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| Illustration of downdraft wind energy tower |
Professor
Dan Zaslavsky and Dr. Rami Guetta from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology are trying to develop an idea first patented by Phillip R. Carlson in 1975. In what is known as a downdraft energy tower, water is sprayed onto solar heated air at the top of a hollow tower. Now cooled and denser, this air falls rapidly to the bottom of the tower where it drives turbines and generates electricity. Annapolis Maryland-based
Clean Wind Energy Tower, Inc. (CWET) has plans to build two such towers near the US-Mexican border in San Luis, Arizona. At 3000 feet, the tower’s height will surpass
Burj Khalifa—currently the world's tallest building— but unlike most skyscrapers, this one is designed to give more than it takes, in the form of clean electricity.
At first glance, this idea seems incredibly simple when compared with mile deep oil rigs and nuclear reactors. But there are significant technical challenges to building any 3000 foot high structure, much more so when the tower contains an artificial thundercloud and generates electricity.
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