Could energy from lightning be harnessed?

Question

I have looked and couldn't find any details... Is it possible for the government to set up some kind of capacitor/battery grid in order to store the energy created from a lightning strike? A lightning strike hitting a deliberately-placed conductor and feeding it into a storage grid would solve a lot of energy problems around the world.

Additionally, if they could do such a thing, do you think they would build them? I'm thinking about political and economic reasons.

Answer 1

In principle, you could connect one terminal of the primary of a massive transformer to a very tall conductor (a tower otherwise insulated from the ground) and the other terminal to the ground.

When lightning struck the conductor, the current pulse would induce a voltage in the secondary coil which you could, in principle, store.

Absolutely not practical though. (1) Designing a transformer with sufficiently low impedance that the maximum voltage drop across the primary during the lightning discharge would not result in breakdown through the air, between windings, etc. would constitute a tremendous feat of engineering. Building such a transformer to operate with even marginal efficiency seems unrealistic. A vast array of efficient transformers connected in parallel would present other problems – balancing voltages across all the primaries, for one. (2) Storing the energy from the harnessed current pulse using capacitors or superconducting magnets? Technically possible, but about as cost effective as keeping one pint of ice cream in an industrial freezer. (3) The energy released by a typical negative cloud to ground stroke is on the order of 100-200 kilowatt-hours - and you'll only 'keep' a fraction of that. Your network of towers and transformers would need to be dense and vast to get struck - often enough to yield a significant average power output.

You might also draw energy directly from thunderstorm electric fields. It would be possible to tap a direct current by suspending a grid of conductors high above the surface and using that grid as one ‘terminal’ and the ground as the other ‘terminal’. Corona discharge around the suspended conductors would maintain the flow of charge. More problems here as well: (1) Transmitting and using DC is not practical on a large scale. To manipulate the voltage for transmission or household use would require conversion to AC. (2) The grid will get struck by lightning. You would have to find a way to divert current from the grid directly to ground very, very quickly in these cases to prevent frying your conversion/transmission system – not to mention a few of your customers. (3) Again…only a dense and vast network would yield a significant amount of power.

I suppose you could use the current source described in the previous paragraph to drive an electrolysis reaction producing hydrogen gas - which has some obvious uses. Unfortunately, I can't imagine the gas produced would ever justify the infrastructure used to produce it.

I don’t think atmospheric electricity will ever represent a viable power source.

Answer 2

You could concievably store the charge of a lightning bolt on a capacitor as a potential difference. However, you'd need a really bloody massive capacitor.
A conductor placed into the national grid would do nothing. Its a big enough charge to arc to earth...
The big trouble is the lightning bolt has a massive amount of energy in a very short time.. I.e. there is no way of storing it..
This is why the capacitor could be used but only theoretically.

Answer 3

The temperature of lightning itself is hotter than the interior of the sun. I think it would burn out any capacitor before it had a chance to store any electricity.

Plus lightning strikes are random in nature, and you'd have to be able to direct a lightning strike.

The idea is interesting in concept but from an engineering perspective we don't have the technology to do it, and the amount of energy you might actually get would not justify the cost. It's better to transfer energy from motion (wind, rivers) or from heat to steam and turn turbines. The energy is more dependable, and viable.

Answer 4

I too, have researched this question over the years. What I have found out is that the power from a lightning strike is too intense and has too much energy to be harnessed. Attempts have been made but at this time no one has designed a strong enough receptor to harness the energy.

Perhaps you will find the answer!

Answer 5

prolly not. Lightning looks for the easiest path. So where the air is lense dense and allows the lighting to move fast as possible. So for a capicitor to be placed where a lighting strike would happen is highly unlikely for now. Also, a lot of lighting does not even end up touching ground. So thats another problem in your theory. But i like your idea.

Answer 6

The Earth is already a giant capacitor. It is possible to use the current that is flowing through the Earth and out into space, or from space into the Earth. In fact, the technology is already pretty old. Nikola Tesla invented this a while back, but the technology was covered up.

They already have them built, but the technology is not for regular men to know about. Alas, we are quickly approaching a time in our history that will be of the highest sadness and pain. :(

Answer 7

I think lightning strikes are too random to spend money on harnessing the energy for practical use.

Answer 8

Yes it is possible to get a large amount energy from sun shine and I tested this fact.
You are valid about political reasons.
I can make many products of solar energy.
Sorry; I live in Iran and can not continue my useful researches and can not develop them.
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Answer 9

yeah once you figured out where it was going to hit move the conductor plate over there in the split second of time you have and catch it before it reaches the ground then yeah totally

Answer 10

It could be possible, it's a good theory.
But lightning produces plasma; a new state of matter.
It is incredibly dangerous and extremely hot in temperature, so it would be difficult to harness