Dust Devil power generator: If you have ever been in the desert you have seen a small dust devil these tornado like swirling wind vortexes are created because the ground heats up from the sun and warms the air. The warm air needs to rise but needs a point to rise at … consider a pin floating on water, it needs to sink but surface tension will hold it until a wave breaks the tension and it sinks. The condition on the surface of the earth when it gets warmed by the sun is to create a similar layer waiting for something to happen to allow the hot air to rise.
These vortexes are common although mostly small and unnoticed, when large ones happen on water they are called a Waterspout they happen on all surfaces.
Research has been done in Australia, Russia, 
currently in Canada they are working on the same type of technology but are calling it tornado power.
In the center of dust devils is considerable amount of power. But 20 feet away the wind level is fairly calm and mild going into the dust devil.
Research done on the first image taken from unfunded Ideas dot com indicates the main problem when getting power from these, and there is considerable power in them is that they tend to blow down wind.
The green graphic on the top right of the image is what holds the dust devil in place, (it remains downwind) it can also create the dust devil inside the device. The grey cup looking thing rotates with the air foil blades inside of it. The base and guides collect air from the land or surface area around the power station. The blue guides also direct wind into a vortex into the generator.
This type of power generation can be used to bring power to locations that can not easily have power off the main power grid - you would normally expect these to be operating at full power during the peak afternoon usage: meaning they help reduce power need from the grid at just the right time.
Free market solutions will work if they are allowed to.
UPDATE:
Bush to lift executive ban on offshore drilling
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July 7th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I thought this was pretty cool when I saw it. Using tornado’s to make electricity, that has got to be a great job.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I was honored to see a lot of the research that is on the unfunded Ideas site Stephen’s first test was with plywood and when he created the dust devil the power ripped up the plywood. If a unit was created in a parking lot it would just remain in the middle of the cup, a small breeze toward the unit would help to cool the concert. It collects power from a fairly large area around it.