Harnessing the Energy of Lightning: An Endless Source of Power?

[Darken-Sol]

why can't we harness the energy in lightning? it seems to be an unending supply of electricity.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

A single lightning strike carries a large amount of energy (megajoules) in a small period of time (milliseconds). We don't have the technology to build devices that can take that amount of power and store it so quickly. In addition a lot of the power of lightning is lost when it hits the ground I believe, you can check this New York Times article for a brief report about a company that were investigating building a lightning farm and also the wikipedia section for harvesting lightning energy

 

[DavidSnider]

Solar Energy -> Sea Energy -> Storm Energy -> Lightning

Why not go to the source?

 

[chalky_white]

It's also a rather unreliable resource, unless you have guaranteed frequent thunderstorms directly over your "lightning catcher"

 

[Pengwuino]

Also, the actual power output is something so insignificant that it probably wouldn't even be able to power a single house.

 

[Darken-Sol]

megajoules? can we put that in water and make steam?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

megajoules? can we put that in water and make steam?

Potentially but it wouldn't be much. If you had one tonne of water (that's 1 cubic meter) at room temperature (~20 degrees) to take it to boiling point requires 80 megajoules (1 joule can raise 1 ml by 1 degree).

As has been pointed out above the benefits probably do not out weigh the costs. It would be better to invest in other energy sources.

 

[Darken-Sol]

i get it. we can't do it yet. but why can't we have floating baterries. hydrogen is lighter than air isn't it. lightning propelled lightning collecters someday...

 

[Ryan_m_b]

i get it. we can't do it yet. but why can't we have floating baterries. hydrogen is lighter than air isn't it. lightning propelled lightning collecters someday...

Floating batteries? You mean collectors attached to balloons sent up into the clouds? If you could pull off the technology it might be a neat idea but again theirs a chance that it just wouldn't pay off in terms of how much it costs to build. That investment may be better spent elsewhere.

Although the idea of flocks of UAV blimps covered in lightning rods charging into storms does give me a geeky thrill

 

[Darken-Sol]

Floating batteries? You mean collectors attached to balloons sent up into the clouds? If you could pull off the technology it might be a neat idea but again theirs a chance that it just wouldn't pay off in terms of how much it costs to build. That investment may be better spent elsewhere.

Although the idea of flocks of UAV blimps covered in lightning rods charging into storms does give me a geeky thrill

maybe I'm just to altruistic but things that we depend on shouldn't cost. some one told me we could whack particles off atoms and make any element we want but we don't because it costs to much.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

maybe I'm just to altruistic but things that we depend on shouldn't cost. some one told me we could whack particles off atoms and make any element we want but we don't because it costs to much.

Ah you may have a misunderstanding there, that's my fault as well I should have clarified. By cost I didn't mean how much it costs in pounds/dollars/euros. I meant the cost in energy to make whatever it is compared to what we get back.

For example; we could cover miles and miles of the sea with wind farms hundreds of meters high but the cost in energy, carbon, oil etc to build them could mean that it would take hundreds of years to break even. On top of that the constant maintenance could mean we never break even.

However that hypothetical investment of energy etc could be used to cover deserts in solar panels which would make back far more energy than they cost. Does that make sense?

(NOTE: the examples are hypothetical and not necessarily representative of real wind/solar power economics)

 

[Darken-Sol]

Ah you may have a misunderstanding there, that's my fault as well I should have clarified. By cost I didn't mean how much it costs in pounds/dollars/euros. I meant the cost in energy to make whatever it is compared to what we get back.

not efficient.
i doubt it can be done right now but is it possible to create a void for the lightning? take a certain charge here and move it there. it seems we could then have two bolts to play with. one up and one down. plus we could control the strikes and make them happen.

 

[JaredJames]

maybe I'm just to altruistic but things that we depend on shouldn't cost.

I depend on Coca Cola (really, you want to see me after a few days without it) - are you saying it should be free? Nonsense. Once you start with ideas like this, you need a cut off point as to what is and isn't considered something we depend upon.

Static (lightning) is only what it is because of it is allowed to build up followed by the extremely short discharge time. If you remove that, you have a very weak power source indeed. This is no different than the whole "harnessing static" thread over in S&D.

 

[JaredJames]

not efficient.
i doubt it can be done right now but is it possible to create a void for the lightning? take a certain charge here and move it there. it seems we could then have two bolts to play with. one up and one down. plus we could control the strikes and make them happen.

Energy requirements for that, along with technology would far outweigh benefits.

If we want to 'force' lightning to occur, we just send a rocket with a wire into the cloud. This forces a discharge where we want it.

 

[Darken-Sol]

humanity depends on caffeine. it should be free. actually we could have our field of hydrogen batteries drop the wire.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

not efficient.
i doubt it can be done right now but is it possible to create a void for the lightning? take a certain charge here and move it there. it seems we could then have two bolts to play with. one up and one down. plus we could control the strikes and make them happen.

I'm not sure what you mean by void, or that we would have two bolts to play with. Are you asking if we could direct lightning strikes? We do that with lightning rods, you could also try to use a more exotic electrolaser system.

Again though it boils down to cost. The energy and resources needed to construct such a system (A) may give back <A or may give back slightly more than A. If A could be better spent elsewhere it should be done. Why spend A amount of resources for a lightning farm that gives back A+1 when you can spend A on a solar farm and get back A+50? It really doesn't matter if A is a huge amount or a negligible amount the bottom line is it has better uses elsewhere.

 

[JaredJames]

humanity depends on caffeine. it should be free.

How would you pay the workers? How would you pay for the materials? What about the R&D? The machines? The utilities?

 

[Darken-Sol]

i'm just curious. look at how well geo-thermal and wind and solar work. tying into planetary systems seems to pay off. the EM field could be another. i had an idea about fastening a chain to the moon and having it pull a generator on a band around the earth. i shot that one down myself.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

i'm just curious. look at how well geo-thermal and wind and solar work. tying into planetary systems seems to pay off. the EM field could be another. i had an idea about fastening a chain to the moon and having it pull a generator on a band around the earth. i shot that one down myself.

The thing is with renewable energy is it strongly depends on where you live on Earth. Take Brazil for example, they have 85% of their power supplied via HEP because their country is full of rivers. In Iceland geothermal would probably work quite well and anywhere with a desert could benefit from efficient solar power. But here in the UK we don't get enough sun, there aren't enough large rivers and the wind farms we build are inefficient (especially taking into account their maintenance which removes their carbon neutrality).

Another big problem is that it is very hard to get firm figures on the efficiency of most schemes. Pro-lobbyists are always picking apart Anti-lobbyists data and vice versa both saying completely contradicting things. Out of interest I was just googling the efficiency of wind farms in the UK and got a wealth of conflicting reports from different website names things like "renewableUK".

EDIT: as always wikipedia comes to my aid

 

[NeoDevin]

The idea may have some merit if a relatively cheap lightning rod/energy transfer system could be added as an addition to existing boiling water generators (like a coal or nuclear power plant).