Lightning for power?

[MerlinsByte]

[quote]by Gallo….But how often is lightening going to strike lightning rod to generate enough power to make it worth the expense.

But how often is lightening going to strike lightning rod to generate enough power to make it worth the expense..

Merlin writes…I was watching a program on discovery or some such thing and a meteorologist and his assistants were launching model rockets into thunder heads trailing a fine wire, which attracted a lightning hit nearly every time. A low to medium power laser might be able to do the same thing (as the wire).

How many "never commissioned" nuclear plants are there? Why not just crank up the nuclear reactor. My be it that it would be a better bang for the buck even though our really bad nuclear program makes nuclear power not a whole lot less expensive than coal or oil

Merlin sez...Here in the Tennessee Valley there are at least 2, but I was just using that as an example. Any containment vessel would be satisfactory, and the working gas/fluid need not be super heated.

I think Nuclear power is getting a bad rap and agree that our storage methods are safe enough to restart any decommissioned reactors and build more today if not before. This would seem to go against my back to the land lifestyle,and morals, but I feel that in the near term we must contuniue in our excesses.

Thanks for your response Gallo.

Mb

[gallo]

Quote by: MerlinsByte I was watching a program on discovery or some such thing and a meteorologist and his assistants were launching model rockets into thunder heads trailing a fine wire, which attracted a lightning hit nearly every time. A low to medium power laser might be able to do the same thing (as the wire).

Actually, the frequency of the hits was an artifact of the filming. As I recall, they had to sit for days and even weeks waiting for storms, and most shots actually failed to attract lightening. They showed the successes in the film but not the failures. For example, how often in the last 22 years has lightening struck within 100 yards of my house? Once.

[Nathan Struth]

You could in theory use air ionizing lasers that could great a plasma through the sky that the static electricity int he clouds would be attracted to, and the electrons would flow like a wire down the plasma to a superconducting capacitor that has no resistence or your hydrogen cells, I hope this helps your idea get to where you want to go.

[5010]

Something else I've seen discussed is carbon nanotubes. Some say they are the right material for building a space elevator and perhaps the elevator itself could be powered by the enormous electrical potential in the atmosphere beyond where we get surface strikes. Most lightning happens way up there.

But methinks we're talking way future, like we've-been--dead-and-our-pyramid-has-crumbled future.

Also I think there is a misconception that electrons flow towards the ground during lightning strike. I think they actually fly up into the sky. Someone correct me if wrong.

But if you want to talk about powering cars, wasn't there a solar cell auto race this year and those vehicles were moving up to 80 MPH? I think I read about it somewhere.

[Kite]

Geothermal energy is the way of the future says I. Lightning is too eratic to try to harness it, and if you tried to run it through a circut it would be fried.

[jbmd56]

Patriotic Americans only need Reply to this Message (if there are any left).

Those of you whose first response is "Why would I want to make hydrogen from lightning strikes?" need not apply, obviously you are employees of the petroleum industry or simply un-American.

Data from the Lightning Research Laboratory shows that they can trigger controlled lightning strikes 3 to 8 times a day, creating a peak power of around 2.2 x 10^8 Watts/meter per strike. (English please, what does that mean in watts per strike?)

Prof. M. Kanarev has a site on Low Current Electrolysis of Water which states that most modern electrolysis machines take 4 kW to create 1 cubic meter of hydrogen.

So the bottom line is, I want to know how much hydrogen can I expect per lightning strike. Again, if your answer to this is "But why would I want to produce hydrogen with lightning strikes?", you are obviously not a patriotic American, or just plain stupid. In either case, please do not respond.

Sincerely,
James B. MacDonald

[HelioPrime]

Quote by: jbmd56 Patriotic Americans only need Reply to this Message (if there are any left). Those of you whose first response is "Why would I want to make hydrogen from lightning strikes?" need not apply, obviously you are employees of the petroleum industry or simply un-American. Data from the Lightning Research Laboratory shows that they can trigger controlled lightning strikes 3 to 8 times a day, creating a peak power of around 2.2 x 10^8 Watts/meter per strike. (English please, what does that mean in watts per strike?) Prof. M. Kanarev has a site on Low Current Electrolysis of Water which states that most modern electrolysis machines take 4 kW to create 1 cubic meter of hydrogen. So the bottom line is, I want to know how much hydrogen can I expect per lightning strike. Again, if your answer to this is "But why would I want to produce hydrogen with lightning strikes?", you are obviously not a patriotic American, or just plain stupid. In either case, please do not respond. Sincerely, James B. MacDonald

But why would I want to produce hydrogen with lightning strikes?

[Zeebadee]

I'm sure you've seen this:

Directory:Lightning Power - PESWiki

[rmnunez]

You'll run into a problem moving the gigawatts from a thunderbolt to whatever device is going to harness the energy, its a huge discharge of energy in an instant. I saw a documentary on this and the power surge just vaporizes whatever conducive thing it finds, lightning rods designed to attract the lightining and ground it typically have to be replaced once used. Its not a big expense, but it highlights the problem of how to harness the energy, if you had some device attached to the grounding cable instead of just a metal stake in the ground, what would get melted is the device instead of the stake.