Electricity from lightning?

[gutharius]

Can the electricity from lightning be harnessed and used to power ones home? if so how?

 

[Gioron]

Yes, but only very inefficiently, so its not worth the trouble and it relies on lightning hitting the generator often enough to be worthwhile. The more efficient methods that could be used tend to blow up when lightning hits them...

 

[Calin]

The lighthing blast can have something similar to a million volts of voltage, and the current that flows in it is in the order of hundreds of amperes. This current flows for a fraction of a second.
This voltage alone will break thru much of the materials used in electrical work, and in open air, it could create sparks (and lightnings) of a couple of meters. The only way I could think of using the lightning power is something thermal. How well would it work? I don't know. Also, I have no idea about the power that can be harnessed from lightnings during a year

Calin

 

[kpb]

I don't think that will ever be pratcial for a number of reasons.

As mentioned it's at very high voltage. It has to be to arch threw the air and be lightning. At that voltage level's it would be hard if not impossible to transmit and would be very unsafe. It is possible to convert it down to lower voltages just like the power grid converts up and down but even that is left with problems. It isn't at any controled voltage and current level so you'd never know how much conversion down is needed.

Also as mentioned it's very incosistant. It's a whole lot of power for a very short period of time and then nothing. Power demand how ever is over time. There's no easy or efficient way of storing that energy.

 

[Gnosis]

1. there isn't much energy (high volts but low amps)
2. it can't be stored
3. it can't be collected

people have thought of this before but....

 

[gutharius]

Not even with a really huge capacitor to quickly store the energy.

 

[wkwong]

i believe an arc of lightning would be enough to power a city like new york for several days. (or was that from that one movie that split h20 molecules? lol) Even if the plant could store the power, i doubt that the cost for developing such a device, and the amount of power it could take it per year would make it worthwhile to have. although i'd guess it be better for the environment. but when did electric companies start caring about that?

 

[Calin]

http://www.boltlightningprotec...m/lightning_damage.htm
Some lightnings could have energy of some 10^10 Joules, this would be like 1kW of power for 115 days. All your energy consumption (except electrical heating/cooling) for almost a year, all within a tenth of second. Or your heating bill for the entire winter.

Calin

 

[DrPizza]

Actually, a better idea would be to dissipate some of the energy from a cloud, *without* an actual lightening strike. This is basically what Ben Franklin did. (I'm about to dispel the myth you learned in 2nd grade.) Ben Franklyn's kite was NOT hit by lightening. Rather, a current ran down (or up) his string, which he noted by placing his knuckles close to a key on the string.

This can easily be demonstrated with a van de graff generator.. If you slowly bring a charged needle toward a charged van de graff, you can start bleeding off a current without having a spark strike the needle. In my class, I can use this current to operate a simple little motor made out of 2 liter bottles and aluminum foil.

Hmmmm.....
Anyone know how many beer bottle capacitors it would take to hold 10^10 joules?

 

[DrPizza]

Now that I think about it... with a huge bank of homemade capacitors, this might be an awesome experiment! Get a small weather balloon, anchored VERY firmly to something (like a big oak tree), with a strong enough rope/wire/cord to hold it... with a thin wire running up to it, and a weather vane like device on the top of it, you just may be able to use it to charge your capacitors. Just stay well away until the storm is done.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: kpb
I don't think that will ever be pratcial for a number of reasons.

As mentioned it's at very high voltage. It has to be to arch threw the air and be lightning. At that voltage level's it would be hard if not impossible to transmit and would be very unsafe. It is possible to convert it down to lower voltages just like the power grid converts up and down but even that is left with problems. It isn't at any controled voltage and current level so you'd never know how much conversion down is needed.

Also as mentioned it's very incosistant. It's a whole lot of power for a very short period of time and then nothing. Power demand how ever is over time. There's no easy or efficient way of storing that energy.

Storage is it - battery technology is lagging badly. There's just no good way (yet) to store a whole lot of energy in a small space, at least without some kind of combustion or nuclear reaction. And you'd need to do it quickly - a few megawatts in a fraction of a second. Lead acid, Lithium ion, nickel-metal hydride, take your pick. A lightning strike to a huge bank of them would give one result - a lot of vaporized material and a lot of useless hunks of various elements and compounds.

So if there was a cheap, spatially efficient way of storing electricity, lightning would be a good power source. However, by that time, I think we'll probably have weather control systems. And we'd have to have sophisticated methods of keeping those little power storage devices from discharging internally, or directly across the terminals. Just look at what happens when you short out a Ni-cad battery. Those things have a very high discharge rate - they'll heat up a decent size wire fast, or spot-weld it to their terminals. Now store several thousand watts in something that size. Discharge that much quickly, and you'll heat up like that wire.