Georgia Tech inventors have developed an approach to harvest solar and waste energy by exploiting and enhancing the inherent instabilities of stratified, thermally buoyant air layers in both open and closed spaces. These unstable heated layers can lead to intense vertical-column vortices, similar to tornados and dust devils although considerably less violent in strength. Inducing and “anchoring” these vortices to a turbine sustains power continuously, as long as thermal stratification (buoyancy) of the air layer is maintained. It has been demonstrated that the momentum generated by these vortices can be harnessed to drive a vertical-axis turbine coupled with electric power generators. The technology provides a method for inducing and sustaining a vortex by arranging turbine blades around a central heating source that creates an initial thermal plume. As the heat rises through the boundary layer, the turbine blades impart sufficient angular momentum to drawn the air back through the vanes and impart power to the attached turbine generator.