Tornado wind generator lands VC funding

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s foundation recently invested $300,000 in a start-up company that aims to harness energy from tornadoes. A single twister-generator machine could produce as much energy as a coal-fired power plant without the downside of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Atmospheric Vortex Engine is the brainchild of Louis Michaud, a Canadian engineer who first started talking about the concept in the early 2000s. He’s successfully proven it works with 13-foot diameter version.
The investment money from Thiel “will allow us to carry out well documented development experiments in an academic environment,” Michaud told NBC News in an email. “Such results are required to get financial and power industry support to move to the next stage.”