Harnessing Tornados for Energy and More: The Radical Projects Funded by Peter Thiel

The eccentric PayPal billionaire doesn't just invest in Silicon Valley tech companies. He's giving money for crazy projects that do everything from get power from the weather to find ways to program human cells like computers.

Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel isn't the kind of guy who invests in mindless smartphone apps that make lots of cash. He's not anti-software by any means; he has sunk millions into accounting software company Xero. But Thiel also doles out cash to companies doing things that aren't just world-changing--they seem insane (in a good way). Could we expect anything less from the guy that's funding a floating startup incubator for foreign entrepreneurs?

Thiel's latest investment--a $300,000 bet-- is in AVEtec, a startup from Canadian engineer Louis Michaud that wants to harness the energy created by tornados. Michaud doesn't want to chase tornados a la Twister; he plans to generate man-made tornados that can be safely switched off if necessary.

read more: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=harnessing-tornados-for-energy-and-2013-01