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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
Artist rendition of Louis Michauds
Atmosphere Vortex Engine.
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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.)
Californias 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 Michauds vortex engine would operate.
The heat that will drive the engine could be applied upstream of the air intakes, at the center of the hollow tube or on the inner wall of the hollow tube. Insulated water pipes may carry the heat to the appropriate location. That heat would cause the swirling air mass air to accelerate inside the tube and propel it upward to an elevation of several thousand feet. While Michaud has proposed to place conventional axial-flow wind turbines in the air intakes, the vortex engine is a versatile concept that can allow for the installation of other designs of turbines. A circular array of vertical-axis turbines could be installed at the air intakes with the generating equipment being mounted overhead and outside the circumference of the tube.
The fact that the vortex engine generates a tornado inside the hollow tube lends itself to being modified to incorporate some of the vortex concepts that were initiated by Dr. Viktor Schauberger. The hollow tube could enclose a giant bladed or bladeless vertical-axis turbine with its axis placed at the center of the tube. The largest proposal for such a turbine originated in Russia and involved placing blades on carriages that rode on a circular track. It may be possible to use adjustable blades and adapt such a concept to a very large vortex engine.
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Another energy analogy of relevance to this design is the Zotloterer river flow generator that creates a vortex and places a turbine in the vortex to harness the rotating water as it drops. Elevation drops as small as just nine feet can take advantage of this design.
(Ref.)
Michauds design is an inverted version of this principle, using the updrafting hot air flow channeling into a vortex.
Bladed turbines could be designed so as to harness the mass of exhaust air as it swirls upward into the atmosphere. Bladeless variants could include the Magnus rotor concept that originated in the research of Dr. Anton Magnus. It would be encircled by the vortex that would exert a boundary layer effect on it. A Magnus rotor may also be placed inside the diameter of a bladed vertical-axis turbine. A vertical-axis bladed turbine or a Magnus rotor could also be placed inside the giant tube and downstream of turbines located in the angled air intakes. Such a combination could increase the efficiency of the vortex engine.
Competing solar towers and solar chimneys depend exclusively on generating a powerful updraft of air to pull a stream of air through turbines located at the base engines where the efficiency has been estimated to be around 2%.
Some vortex engine proponents have claimed a peak theoretical thermal efficiency of up to 15% while operating on low-grade exhaust heat. However, the actual efficiency of a fully functioning engine may be a fraction of that value. By comparison ocean thermal energy conversion or OTEC operates at an estimated thermal efficiency of 3% and use expensive specialized chemicals as the working fluid. Engines such as the vortex engine and competing giant solar chimneys have the advantage of being able to operate at low cost on somebody elses waste heat while using no-cost atmospheric air as the working fluid.
There are parts of the world where the direction of prevailing winds undergoes very little change throughout the year. At such locations the air intakes of the vortex engines may be extended into a giant spiral that would direct prevailing winds into the intakes of the hollow tube, adding wind power to the input, when it exists. The giant spiral intake could face the prevailing winds and be of larger cross-sectional area than the combined area of the angled air intakes at the base of the tube. The effect would be to accelerate the air as it passes through the turbines.
The spiral intake might also be built with a transparent roof so as to use solar thermal energy to heat the enclosure, adding solar power to the system. This would probably require a joint venture relationship with
Enviro Mission, which holds the patent to the solar chimney concept.
While the research and testing of the vortex engine is still in its early stages, the concept does hold much potential for future development. Critics have expressed concern that crosswinds could neutralize the tornado. Ken Rauen, who is highly respected for his research in thermal engines, has expressed concerns that the tornado is not anchored to the vortex engine and could jump out of the vortex tower before it either dissipates or goes astray.
The tornado is sustained by a heat source that is located ahead of the turbines, at the base of the engine and in the walls of the vortex engine. A tornado that jumps out of the vortex engine would almost immediately lose it main source of energy and would most likely dissipate. If local weather conditions are conducive to a tornado, then the tornado generator could be shut off to prevent its spawning of a roque tornado. Further research, development and testing would need to be undertaken to prevent the artificially generated tornado from jumping from the base and going astray.
The concept of an atmospheric vortex engine and its potential to generate power from waste heat, solar heat or geothermal heat is too valuable for it to be discarded without first seeking ways to improve its safety. Certain models of turbofan engines that are used in commercial aircraft generate tornadoes in the combustion chamber without firing a tornado into the atmosphere behind the engines.
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Seeking the Most Efficient Capture of Waste Heat
On Nov. 27, 2007, Sterling
D. Allan, who helped edit and compose the above piece, wrote:
While this concept would probably work, in addition to the issues of safety
and noise that Ken Rauen raised, another important question is if there are more
efficient and cost-effective methods for harnessing waste heat. We have an
index of thermal
electric technologies, and it seems to me that there are a good
number of other solutions being developed that would harness a much greater
proportion of the energy that otherwise goes to waste. It could be that
two or more of these solutions could be applied in tandem. For example,
along the walls and in screens near the top of the chimney of this atmospheric
vortex engine could be placed some thermal electric chips that capture some of
the heat. This would have to be done in a way that does not impair the
vortex action. The bottom line is to find that method that captures the
most wasted heat in the most cost-effective manner.
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Resembles Messias Machine
On Nov. 27, 2007, Achmed Khammas <khammas@web.de> wrote:
I have a little comment to the
article by Harry Valentine.
He point to the Zotlφterer-Vortex
but I think Louis Michaud's atmosphere vortex engine looks more like the Messiah
Machine with a lot of hot air instead of (warm) water...
See also
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Page posted by Sterling
D. Allan November 27, 2007
Last updated December 05, 2007
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Power from Waste Energy: Louis Michauds Atmosphere Vortex Engine
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