Vortex power

Fossil fuel power plants generate ample waste heat that can be used to make more electricity. Many modern plants have been capturing this heat and increasing the efficiency of the plants. A novel idea of a retired engineer hopes to create a huge vortex of warm air to cause a change in pressure at the bottom in order to drive a turbine-generator.

The concept for creating a vortex, like a tornado, is based on the fact that air, when heated, will expand, become lighter and rise up. As the air rotates and goes up, the pressure at the bottom of the vortex becomes lower. As surrounding air enters at the bottom, and the difference in pressures then drives a turbine generator to produce electricity.

The diameter and height of the vortex make a difference in how much energy can be produced. A vortex that is 200 meters in diameter and goes up 10 kilometers into the air could have the production capacity of 200 MW, Louis Michaud, the engineer, said. He envisions power plant owners to set up vortex-building equipment at existing facilities to make use of the waste heat and increase the overall electricity-production efficiency of the power plant.

A combined-cycle natural gas power plant takes the heat byproduct from burning natural gas and makes steam to run a turbine generator. Doing so increases the efficiency of a power plant from the 40 percent range (simple-cycle design) to just over 60 percent (combined-cycle design).Michaud claims that his vortex station could make use of the waste heat a second time and boost the efficiency by another 20 percentage points.

For his prototype project, he plans to build a much smaller one that goes up 15 meters into the air and shows how it could turn a turbine. Michaud hopes to produce enough results to prove the technology concept by the end of the summer of 2013.

There have been fancy ideas like capturing the energy packed in a lightning – enough to power the needs of the planet’s denizens many times over! But what material can withstand the heat of a lightning? How can it be stored? Many questions but that does not stop people from dreaming. After all so much energy going waste every moment as lightning strikes. There have also been those who want to trap high-energy cosmic particles… Ultimately, it will be the analysis of energy input to that output. Let the most bizarre idea ignite!