free energy ? its all around us

can somebody tell me why we have not been able
to store lightning ?
i know about the one they used to make hydrogen and oxygen
but wouldnt it be easier to be able to collect it in someway?
it would also stop fossil fuel

then theres the question of how to predict where it will strike?

well there are plenty of places where lightning strikes all the time
all tall buildings have a mast to earth out lightning
little rockets are fired up with wire connected to them so the lightning
can be filmed
some cities have there own lightning storms
so surely you can collect this huge amount of free energy

its just my thought maybe this is the answer for free energy????
LIGHTNING IS ELECTRIC isnt it
is there a reason why this cant be done if so explain please

ps
this is just an idea

reply to post by philware


LOL im assuming you were either talking about Tesla's ionospheric energy patent which to get to work you would just plug a piece of conducting metal into your car or appliance

or ground earth energy based on Emil Jahrs patent in 1905 which you run a metal wire along the north and south pole over as long a distance as possible.

all you need to know is on the interenet

reply to post by jinni73


no i think we should be trying to keep the electricity
from lightning strikes as our source energy

Nicola Tesla is the man: en.wikipedia.org...
No matter what anyone says without him we would be, IMO conservatively a few decades behind in technology, now if we could just get people to like free energy, can anyone say FaaatttCAATTT

reply to post by LanternOfDiogenes


i think the tesla coil produces lightning
so can you reverse it to capture lightning

Originally posted by philware
can somebody tell me why we have not been able
to store lightning ?

You're not the only person to have thought of the idea, its just that since it happens so QUICKLY, nobody has thought of a method of capturing any amount of energy that makes it worthwhile.
Flywheels take too long to start turning,
capacitors arent big enough,
electrolysis of water cant happen quick enough
etc...

i've been scouting the net a bit and at this point can't find much.
most are confused and/or disagree with one another.

i don't think it's plausible.

i don't think we have the technology to store all that energy at once.

meaning loss of energy, than cost-effectiveness comes into play. (does the gain outweigh the costs?)

and a lot of the energy in a lightning strike is transferred into light and heat.

all i could find so far


ETA:

see also the poster above me

It would be a pointless endeavor.

Even if it were possible to capture all flash's energy (the bulk of this energy is not delivered to the strike point since it is lost to heating the air and producing thunder, light, and radio waves), one would need to attract 12 flashes to the energy storage facility in order to operate these five light bulbs for one year.

Source

Don't forget the potential for energy from harnessing the tides.

There is also the nearest star to earth but the photocells are expensive.

i think this can be much more fruitfull and i've seen a documentary on it lately, results were promising.

take a look at this.

beaming solar power down from space

I believe that it's actually possible to store the enormous amount of energy that a lightning has, It's just we couldn't figure the way to do it yet.

reply to post by philware


i couldn't read your post so just assumed what it said, now i can see it.




and harnessing the tides doesn't work as it depletes other stuff that i cant remember

reply to post by boncho


it states that you would need a load of tall towers and that is impractical
there are tall towers with lightning rods on them in every city all
over the world

also there are more than just lightning from cloud to ground
as there is lightning that goes from ground back to sky
and lightning does strike twice

reply to post by LanternOfDiogenes


they cant make money from lightning
sad and sorry world when money comes first
they might already know how to harness lightning
but when its free you cant charge the earth for it
i still think this is the only way to go to save
MOTHER EARTH

reply to post by alfa1


so a wind turbine could not turn the flywheel ready for lightning discharge
geared down to move flywheel at the right speed
would that be possible?

Originally posted by alfa1

Originally posted by philware
can somebody tell me why we have not been able
to store lightning ?

You're not the only person to have thought of the idea, its just that since it happens so QUICKLY, nobody has thought of a method of capturing any amount of energy that makes it worthwhile.
Flywheels take too long to start turning,
capacitors arent big enough,
electrolysis of water cant happen quick enough

Actually it's a good question.

Since I'm the kind of guy someone might come to to build something like that, I can tell you right off the bat that maintenance of the equipment might be a major problem, along with economic feasibility. Theoretically, one might be able to build a bank of capacitors large enough. I was researching large capacitors for another topic (rail guns) and came across this photo:

nextbigfuture.com...
Rail gun capacitor banks constructed at a General Atomics facility in San Diego
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/36f90d003e64.jpg[/atsimg]

Those are pretty massive, but you'd need many more than that and they are expensive. I think it might be mostly economics, it's just much cheaper to burn coal than to buy enough of those capacitors and maintain the equipment. Lightning would be very stressful on the equipment and it would probably require lots of maintenance.

Someday, it might become economically feasible, when oil is $5000 a barrel, and other energy sources are equally expensive due to scarcity. At that price of energy we'll find it economical to do things we just can't afford to do today. So someday we might harness the energy from lightning, when it's economically feasible.

www.weatherimagery.com...

A typical lightning bolt produces about 10,000 amps but some bolts, such as the one that struck the Apollo spacecraft upon liftoff in the 60′s, have measured well over 100,000 amps. Nowadays, there are large capacitors and batteries which could store the huge amounts of electricity a lightning bolt creates, but would it be practical to try and harness it? Surprisingly, no. There is very little power in a lightning bolt when you compare it to how much power we really use in our homes and cities...

You would need many towers stretching 1000 feet or higher spread over a very large area that sees many thunderstorms each year to increase the odds of capturing a lightning strike. Florida would be the most likely location for such a lightning farm. Florida averages the most lightning strikes each year with about 10 strikes per kilometer per year. So, if you have a bunch of towers set up in a 1 kilometer area and these towers were able to attract all 10 lightning strikes for the entire year, you would produce enough electricity to power 2 homes for a month. As you can see … it’s simply not worth it which is why no one has ever tried to commercialize lightning as a source of electricity.

However, one company thinks they may have found a way to harvest lightning for use on the electrical grid. You can read about them at www.alternateenergyholdings.com...

I don't think it's impossible. It's challenging to do, but quite possible. It just doesn't make economic sense at current prices for alternate sources of energy. You'd think wind power is free too, but dig into that and you find out it's not all that economical. Not yet, anyway. Lightning power is supposedly "free" too, but it's even less economical than "free" wind power.

Originally posted by philware
so a wind turbine could not turn the flywheel ready for lightning discharge
geared down to move flywheel at the right speed
would that be possible?

I don't think the initial speed of the flywheel is the problem.

The problem is how you translate the energy from the lightning strike to any power source. There isn't a motor I know of that can handle 100,000 amps of input, and it wouldn't be cheap to build.

And capacitors would be more efficient than flywheels since you could store the energy more directly, than having to convert it to flywheel motion.

Originally posted by philware
they cant make money from lightning
sad and sorry world when money comes first
they might already know how to harness lightning
but when its free you cant charge the earth for it

They charge you for wind power, they would charge you for power from lightning the same way. That's not the problem.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

thanks for both of your replys
they both give me the answers
that i was looking for

THREAD CLOSED

PHIL