This Man Wants To Power The World With Tornadoes
Louis Michaud Craig Glover Louis Michaud has received funding from Peter Thiel's Breakout Labs to harness energy through manmade vortexes. Will your streetlights soon be powered by a tornado? Many retired men enjoy tinkering in the garage to fill the hours, working on an old Jaguar XKSS, say, or building a dollhouse for a new grandkid. And then there is Louis Michaud. Michaud, a 72-year-old grandfather and former Exxon Mobile engineer, has spent his golden years trying to manufacture tornadoes--tornadoes that, he believes, could eventually power the world. All Michaud needs to do is prove it works.Michaud has built a prototype of what he calls a vortex engine--a plywood contraption just 2 feet tall and 4 feet wide that is capable of whipping up tiny vortexes. The vortexes aren't big enough to create electricity. But Michaud thinks that scaled up, organized, controlled atmospheric vortexes could help create what he says...