Solar Updraft Tower - Related Ideas and Adaptations

Related Ideas and Adaptations

• The inverse of the solar updraft tower is the downdraft-driven energy tower. Evaporation of sprayed water at the top of the tower would cause a downdraft by cooling the air and driving wind turbines at the bottom of the tower.
• The atmospheric vortex proposal replaces the physical chimney by a controlled or 'anchored' cyclonic updraft vortex. Depending on the column gradient of temperature and pressure, or buoyancy, and stability of the vortex, very high-altitude updraft may be achievable. As an alternate to a solar collector, industrial and urban waste-heat could be used to initiate and sustain the updraft in the vortex.
• Release of humid ground-level air from an atmospheric vortex or solar chimney at altitude could form clouds or precipitation, potentially altering local hydrology. Local de-desertification, or afforestation could be achieved if a regional water cycle were established and sustained in an otherwise arid area.
• Fitted with a vortex chimney scrubber, the updraft could be cleaned of particulate air pollution. The solar cyclone distiller could extract atmospheric water by condensation in the updraft of the chimney.
• This solar cyclonic water distiller with a solar collector pond could adapt the solar collector-chimney system for large-scale desalination of collected brine, brackish- or waste-water pooled in the collector base.
• A form of solar boiler technology placed directly above the turbine at the base of the tower might increase the up-draught.
• If the chimney updraft is an ionized vortex, then the electro-magnetic field could be tapped for electricity, using the airflow and chimney as a generator.
• Energy production and water desalination could be used to support carbon-fixing or food-producing local agriculture, and for intensive aquaculture and horticulture under the solar collector as a greenhouse.