Whirlpool Power!

Nope, not talking washing machines here. We're talking tidal whirlpools. An Austrian engineer named Franz Zotloterer (say that twice really fast) has a new method for small scale hydropower. You know, the kind that doesn't tear up an entire ecosystem Hoover style?

A whirlpool, or vortex (which sounds cooler), not only aerates the water, but generates a fair amount of energy. Energy that can be captured for use as electricity to power things.

In true inventive scientific fashion, Franz was working on his garden and realized that the natural swimming pool he'd built wasn't getting aerated enough. So he added a small rotation basin to aerate the water, which helps remove contaminates naturally, and hit upon an idea as he watched the water swirl...why not capture that energy?

His pilot plant to test this has a fall of only 1.3 meters, a flow rate of 1cm/second and produces 8kW of power from that. For us Americans, that's like 4.25 feet of fall with 265 gallons of agua moving through it. 8kW will power a dozen homes.

To get the water, a "head" (bump) of only 2.25 feet is needed, so thsi can be utilized on small waterways. The newly-aerated water is returned and the water is generally better for it. Nearly a total win-win. These vortex generators are perfect for small systems like this, but can't scale up beyond about 150kW, so don't expect to see large power plants disturbing huge waterways for this tech.

Probably a good thing.

For more, go to this link.