Tell me again why we can't store or use the electricity from lightning?

Originally posted by Omniscient
It doesn't produce THAT much energy.

It doesn't ???

Williams says a typical lightning bolt bridges a potential difference (voltage) of several hundred million volts.

hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...

Can you produce something to the contrary ???

Besides simple resistors and caps. will burn out before they do their job...

As far as a grid...it consists of an array of transformers, so yes you would need a transformer to drop the voltage down to a manageable voltage...

Originally posted by Shakeyjc
Is there any possible way we could harvest energy slowly from the sky?! Like keeping the potential difference between earth and sky the same by collecting charge slowly as it comes? Like if u got a big metal rod sticking in the ksy and a bulb half way down to the ground, could you light it up? (for example) as you could get current to pass from the sky to the ground?

Look up Tesla's Radiant Energy.

Resisting all that energy will turn it into heat. And that much difference is gonna generate a LOT of heat. So you'd need an uber cooling system on the thing just to make sure things didn't melt up too badly.

That's why I'm thinking the heat has be put to some useful purpose, otherwise it's a wasted resource.

Water's the key, methinks...

As far as locations for this sort of device, there's not much choice if you go by the number of strikes, central Africa wins hands down.

www.newscientist.com...

Central Africa, the Himalayas and parts of South America experience more lightning than anywhere else on the planet, the map reveals. In an area centred around DR Congo, there are an average of 81 lightning flashes per square kilometre per year.

[edit on 22-5-2006 by WyrdeOne]

I remember back years ago in a college physics class, we discused using water for a capicator. It would be cheap and plentiful, but I don't know how long it would store a charge. It's been a while so it would take me a while to get back up to steam with the calculations. Maybe there are some young people out there that would like to do the calculations. Dielectric constant of 81.

Salinity would be the main factor determining how long the water held a charge, I would think. Maybe copper salts could be used to modify the properties of the water favorably?

Originally posted by MBF
Maybe there are some young people out there that would like to do the calculations. Dielectric constant of 81.

The DC of water actually depends on the temprature of the water...

www.rfcafe.com...


FYI...

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
Salinity would be the main factor determining how long the water held a charge, I would think.

I think it may also depend on the PH factor of the water as well...JMHO...

what about instead of trying to use the lightning for electricty to used on our computers and power grids. We were to figure out what bizarre science experiements we would do that require that amount of electricity like a philadelphia esque experiment or something that the Z-machine does. Perhaps it can greatly further our understanding of how the universe works, bc with our curent belief in physics we cant harness the power from lightning

But im a firm believer that if its exists then it can be recreated with the right tools nad then harnessed.

Yay lightning for far out science

There is a lot of good info on that site Jedi Master. The info that I had was from an old engineering manual that I had on my desk for room temp.

SO...it is possible with exsisting technology. I am wrong.
Anyways, there is still the problem of detecting and getting
all of the equipment in place before all of these strikes...

Originally posted by imbalanced
Anyways, there is still the problem of detecting and getting
all of the equipment in place before all of these strikes...

There are ways of getting lightning to strike at a certian area. Remember Ben Franklin? One way is to launch a small rocket into a thunderstorm cloud while pulling a wire with it. The lightening blot will follow the wire to the ground.

Detecting an approaching storm is also pretty easy.
I can post a circuit if anyone wants.
I still think it would be easier to get the energy slowly and shut down the system when a storm approaches.

Ungh, we already covered this bit didnt we?

You certainly dont need to use something as wasteful as a rocket and wire anymore.

www.freepatentsonline.com...

Its a laser system that ionizes a straight path from ground to charged atmosphere... discharging any electrical differences by providing a conductive path to follow.
Basically a laser that triggers lightening.

The rockets that I refer to are cheap ones, not expensive at all. In fact, you may not need the wire because the lightning will follow the ionized exaust gas from the rocket to the ground. The wire method is the way that they cause lightning to strike for research purposes.

so now we know how all we need is funding to build this lighting powered generator. Who want to throw on a suit and enter the fun world of investors ?

peswiki.com...:Lightning_Power

In Stephen King's book "On Writing," he said his brother got the genius idea to build a magnet by taking a big piece of iron he had and wrapping electrical wiring around it to magnetize the iron. He said they plugged the wire into a wall outlet, and he said that the power lines outside sparked and the power in the entire apartment building blew. Kinda unrelated, but just seemed like it would fit in here for fun trivia.

Thanks for the link haro, I liked a couple of the ideas presented there.

The one that seemed most feasible, with existing technology, was the metal lake. Subterannean pools of metal to soak the charge and spit out heat, which can boil water to drive a turbine. It's not rocket science, but it's doable with the tools and materials we have right now.

I'm sure there's a much more efficient way of doing it, but we need some stepping stones, I think...

Tell me how possible this is/isn't. Could create a super coil, that resides inside a massive chamber that is engulfed inside it's own magnetic field. The coil has a ground wire that protrudes from the coil and out of the magnetic field (sort of like the space elevator theory) and have lightning strike the ground conductor outside of the field and have the current travel into the coil from with in the magnetic field for storage. A super processor would continuously redirect the electricity from within the magnetic field to other alternating places. It's sloppy, but all you have to tell me is how it isn't possible and I've learned something... AAC

Originally posted by imbalanced
so now we know how all we need is funding to build this lighting powered generator. Who want to throw on a suit and enter the fun world of investors ?

Well...I don't see anybody begging to throw on a suit to go get the funding. The problem that I have encountered is that when you go to a large corp. with an idea, they say that "if it would work, our people would have already came up with it".

There are a lot of good ideas out there just gathering dust.