Monday, November 27, 2006

SNAPpy



Wind, solar, blah, blah, blah, desert air is the alternative energy with buzz--and it makes water too, says some random link I googled up:
Israel has long been a leader in exploring new possibilities for energy production…The most potentially revolutionary of these alternative energy projects is called SNAP technology, or SNeh Aero-Electric Power.* This program, designed by a group of Israeli scientists at the Israeli Institute of Technology, the Technion, is known in Hebrew as the Arubot Sharav, or Desert Wind Towers. The idea, as explained by the chief designer of the project, Dr. Dan Zaslavsky, is based on a principle discovered in America by a Lockheed Corporation physicist, but never before explored for practical use.

The Energy Tower is a machine that produces wind. Hot and dry air is cooled within a very large vertical duct which looks like a high and very large diameter chimney. A fine spray of water is introduced across the top inlet to the duct. The water evaporates and cools the air. The cooled air descends because it is denser. It is the opposite of what happens in a regular chimney where hot air rises. Cold air descends. The descending air can reach a speed of 80 kilometers per hour. Before the air comes out of the bottom of the duct through special openings, it goes through air turbines that run generators for electricity productions.

*Sneh is the Hebrew word used in the story of the Burning Bush, in Exodus 3:2. "... the bush burned and was not consumed." The implication is apparently that like the Biblical burning bush, the Energy Towers will yield energy without the destruction of fuel.