You mean it's not 1.21 gigawatts?

So if we can't time travel, we might as well be able to produce cheap electricity... kudos...

A crackpot idea from the lunatic fringe. First of all, you don't know ahead of time where lightning will strike, so its hard to place the energy collectors in the right place. Secondly, the current surges are SO high from a strike, its nearly impossible to absorb and then store the energy effectively. Each bolt lasts only a fraction of a second, while our homes need continuous power.....

> On average, a lighting bolt carries one million kilowatts
> of electrical energy.

delivers electrical energy at a rate of one million kilowatts.

That's certainly a lot, but it doesn't last for very long.

Its easy to be confused by watts (power) and watt-hours (energy, or the total amount of power generated over some period of time). A 1 Megawatt coal plant delives a megawatt of power constantly, so in an hour it delivers a "megawatt-hour" of energy. A lightning bolt delivers a Megawatt of power, crammed into 0.1 second. Which is 100,000 Watt-seconds of ENERGY, or only 27 watt-hours. Which means it could light up one hall light for an hour...

Think of watts as how quickly you burn calories while exercising, and watt-hours as the total calories burned at the gym. You can run vigorously for a 100 yard dash- powerfully burning calories furiously for a short period, and leaving you huffing and puffing. Dramatic, like a lightning bolt. But the 10 second run may have used up only 50 calories in energy.

Errr, not a very well researched article. (Most likely a scam I think). According to Wiki a lightning bolt at best has enough power to run a 100W lightglobe for 2 months. A quick google will show up several other references to the limited amount of power avialable from lightning. In the scheme of things the power available for harvesting is nothing, especially considering the danger and difficulty in harvesting it.

Color me skeptical.

mmm... this should be interesting to see! I think there was an attempt some years back with some huge capacitor... the whole lot blew up. No suprise there. I had a look at this companies website mentioned above. It seems they are trying to do quit a few things: Energy Saving Fuel Additive; CO2 Removal; Urban Mini-Reactors and of course the Lightning story. I wonder...

Total bunk. BUT... to the comment that you can't predict lightning, you are wrong. Researchers now launch small model rockets with a wire on them which attract a bolt every time. This is old news. The newest is laser triggered lightning. The laser creates a conducive path through the atmosphere to the thunder cloud. A little bit of Google prevents a lot of foot-in-mouth disease. :)

i think your tipster has led you astray.

I tend to agree with the comments that say that we need to be very skeptical of this company. However, I believe society should be trying to find a way to harvest lightning energy, however silly some may think it. Each lightning bolt carries a significant amount of energy - regardless of the fact that it lasts a fraction of a second.
One poster said it can run a 100W bulb for 60 days. That is 144,000Watt-hours per bolt. This is enough to supply the electrical needs of my house for 48 days.
To me that is not insignificant and in an area prone to thunderstorms, harnessing lightning would not be silly. As another poster commented, it is already possible to capture and direct this energy. The main problem is storage. That energy needs to be stored somehow. And storage can be any number of things. I don't see lightning harvesting as an impossibility, anymore than capturing the sun's photon energy as electricity was a number of decades back, or fission was a hundred years ago or fusion is today. Lightning harvesting will happen, just as fusion will - whether it takes us 20 years or 200 is the question. Not whether it is possible.

Actually, the laser/rocket method only works IF there is a thunder cloud above the laser, AND it's about ready to strike somewhere in the IMMEDIATE vicinity. Then you can direct the lightning bolt to hit a specific target. Results vary widely- from 1 in 10 to 1 in 2 attempts, but statistics are spotty. You can't draw energy from thin air, or even from nearby thunderclouds. Not a way to build a power plant.

So many of the "green" ideas floated in the press and blogs are based on stacking a half dozen improbable or freakish demonstrations, into a seemingly robust solution. You know, in a petri dish electrical power is generated from decaying garbage, and all of a sudden we solved the solid waste and energy problem in one fell swoop. But in the "fine print", the petri dish only produced energy with a 0.1% efficiency, and the bacteria can't survive outside the lab.

Usually, this misinterpretation leads to well-meaning, but overly enthusiastic predictions. But some companies intentionally use this stack of improbables to pump their stock.....

If you want to capture electricity in the atmosphere then drop a tether from low earth orbit into the ionosphere. That seems more practical than capturing lightning.

