March 1, 2010

Harnessing Energy from Upward Heat Convection

Louis Michaud and Eric Michaud, AVEtec Energy Corp.

The atmospheric vortex engine exploits the natural energy content of the vortex produced during upward heat convection in the atmosphere. The heat source can be solar energy, warm sea water, warm humid air, or even waste heat rejected in a cooling tower. When mature, the technology — currently in the small-scale testing phase — promises to be an efficiency game-changer for fossil-fired power plants.

The atmospheric vortex engine (AVE) promises to exploit the natural processes responsible for creating hurricanes, tornadoes, and waterspouts, although on a much smaller scale. A man-made vortex reaching miles into the sky would act much like a very tall chimney, where air density and temperature effects can be harnessed to produce electricity from low-energy content gases, such as those rejected from a cooling tower.

Cooling towers are commonly used to transfer waste heat to the lower atmosphere. By rejecting 1,000 MW equivalent of waste heat to the upper atmosphere instead of at ground level, it is possible to generate an additional 200 MW of electrical energy, thereby increasing the electrical output of a plant by 40%. The AVE increases the efficiency of a thermal power plant by reducing the temperature of the heat sink from +30C at the bottom of the atmosphere to – 70C at the tropopause, which is the atmospheric boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. The AVE system replaces the cooling tower; outwardly it would have the same appearance (Figure 1).

1.    Power from a tamed tornado. Photo of a cooling tower touched up to show the appearance of a future atmospheric vortex engine. Source: AVEtec Energy Corp.