They say that man proposes, but God disposes – well, I am quite sure that the Almighty is more than pleased to see plans in developing a monstrous power generator that will be located at the south western corner of Arizona, where it will make use of evaporative cooling in order to create wind, delivering more than enough juice for a medium to large sized city with nearly zero negative impact on the environment. The whole idea behind the ‘downdraft energy tower’ has been around for some time already, but no one really took up the ownership to see it revealed in real life. The basic principles of this energy tower are simple – cool air is denser, sinking down, while hot air rises. Located right at the top of this tower would be a fine mist of water which is sprayed across the air in order to cool it, resulting in it sinking down the tower at a rapid pace. Located at the bottom of the tower, there is an escape route for the air to pass through – making their way through hundreds of wind turbines at the same time in order to generate huge amounts of electrical power.
It is said that this process has an efficiency rate of around 45%, where losses result from the need to pump the cooling water to the top of the tower alongside other thermal losses. It is not too large of an obstacle, however, as a single tower is said to be able to deliver enough electricity for a city with a population of one million, costing far less than any other power source.
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