Lightning has a potential difference of 3megavolts and lasts for 0.3 seconds, that is 250 watthours, there are 10 lighting strikes everysecond, if there were stations in the most prone places of florida and the amazon, we could at least harness enough power to recover some that we wont be getting from coal and gas if nuclear does (but it wont) go wrong

Sorry, its one gigavolt... 1000 times more watt hours than i said before

Sorry, scratch that...
Each bolt has a p.d of 300000V, and a current of 10000A, giving a power of 3,000,000,000W -> (3000 GigaWats) i.e. 1/4Gigawathour

Capture of bolts in high lightning locatins is a done technology. Storage of the power is simple, direct it into a large water container and you get hot water or steam.

The question is merely the money in/ money out ratio

NT

I really do hope the experiments later this year are a success. It would be quite an achievement to harness the huge amounts of natural energy lightning contains. So, were one step closer to a pipe dream, whats next? hover boards? :-D

Heres one I stumbled across the the other day and had to bookmark it. Very extensive and informative
alternative energy resource. Alternative Energy

It is actually a very good idea.I thought about it and i did got a solution how to tap the energy and store it.

On average, a lighting bolt carries one million kilowatts of electrical energy.

(this is really in writing above) ^

lighting bolt? Don't you mean lightning bolt? And if you DID mean lighting bolt, it wouldn't make any since. Even though i'm not a member of this site, i would like you to know this.

p.s. I'm a 6th grader and wanted you to know.

if there is a way to store a lightning bolt and harness its awesome power then let them go 4 it its not our humility if it doesn't work

Does anyone know of anyone currently funding projects related to the 'Harnessing of Lightning for Conversion into Usable Electricity'?

If so, I would be interested in knowing about the research.

I dont want to get into any conversations about how impossible at task it is because of "how hard it is to get struck" or "how much power comes in such a short burst".

We all know and can agree on the challenges.

Are there any programs funded that people know about?

Sincerely,
Todd B Ridolph

I think it may be possible, but last i heard it they were only able to get a femtosecond lazer to make electricity to jump shorter distances in the lab, but possibly if you had a multible of lazers in circle and focused beam it may be possible. If you could do this, you may be able to cause a continuous "lightning strike", no cloud would be needed due to the high voltage differential between high altitude and low. last but not least the energy could be stored in a saltcrystal solution such as they are currently using in storing solar energy in the form of heat. Energy could then be drawn as needed.

It really makes me mad when corporations deliberately lie..and that is what is happening here. Every single R&D bit on this companies' website are my creations. I don't mind skeptics..cant tolerate a thief though. You should know that alternate energy holdings abandoned the project because they don't know how to do this..and they are nuke wannabes anyhow. This deceptive practice has GOT TO STOP!! BTW the University of Florida research team has a database that suggests an average lightning bolt has at least 1 megawatt hour of electricity. I have a solid new patent ap for tapping it, wrapping up final details. My prototype works beautifully with artificial lightning. Thanks Steve LeRoy

Due to deliberate, vengeful negative publicity regarding my energy research I am no longer going to pursue this endeavor. I have destroyed my prototype and discarded the parts. I hope someone else who is younger and doesn't care about public opinion succeeds at lightning harvesting..the potential is really there regardless of what big news agencies are paid to publish to discredit another persons' research.

dear steve leroy.. i read that you have destroyed your prototype. well, if you are not concern on sharing. i would like to know more bout this prototype that you have created and how succesful was it in tests you had created during harvesting. i am trully facinated in this topic of finding new energy source that might be the answer to most earthly problems. plus this clean energy source(lighting in particular), would benefit third world countries. for me being this facinated, is mostly because here in my school where i am studying electrical engineering, i am currently doing research on natural energy. thus i find this lightning energy source is a promising subject to present to my lecturers.

from Singapore,
Khai. Age 21.

New solar panels technology: Simply put, 'direct' solar tubes are the most efficient solar technology available. This is based on a 2001 study of all solar technologies by the Department of Trade and Industry. (Now Dept of Business).

Since then solar tubes have evolved further, and now we are proud to showcase the latest in ‘direct’ heat solar tubes, which have improved solar efficiency even further, using only the highest quality components available in the solar industry. This gives the advantage of better performance and peace of mind but with no heat exchange required, this can free up your twin coil (when applicable) for other applications such as under floor heating/bio mass stoves etc.

Find more at: http://www.heatmyhome.co.uk

By all means continue the research. Who knows, something interesting may develop. That's what science is all about.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Lightning used as energy?