Lightning pulling power from the grid?

reply to post by Bedlam


Indeed...it's not even close to being worth the effort. And any set-up you'd need to get a significant amount of power would be quite apparent to anybody going by, which, I would assume, would get you unwanted trouble from the power company.

Originally posted by CLPrime
Running a wire of some sort parallel to power lines draws power from them because current in a wire generates a magnetic field around that wire. Interaction with the magnetic field around power lines induces the flow of electricity in the parallel line (so long as the line is moving in some way).

Lightning is an electrostatic discharge - it is a current of free electrons through the air. And, just as a matter of fact, lightning does not have to strike the ground... in fact, long rumbling thunder is typically a result of cloud-to-cloud lightning. Again, a current generates a magnetic field. If the current, and the magnetic field, associated with a lightning strike gets close enough to power lines, it will certainly interfere with the current in those power lines, whether it actually strikes the lines or not. Most likely, it would result in an instantaneous increase in the current, possibly causing a power surge without even striking the line.

CLPrime.. you know to much. Thanks for the explanation.