why can't we harness electricity from lightning?

Question

why can't we harness electricity from lightning?
In some place that is known for lightning why can't we put up a huge pole. Either for the lightning to hit. Or maybe it could be raised into the clouds. Where the positive and negative charges are. then we could use that charge for electricity.

Now it won't be a constant supply. But neither is wind.

Answer 1

You can't store electricity except in a battery. That flash of lighting might only have 24,000 volts when most electrical wires carry 50,000 volts or more. So that flash would not last more than a second for a few houses.

Now the wind blows for hours so you can make enough electrically for power several blocks for a long time.

Answer 2

....and neither is solar.
We can harness lightning: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Lightning_Power
The answer is not in huge capacitors, but in the electrolysis of water producing hydrogen/oxygen.

The rate of lightning is 100 flashes per second all over the globe. One flash = 4 strokes. Each stroke has 10^12 Watts. One flash is equal to a power station of 20 MW working for 50 hours.

The National Weather Service estimates in the United States, cloud-to-ground lightning strikes occur approximately 30 million times each year http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/PrevGuid/m0052833/m0052833.asp

A typical lightning bolt contains 1 Billion Volts and contains between 10,000 to 200,000 amperes of current.

Answer 3

Several problems limit the usefulness of this idea. Here are three of them. 1. Lighting can deliver millions of Watts for only a short moment. This involves way to much charge for even the biggest capacitors to avoid burning up. 2. Lightning is not predictable in any meaningful sense, and unpredictability means unreliability which is bad for when someone is dependent on the power flow. 3. There are too many cheaper, easier and more reliable power sources around!

Answer 4

It is not neccesary, the energy of lighting is discharged in the surface of the Earth charging its surface, meditions show our planet is charged about 96500 Coulombs and a surface electrical field of 150 Volt/meter

Then if our planet is full charged we don´t need get power for lighting, only get the charges are down our foots a constant supply using the right method

Here is people get constant too much kilowatts using an adecuate method


http://radiantenergy.tk



Bye

Answer 5

I think it is because we can never be certain where lightning WILL hit. I mean, it would be inefficient to put up fields and fields of lightning poles, all really long.
And also the voltage is really, really large and finding the best material would be rather hard.

Answer 6

Because nothing man made can handle the voltage of a lightning bolt. We have facilities that create about a third of the power but nothing close to the real deal. If there was a way to receive and hold the voltage amps and current of a lightning bolt then we would of already seen them placed around the world.

Answer 7

It's like the problem of trying to harness power from an atomic bomb, although we do have nuclear reactors, the power difference between the two is enormous. Lightning is both to powerful and to instantaneous. We just don't have the technology to harness it.

Answer 8

that is a good question...maybe because lighting electricity is too concentrated? it would cause that pole to catch on fire