Replacing fossil fuels entirely will not be easy. Renewable sources each come with their own brand of benefit and issue. Solar is perhaps the most promising in terms of efficiency and future development, but thrives most along the equator. Wind was in many ways our gateway into modern renewable energy (and in the UK especially is a critical component of future renewables), but is erratic in its daily energy output. Hydropower has it’s own obvious problem: it needs water.
River flows can vary considerably over the year. For instance, by heavy rainfall or extended drought. However, these variations are never as erratic as wind power; and will continue to run long into the night while solar panels sleep.
Hydropower sits somewhere between the two: a sweetspot that can only be tapped into in the right locations. For larger rivers and lakes, the cost of a full hydropower plant is justifiable. But wherever this power can be accessed, it would make sense to make the most of it. Turbulent realises this as well as you do and have developed the ingeniously simple vortex turbine.
The overall idea is to siphon off from a river into a specially designed concrete channel. This allows the water flow to be controlled or blocked outright when needed, as well as interfering less with the natural flow. More importantly for the turbine itself, this channel feeds the flow more directionally into the turbine chamber.
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