harnassing the power of lightning

by **Bas** » Mon 18 Jul 2005, 19:53:52

I've always thought it to be impossible, but couldn't you use the power of lightning to produce Hydrogen? could be quite simple...

by **Dezakin** » Mon 18 Jul 2005, 20:39:30

Very high power for a very short period of time means its low energy. You're better off putting up windmills to harness the power of the storm.

by **Bas** » Mon 18 Jul 2005, 20:58:58

I guess you're right, probably not really worth the investment...

by **aldente** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 03:44:20

That thread didn't go that far, next time start one with the power of a X-15 (timeless power plane - I envy the pilots that ever had the chance to fly it). Lighning under you ass..

by **Devil** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 05:44:12

Well you could try flying a kite in a thunderstorm. Tie a key to the string and see if you can draw sparks off it. However, I'd recommend you make sure your life insurance premiums are fully paid up, first.

by **The_Toecutter** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 05:47:11

You'll be farting quite proudly at that accomplishment.

by **Devil** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 07:55:15

Actually the energy is not negligible. The energy input in a typical 3-mile long lightning channel is estimated to be one billion to ten billion joules. Now, if that could be captured and stored, then, on an average, it could keep an average US/European household in electricity for a couple of months or so. As there are ~3 billion lightning flashes/year in the world, it is easy to see that the total energy dissipated as heat is, say, 10^19 joules or 2.8 trillion kWh or the output of about 285 nuclear power stations over a year. If only...!

by **The_Toecutter** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 08:12:44

2.8 trillion kWh is about 70% of the electricity America consumes in one year.

by **BrownDog** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 08:36:23

This is probably beating a dead horse, but suppose you worked out the problems and built a device that could harness the energy of lightning. How do you go about making sure it is wherever the lightning is going to be?

by **onequestionwonder** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 09:18:56

I'd guess you'd pick a statistically likely area for lightning storms, then get the lightning to come to it.

Go fly a kite?

Somehow produce an ionized path up to an area with electric potential? Wouldn't take much, the lightning would make it's own path if a potential path existed.

But:

That is an incredible amount of power to store in a short time. Do we have the slightest idea of how to do it?

Since we have no truly effective ways to store electricity at the current time where would you put the energy?

by **Bas** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 09:20:40

how about the empirestatebuilding lightningdeflector for a testdevice?

by **Bas** » Tue 19 Jul 2005, 09:21:21

I saw lightning strike there in my 10 days in NYC in 2000....

harnassing the power of lightning

harnassing the power of lightning

Who is online