the hollow tube would cause incoming air to swirl into a vortex as it enters the base of the engine. This is the basis by which Michaud’s vortex engine would operate.

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