Can we harness the energy from lightning strikes?

Question

I know it may sound dumb, but is there any possible way to set up a lightning rod and connect it to something that could capture the energy from the strike and reuse it for consumer use?

Answer 1

A lightning strike might be 200,000 volts and 50,000 amperes. Unforunately the duration is a fraction of a second. For simple math, let's round it up to 1 second (0.0003 hours).

200 kV x 50 kA x 0.0003 hours = 3,000 kWh.

This is enough energy to power two average sized mid-west homes for an entire month in the middle of summer.

I will let the reader work out the details on how they're going to collect and store this energy for useful purposes..

Answer 2

you should concievably shop the fee of a lightning bolt on a capacitor as a skill distinction. although, you're able to choose an exceedingly bloody vast capacitor. A conductor placed into the national grid could do no longer something. Its a huge adequate fee to arc to earth... the vast worry is the lightning bolt has a multitude of capacity in an incredibly little while.. I.e. there is not any way of storing it.. for this reason the capacitor ought to be used yet purely theoretically.

Answer 3

Lightning strikes are instant and sporadic.Getting a stable energy supply will prove extremely difficult.Its like the problem of solar power but ten times worse.There isn't a certainty that you'll have that light energy source consistently.There can be a cloud,It could rain which cuts of the source of light energy.So the general problem is keeping it consistent

Answer 4

High voltage engg has to be developed a little more for such accomplishment. Presently , protection devices are installed to protect h.v transmission lines against surge created by stray lightning strike.

Answer 5

Its been done for about two hundred years. The Lyden jar is the storage system for the energy of lightning

Answer 6

Yes. But you need a flux capacitor to capture the 1.21 GW, or your time circuits won't work properly.