Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: fmartinie on 08/07/2015 01:35:08

Title: lightning as a source of energy ?
Post by: fmartinie on 08/07/2015 01:35:08

i was thinking instead of having a battery and a lightning rod, why not connect several power stations to a lightning rod ? because know that its impossible to put all that energy in a battery in an instant, so i was thinking why not just channel the energy and divert it to seperate power stations. possible or not ?

Title: Re: lightning as a source of energy ?
Post by: PmbPhy on 08/07/2015 02:01:26

Quote from: fmartinie on 08/07/2015 01:35:08

i was thinking instead of having a battery and a lightning rod, why not connect several power stations to a lightning rod ? because know that its impossible to put all that energy in a battery in an instant, so i was thinking why not just channel the energy and divert it to seperate power stations. possible or not ?

It's not a great deal of energy. There's about as much energy in an average bolt of lightning as there is in 150 liters of petrol. The lightning is very localized and very infrequent and difficult to capture and store. However there are attempts to do just that. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvesting_lightning_energy