Lightning for power?

[tman_ndsu08]

Recently while looking at a fake, but hilarious, circuit diagram for what is supposed to be the time traveling Delorean from the movie "Back to the Future", I had an idea. On this diagram, the power source simply says "Lightning Bolt: 1.21 Jiga Watts!". Obviously this is supposed to mean giga watts, but it’s comical for those who have seen the movie.

But, as the thread title might imply, it got me thinking: could we use lighting as a form of energy?

I thought it would be fairly easy to get the lighting from the sky into a circuit. Simply putting a metal grid into a field somewhere will give the electrons somewhere to go other than the ground.

The obvious dilemma, of course, is how do you store these electrons once you get them into the circuit?

Could fuel cells be the key?


Typically, fuel cells run on hydrogen and oxygen which combine into electricity and water. Of course, the reverse reaction also works (water plus electricity equals hydrogen and oxygen), but at a higher energy cost. So, in other words, you couldn't get a perpetual motion machine by recombining H and O into water, then taking the electricity generating and reversing the reaction and so on and sealing the system up real tight. No, that wouldn't work. But, again, what if we supply the electricity from the lighting?

If you attached this large grid up to a huge network of electrolysis machines that would take distilled water and turn it into large amounts of pure hydrogen and oxygen, which could either be cooled to minus 250 K, or whatever the liquid temp of hydrogen is, or put under very high pressure to pack it in nicely to a home storage unit or a car. Then fuel cells could use the H and O to make water and electricty for powering homes and cars.


Does anyone think this type of thing could work? This electrolysis/fuel cell set up could be hooked up to any power source, really (wind, solar, whatever).

[Charles]

First, you need a circuit that can handle such silly amounts of power. Then you ask - is this worth the money? - Besides, Electrical energy produced by lightning is very hard to regulate

[Pronatalist]

Lightning around hydrogen and oxygen? Sounds like a recipe for an explosion if you ask me.

There's too many ways to produce electricity to resort to lightning.

My favorites are to suck heat energy out of the air (supposedly violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) or for homes to have their own personal nuclear reactors.

I have yet to hear of any sort of battery that can properly charge by huge power surges. The closest thing to that, would be a capacity, which stores very little energy compared to a battery, but can run practically infinite recharge/discharge cycles, something rechargable batteries don't do well.

Actually, Jiga-watts is probably more like it, as they were probably trying to emphasize the unpredictable power draw that might come from a lightning bolt. Lots of energy one time, less another time.

BTW, does lightning strike in the same place, often enough for this to work anyway?

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Charles First, you need a circuit that can handle such silly amounts of power. Then you ask - is this worth the money? - Besides, Electrical energy produced by lightning is very hard to regulate

If you hooked many of the electrolysis machines up in parallel, it would cut the wattage down into something more realistic for each machine.

Hard to regulate? It would be a large burst of DC. What's hard to regulate about that?

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Pronatalist Lightning around hydrogen and oxygen? Sounds like a recipe for an explosion if you ask me.

It's not as if the lightning is striking the hydrogen tanks.

There's too many ways to produce electricity to resort to lightning.

Who said anything about resorting? Just thinking off all the possible ways that we can harvest the free energy that the universe gives us instead of burning hydrocarbons.

I have yet to hear of any sort of battery that can properly charge by huge power surges. The closest thing to that, would be a capacity, which stores very little energy compared to a battery, but can run practically infinite recharge/discharge cycles, something rechargable batteries don't do well.

There would be no batteries, that's for damn sure. The fuel cells would be storing the charge, not batteries.

As far as what is done with the lightning electricity initially, it will be used up exactly as it's being thrown to the ground.

So, for every bolt, that electricity gets split up to many machines that exactly exchange whatever amount of electricity they receive into turning water to H and O. No need to store the charge in a capacitor initially.

Actually, Jiga-watts is probably more like it, as they were probably trying to emphasize the unpredictable power draw that might come from a lightning bolt. Lots of energy one time, less another time.

