(Photo: IMDB)

If Singularity lover and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel can't have Mars, he will instead control earth. Business Insider reports that the early Facebook investor has bestowed a $300,000 investment upon Canadian inventor Louis Michaud so that he can create man-made tornadoes.

Of course, these wouldn't be just any old tornadoes; if executed properly, they could actually use vortex-power to produce energy at a cheaper cost than sources like coal. Mr. Michaud's company AVEtec is building "a prototype of its Atmospheric Vortex Engine to create tornadoes about 40 meters high that can produce energy from waste heat."

The seed grant comes from Breakout Labs, a sector of the Thiel Foundation that invests in early-stage science companies. As the tornadoes will be created for energy purposes, sadly we don't think we'll see Mr. Thiel starring in a Twisters remakes any time soon.