Atmospheric Vortex Engine

An atmospheric vortex engine, or vortex engine, is a proposed power generation system that would replace a tall physical chimney with an artificially created rotating column of air, drawing on the same physics as a naturally occurring landspout or waterspout. The concept, developed independently by Norman Louat and Louis M. Michaud, works by using angled louvers at ground level to direct rising heated air into a rotating vortex, which centrifugally expels colder, heavier air while drawing warm air upward, and turbines placed at the base of the vortex would generate electricity from the resulting pressure difference. Two uses have been proposed, as a bottoming cycle that captures waste heat from an existing power plant for extra electricity, and as an alternative to a solar updraft tower that instead collects heat from the ground under a transparent cover. The technology remains experimental: Michaud built prototypes in Utah and a team at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS in Malaysia has also researched the concept, and Peter Thiel own Breakout Labs funded a 300,000 dollar test in 2012 whose preliminary results were reported in 2015. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/