Blog
11 Jan 09
Parker C.
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A few years ago, I was having a conversation with my brother about solar panels and he said “Why can’t we just use the electricity in lightning?” To which my answer was "there is no way to safely do that." Then I started thinking about it. Lightning has a large EMP, ElectroMagnetic Pulse, a pulse that travels some distance away from the actual lightning strike. Most equipment damage caused by lightning is as a result of induced currents on power and telephone transmission lines, not direct strikes by the lightening.
let's do a dreaming... How about we place around tall metal structures like radio and TV transmitting towers, arrays of EMP capturing devices connected to an array of large capacitors were employed. During a lightning strike the capacitors would become charged, then they could slowly discharge there stored energy to the electrical grid using grid tied inverters. This would work best in an area where there is a lot of lightning to begin with, like Florida.
The average lightning strike transmits about 1 Terawatt of power in about 20-40 microseconds. The magnetic field generated from this event travels out uniformly from the strike point dissipating exponentially. The closer to the strike point, the higher the field and the greater yield potential. To store any meaningful amount of power, a massive capacitor bank, or capacitor bank and battery bank connected in parallel would be needed.
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