Harnessing the Hurricane Energy Essay

Although hurricanes qualify as natural disasters, the force of the winds they cause may represent an opportunity for the field of renewable energy. The 1.5 terawatts of kinetic energy it generates equals half of the world's electricity production. That is why some see hurricanes as a potential source of renewable energy. The challenge is to find a system to capture and store all their fury and be able to resist it at the same time. Hurricanes produce a lot of energy, but very scattered: windmill fields would have to be scattered by dozens of square miles, be mobile, and be able to get in the path of the storm (without spending more energy than they produce). In addition, these turbines would need to withstand the blows of everything that carries a hurricane, from a trunk to a building.

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There are ways to take advantage of the strong winds generated by a hurricane for the production of electricity. Michaud (22) states that in theory, a system could be installed that would consist of three elements. The first of these would be a technology that, by means of artificial intelligence algorithms, could predict when and where a hurricane will be generated, and even other phenomena, such as tornadoes and storms. This sensor could also predict the trajectory of the hurricane and the strength of its winds. The second element would be a modular mobile device that could be easily installed in the areas prone to receive these natural phenomena. The system would have short poles, made of some light and resistant material, such as carbon fiber. These poles would have freedom of movement by means of a patella, in order to generate energy by the strong oscillation of the wind caused by a hurricane. In addition to this, the membrane that would cover the poles would have piezoelectric materials to produce energy through vibration. The third element would consist of an underground electrical network in the areas where there is more occurrence of these phenomena, with spaces where accumulators, generators, batteries, and everything necessary to store energy or distribute it through the electrical network are installed

Harnessing the hurricane energy and converting it into electricity is a unique though since some phenomena such as weather patterns (wind and solar) and tidal currents are easily exploitable for energy production, but hurricanes attack irregularly and then disappear, they have an unpredictable path. Furthermore, trapping the energy of a tropical cyclone hundreds of kilometers wide and highly destructive is only theoretically possible and would need great planetary engineering technique (Michaud & Monrads 80). Controlling a hurricane, as would be necessary to "harness cyclonic energy" on any significant scale, sounds virtually impossible without the right kind of technology. Learning to control the big whirlwinds will be a great challenge and a major engineering project. A consensus on feasibility and cooperation between scientists studying environmental phenomena and engineers is required.

There are, however, natural problems in taking advantage of this energy, namely the destructive force of hurricanes and the inability to predict the path of a hurricane. Although a hurricane contains the strength of about 600 terawatts, generating in a few days more than double the annual wind power production in the United States, the wind force is enough to destroy any infrastructure, and propellers are particularly vulnerable.

Works Cited

Michaud, L. M. (2012). On hurricane energy. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, 118(1-2), 21-29.

Michaud, L., & Monrad, B. (2013). Energy from convective vortices. In Applied Mechanics and Materials (Vol. 283, pp. 73-86). Trans Tech Publications.