Storing the energy from lightning sounds like a
great solution to our energy crisis if it could be harnessed. Lightning bolts carry from 5 kA to 200 kA and
voltages vary from 40 kV to 120 kV. So on an average, a bolt generates 100 kA
and 100 kV. There are an average of 1.4
billion lightning strikes a year, but only ¼ of those strikes are ground strikes. That means ¾ of the strikes are cloud to
cloud strikes and cannot be harnessed.
That being said, there are still 350 million lightning strikes, or still
about 490,000,000,000 kWh that we should be able to capture, transfer and
store. Sounds like that would provide plenty of energy to power the world!
The problem is we do not have that technology
in electrical energy storage, at this time in history, to harness the
power. But even if we did, that only boils
down to providing enough electricity to power the world for 9 days. We would have to build some kind of device big
enough to get hit by enough lightning strikes to supply the desired energy.
There would have to be towers erected about the height of the World Trade
Center. To capture every lightning strike these very tall towers would have to
be erected a mile apart in grid formation everywhere covering the entire
globe! That would be one tower for the
200,000,000 square miles of the surface of the earth! The equipment needed to capture this much electrical
energy in a strike would have be heavy conduction rods with ultra-heavy duty electrical
circuits and storage super-capacitors so that it would be able to capture any
of that power in that time period. On
top of that, there is the problem of financing such a massive project! The cost for each tower and electrical
circuitry storage would be around $500,000. That is about $100 Trillion for the
land equipment. Then there would have to be flotation towers for the oceans.
Plus, the installation costs and regular maintenance, and the wire grid
connecting all the towers together, making it probably more money than we have
in this world! Add to that the
impossibility for the entire world to agree on this concept and project… or
agree on anything globally!
Compare all that with
the fact that one hour of sunlight has the same amount of energy that we use in
a year! We have much more power available from the sun and we only need our
rooftops to accumulate all we need. Especially with the advances and improvements
being made with solar panel efficiency. Another major challenge to harvest
energy from lightning is the impossibility of predicting when and where thunderstorms
will occur. Statics show that lightning strikes on an average of once in 10 years
to the same general place. Even during a
storm, it would be difficult to determine where exactly lightning will strike,
but the sun shines continually!
(by Tim)
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