Rethinking Wind Power: Tornado In A Tower

Experienced inventor and engineer David Sattler is looking to harness vortex engineering principles with wind to create what some engineers refer to as a “tornado in a tower.”

By Greg Rankin, freelance alternative fuels and renewables writer

When it comes to alternative energies, wind and solar power are currently attracting about 95% of all investments worldwide, according to a recent report from IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency).

Both are considered excellent alternative energy sources: clean, renewable, and produce minimal greenhouse gas emissions. However, they do have their respective drawbacks: without wind, turbines can’t spin, and at night or in cloudy conditions solar panels go dormant.

Engineers continue to look for alternatives that can unlock clean energy without the constraints of wind, solar, and other alternative options. Among those leading the charge is David Sattler, an inventor and engineer with more than 30 years of experience working in thermodynamics and heat transfer.

Sattler helped design the first hydropower systems that capitalised on the utilisation of vortexes to increase the mass flow rate of water, thus boosting power generation.

Now, Sattler is looking to harness those same vortex engineering principles with wind to create what some engineers refer to as a “tornado in a tower.”

“We’ve inverted the funnel,” says Sattler. “Instead of a tornado that forms in the sky and funnels downward, we build a vortex at ground level and direct it upwards.”

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The setup is unexpectedly straightforward: a specially engineered tower (which could look like an industrial smokestack) creates conditions where warm and cool air converges in essentially the same way in which a tornado is spun up.

“All we need is a small temperature difference,” explains Sattler. “It can be as little as half a degree Fahrenheit. Once the vortex begins spinning, the system feeds itself by pulling air in at the bottom and then it accelerates as it moves toward the top.”

In a twister, the strongest winds are typically found at the very tip of the funnel, near the ground. In the “upside-down tornado” the tip is positioned near the top where a turbine, or impeller, is located to capture the mechanical energy.

“Most people think adding a turbine blade would slow the airflow,” adds Sattler. “However, in a vortex system, it actually helps manage and even enhance the flow. It’s counterintuitive to typical engineering, which assumes you can’t add friction without losing velocity.”

Beyond the mechanical rotation of a turbine, the design of the vortex tower can also pull DC energy out of the atmosphere.

“It’s no more mysterious than static electricity or the dynamic electric fields we see in everyday life,” says Sattler. “The vortex tower is essentially a suction machine. Once you have that column of spinning air, you can extract more than just mechanical motion—you can also draw out electricity in the form of direct current with commercial off-the-shelf equipment.”

Sattler’s team at Marstecs – a company looking to help solve the energy challenges on Earth and beyond – calls the system a Solar Wind Vortex Tower. The solar aspect in the name refers to the utilisation of sunlight to warm one side of the tower to create the temperature differential which starts the process.

There is no electricity or fuel required to operate the vortex, and once it is started it can run consistently, day or night, producing power. If the vortex needs to be stopped for any reason, the air inflow at the bottom can be shut off.

The vortex towers offer a “greener” energy solution because it not only produces electricity without emitting harmful greenhouse gases, but it is free of the conventional shortcomings related to wind and solar.

For example, solar panels require mining materials like aluminum, copper, indium, lead, nickel, and silicon, while the massive blades of a wind turbine are not recyclable, contributing to a significant landfill issue at the end of their lifecycle.

The solar wind vortexes also require a smaller footprint than both wind and solar, and depending on the size of the towers, the cost to produce electricity is projected to be about one-third cheaper than wind and solar.

In addition, the towers can be built at preexisting power generation facilities, with minimal excavation. The infrastructure costs would be about 25-33% less than today’s standard wind or solar installations.

When Sattler first proposed applying vortex principles to hydroelectric dams, industry experts were skeptical. He faces similar doubts with the vortex towers for air.

“When we use a vortex within hydroelectric systems, we spin water and can generate more power out of the same dam,” explains Sattler. “With air, we can create our own wind within a tower to get more out of the atmosphere. We’re simply applying nature’s own principles more efficiently.”

The entire concept, from shaping the tower to placing a turbine in the airstream, involves ideas that challenge standard engineering textbooks.

Yet, Sattler believes that’s exactly what the renewable energy sector needs.

“Solar and wind are a start, but their drawbacks have always been there, and we keep trying to solve them with bigger, more expensive solutions,” says Sattler. “Sometimes, it’s better to rethink things from the ground up.”

The wind solar vortex technology is not just a terrestrial solution for energy, it also has the potential to power up other planets, like Mars, where there is a gaseous atmosphere and a temperature gradient.

Marstecs is also looking into the potential use of the same vortex principles in air and space travel which would significantly reduce the dependency on fuel.

By capturing both mechanical and DC electricity from a “tornado in a tower,” vortex-based technologies could represent the next step in making renewable energy more reliable and more efficient.

“We’re letting nature do the heavy lifting,” concludes Sattler. “It is just in a way we haven’t tried before.”