Today’s Stump the Scientist question was actually posed to our friends @generalelectric on Twitter and sent our way internally. Keep reading to learn a little more about harnessing energy from lightning bolts and be sure to submit your questions in the comments or on Twitter to @EdisonsDesk!
Question from Twitter follower @uavKid:
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Response from Chief Scientist Jim Bray:
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Yes, it is certainly possible in principle to store the charge that constitutes a lightning flash. Lighting consists of a flow of electrons, and these electrons could in principle be stored in a capacitor. We generally would not want to do it because of cost and unpredictability.
It would be costly because lightning occurs at very high voltages (up to several hundred million volts), and so the equipment would have to be designed to handle such voltages, and this would be very expensive; standard high voltage utility transmission rarely goes above around 750 thousand volts. The current is also high (around 10000 amps), which raises costs further. Further, capacitors to store the current would be quite expensive.
If we were to develop the equipment, we would be faced with the fact that lightning is not available consistently or predictably, only when a storm of the right type is in the right place. So the equipment would just sit around doing nothing most of the time, a poor use of capital funds.
