Energy Tower: Sucking Greenhouse Gases Into the Vortex
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 12.28.07
Belonging to the world of sci-fi (and the too-odd-to-make-this-shiz-up category) is the Energy Tower invention of Professor Dan Zaslavsky from the Technion in Israel. About a kilometer in height and nearly half as wide, is Zaslavsky’s tower which is based on the principle of convection. Zaslavsky proposes that this tower (pictured above) will be able to rid the world of greenhouses gases, and produce clean energy, and fresh water at the same time.
If built in a hot and dry climate, close to a body of water, the tower will trap warm air traveling above it, and as it comes into contact with the cool lining of the tower (cooled by water), the air will fall. As the air cools, it will drop into lower stations in the tower, and drive turbines that will produce electricity.
“It’s a radically simple idea. We could easily produce between 15 to 20 times the total electricity the world uses today,” he says, noting that this magic tower will not only produce power, but much more. “We can produce cheap desalinated water, we can irrigate the desert, we can produce bio-fuel, we can boost aquaculture.”
Sounds too good to be true? TreeHugger met with Zaslavsky at a conference last year, when he sent us the blueprints, and reams of pages, that spell out how it will work (email us if you want the deets.) And he definitely had the Mad Scientist aura about him.
But maybe it'll take a dose of madness to clean up greenhouse gas emissions. The Energy Tower (described here on Wiki) could also transform barren deserts to habitable places, Zaslavsky proposes.
We are a little worried about what will happen to the birds (will they get sucked in too?) and how the said tower will affect the local climate. But maybe an investor, looking to fund a wild idea, will develop a pilot plant to give it a test run?
Other TreeHugger related research from the Technion (Really Small Ways for Purifying Water); (My Beautiful Green Balloons).
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this is just very strange. . .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2002/aug/19/energy.renewableenergy
Also here (sub required):
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18324585.900-power-tower.html
Images:
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2458/24585902.jpg
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2458/24585903.jpg
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2458/24585901.jpg
And I just came across this which sounds similar but with more of an air quality emphasis:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14319333.500-technology-can-we-make-electricity-out-of-thin-air-.html
This would be a good way to use up all that extra water they have lying around throughout the Middle East.
Does any of the information he sent contain actual calculations. I would love to see an energy balance for this system. Energy to the water pumps, air velocity in the tower, heat energy added to the water and temperature increase, effects of all the direct sunshine it's going to get which could be helpful or harmful, depending on the design. I'm also wondering how many places you will find with a hot dry climate and a large body of cold water next to it, but yet with enough moisture in the air to cause condensation, seems like in most cases you are asking too much. It is a very nice and creative idea, and if it works it would be wonderful. I just have a lot of doubts about it's viability.
This sounds like the reverse of the Australian power tower liz links to above. If memory serves, a proof of concept has already been built in Spain and it is an idea that has been bruited about for a decade or two.
The power tower also works by convection but in this case the air is drawn in from ground level and expelled at the top after spinning turbines to generate electricity.
Similar concepts made the covers of magazines like Popular Science back in the 30s, even Buckminster Fuller proposed air conditioning cities in this fashion.
It looks fanciful, but if the numbers prove out it would certainly be worth a look and a test plant.
A variation on the theme was tried in Trans en Provence, France in 1932 as an "air well" designed to use air currents, temperature variations, and humidity to create a supply of water right out of the air.
At best it produced only 5 gallons a day, but a modern redesign would be worth a look.
I live in the southeastern US where we have been going through a horrendous drought even though the relative humidity is 70% or better. Short of building atomic powered air conditioner condensers, something like this would be a good start