That's like telling a person that it's not worth the risk since they won't know if they'll be receiving 1 billion dollars or only a half billion dollars at a time.

It's not like a lightning bolt is only going to be 5 watts one time and be worthless.

BTW, does lightning strike in the same place, often enough for this to work anyway?

Make the grid bigger then.

[m3talsmith_redu]

Interesting idea. Here's something that might complement it.

Do you know anything about static charge; as it relates to lightning strikes and magnetic fields? I'm in the wireless business, and we have to put "porcupine" devices on our towers to discharge static charge so that it won't attract lightning to our tower.

You see, as an antenna transceives it builds a static charge around it based on the magnetic field it uses to capture signals. This magnetic field, and the static charge it produces, cause a draw of sorts for lightning. We put the porcupines, a modified lightning rod, on the towers to destabilize the ionization around the antenna and tower, thus providing less attraction for lightning.

However, the idea that might help yours, is do the reverse, create more ionization and increase your chances of lightning striking more than once. If you design with the ionization increase in one spot only, then you can design a circuit based off of a run from that point to the internal storage. You would not need a huge grid per-say and you might be able to make use of WPT (Wireless Power Transmission) to transfer from this grid directly to wave form and down to the ground station and back into AC: thereby passing up the need for costly circuitry, other than a few inverters and rectennas, and reduce your chances of having to replace a blown circuit board.

Just a thought. WPT boards are starting to make their way to small devices like cell phones in the next few years. It shouldn't be too hard to have a small grid up there that can transfer enough power for you, with plenty of leeway for power fluctuations with no inherent brown out or power surge problems.

[Prometheus]

A watt is a rate of energy flow. It dosen't matte how many watts you have if it's only for a short time. True, the wattage of a lightening bolt is enormous, but since it only lasts for a tenth of a second, you really would not get that much energy out of it relatively speaking.

[Samildanach]

Drawing heat energy out of the air...I dont see this as being a problem. You would need some kind of device that air moved through. As the air moved over the surface of the device it would move very small levers or wheels on the surface creating electricity. You oculd in theory build clothes this way that recharge devices as you move your arms and legs around

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Prometheus A watt is a rate of energy flow. It dosen't matte how many watts you have if it's only for a short time. True, the wattage of a lightening bolt is enormous, but since it only lasts for a tenth of a second, you really would not get that much energy out of it relatively speaking.

You're right.

However, this doesn't mean that my scenario couldn't still work.

For example, if a 1.2 giga watt (that's 1200 kilo watts) lightning bolt strikes your grid 30 times (which I would say is more than possible in an average thundar storm) with an average duration of 1/10 seconds, that turns out to be 1 kilo watt hour worth of electricity.

That might not seem like much electricity. Ok, really it's not that much. But, you're not going to be using that electricity directly. You're using it to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen.

I'd be curious to find out how many kilograms of hydrogen and oxygen an average electrolysis machine can exchange for 1 kilowatt hour.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Samildanach Drawing heat energy out of the air...I dont see this as being a problem. You would need some kind of device that air moved through. As the air moved over the surface of the device it would move very small levers or wheels on the surface creating electricity. You oculd in theory build clothes this way that recharge devices as you move your arms and legs around

There already is such a thing as a heat exchanger for warming up cold air.

It's a spinning fan with aluminum wings. As the warm air exits out of one side of the fan, it heats up the wins which spin over to the side where cold air comes in and heats it up.

[Prometheus]

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 You're right. However, this doesn't mean that my scenario couldn't still work. For example, if a 1.2 giga watt (that's 1200 kilo watts) lightning bolt strikes your grid 30 times (which I would say is more than possible in an average thundar storm) with an average duration of 1/10 seconds, that turns out to be 1 kilo watt hour worth of electricity. That might not seem like much electricity. Ok, really it's not that much. But, you're not going to be using that electricity directly. You're using it to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen. I'd be curious to find out how many kilograms of hydrogen and oxygen an average electrolysis machine can exchange for 1 kilowatt hour.

