Most of us know that tornadoes are unpredictable,
uncontrollable, and dangerous. But a Canadian engineer thinks
they could be the future of electricity generation. He wants to
make electricity from artificial tornadoes. Louis Michaud, a
retired petroleum engineer in Sarnia, Ontario, plans to use the
waste heat from conventional power plants to create an
"atmospheric vortex engine" - a small, controlled tornado that
would drive turbines and generate electricity. "I'm confident
that we could control these things," he says. Michaud also
thinks solar powered tornados generated using the sun's heat
could also work. His latest design is a circular wall 200 meters
across and 100 meters high without a roof. Air carrying the
waste heat would be blown in from vents on the sides, spinning
around the walls into a vortex that becomes just like a real
tornado. Once started, the vortex would draw in more hot air
from vents in the wall, pulling it past turbines and generating
electricity. Michaud calculates that a vortex eng