It dosen't matter what you convert it to. It's still not much energy. You would be better off making the H2 or O2 withhoushold current.

[tman_ndsu08]

Now that I check wilipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_...e_%28energy%29 , it says that an average lightning strike is 1.5E9 J (or 1.5 gigawatts).

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Prometheus It dosen't matter what you convert it to. It's still not much energy. You would be better off making the H2 or O2 withhoushold current.

You're really not thinking about this in terms of money, are you?

A kilowatt hour costs about 10 cents during peak time. A lightning strike is free.

[tman_ndsu08]

Here's a better example.

If the average home uses 2000 kilowatt hours a month, you can get the same energy from 60000 average lightning strikes.

Is that an impossibly high number? I actually don't know. I'd love to see how many lightning strikes are 1 one thunder storm alone.

If your grid was 100 sq. miles (which I could see easily out in the country at the hyrodgen production plan head quarters), I doubt that getting 100k lightning strikes per month would be hard depending on where you lived.

And, from there, the hydrogen can be sent to anywhere in the world to be used.

[m3talsmith_redu]

The FAA might have something to say about a 100 sq. mile grid in their airspace.

[Prometheus]

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 You're really not thinking about this in terms of money, are you? A kilowatt hour costs about 10 cents during peak time. A lightning strike is free.

I am always thinking in the terms of buisiness/money. That's why I dismissed the idea. Since a kilowatt hour is so cheap, it is not worth harvesting with lightening. The lightening colleciton apparatus would be expensive, and would likely require some electricity to run electromagnets. You would also have to develop some kind of battary that could absorb that much energy in so short a time. That 10 cents is just not worth it. The lightening strike may be free, but the collection apparatus is not. Besides, most areas only have lightening storms every week or less. The apparatus would sit idle for days, and the payoff would be small.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: m3talsmith_redu The FAA might have something to say about a 100 sq. mile grid in their airspace.

In their airspace?!

You know that lightning strikes the ground, right?

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Prometheus Since a kilowatt hour is so cheap, it is not worth harvesting with lightening.

It's so cheap that an average electrical bill is $100 a month when it could be free. Yes, great business plan you've got there.

The lightening colleciton apparatus would be expensive

Yes, there would be the initial investment.

, and would likely require some electricity to run electromagnets.

Uh.....no.

You would also have to develop some kind of battary that could absorb that much energy in so short a time.

The energy is eing used directly as it comes in by the hydrogen converstion machines. No need to store it before using it.

That 10 cents is just not worth it. The lightening strike may be free, but the collection apparatus is not.

But a couple year's worth of $100/month electric bills will be worth it.

Besides, most areas only have lightening storms every week or less. The apparatus would sit idle for days, and the payoff would be small.

The machines don't need to be running all the time for you to use the electricity. Just forget about the machines for a minute.

The power is coming from hydrogen and fuel cells. Those are completely independant of the lightning harness and conversiton machines.

[MerlinsByte]

Keep it simple take one rod of high temp steel to channel the giggias into a giant reinforced concrete
containment say a never commissioned nuke and allow it to heat the water or gas to a working temp and generate steam or whatever.

A simple computer control could add water as needed to cool or allow rapid heating to steam...


KISS is good

mb

[gallo]

Quote by: MerlinsByte Keep it simple take one rod of high temp steel to channel the giggias into a giant reinforced concrete containment say a never commissioned nuke and allow it to heat the water or gas to a working temp and generate steam or whatever. A simple computer control could add water as needed to cool or allow rapid heating to steam... KISS is good mb

But how often is lightening going to strike lightning rod to generate enough power to make it worth the expense. How many "never commissioned" nuclear plants are there? Why not just crank up the nuclear reactor. Maybe 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.