:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-1330661108-7294a3b5ab0e416eb9485d80bc61b7ea.jpg?w=780&resize=780,470&ssl=1 "What is the amount of energy in lightning?")
Lightning is the discharge of electricity caused by an imbalance between the positive and negative loads that accumulate in a cloud. Most lightnings occur between or inside the clouds, but about 40 million lightning strikes have touched the soil in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which follows injuries and deaths by lightning.
Is it possible to exploit this energy to supply entire communities? Here we explore this question.
Amount of energy in lightning
Lightning produces 10 times more electricity than flows on high -voltage wires.
It also produces a hotter thermal energy than the surface of the sun, and the sound energy (thunder) which can travel 25 miles.
Although it only lasted a millisecond, a lightning lightning is supposed to produce up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, which would be a sixth of the capacity of all solar panels on the roof in the United States in 2021. Capturing this energy, however, is not an easy task.
Did you know?
A single lightning bolt can contain up to a billion volts and approximately 100,000 amps of electricity or more.
Can we collect the energy of lightning?
Lightning carries or produces three forms of energy: electricity, heat and sound. In recent years, scientists have explored the questions:
- What if we could store this electricity to load all electric vehicles soon to dominate our roads?
- Or capture its intense heat to produce enough steam to operate a turbine?
- Or convert enough sound to generate the electricity necessary to produce carbon -free hydrogen fuel?
Capture electricity
Various attempts were made using high -voltage switching circuits and magnetic capacitors to capture and store lightning energy. Several pending and active patents describe systems that could transform lightning into electricity. However, however, none of these systems is used, at least widely.
As a study says, “it is not a complex scientific company, such as fusion reactors or nuclear installations.” Indeed, Benjamin Franklin brought us back halfway with the invention of lightning blade, which attracts and captures lightning and directs it in the ground. The other half – the supply – is the difficult part.
The earth acts as an electric earth because it is large enough to absorb an unlimited quantity of electric current with a minimal effect.
The challenge comes by swallowing energy transported in a flash at safe levels.
The electrical network already operates in this way: the high-voltage transmission lines from power plants transport electricity to 345,000 volts, but through several substations, electricity is given to regional levels, then to the levels of the neighborhood, until the electric lines in the residences transport only 120 volts.
However, switching to a flash up from millions of people to a billion volumes at a safer level is a more monumental task, to be performed.
Heat harvest
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the energy of lightning briefly heats up the air to around 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit – blocked than the surface of the sun.
Recent progress in the capture of heat and transforming it into electricity can suggest a way to harvest the mega-heating of Lightning. While magnets (in the center of most electricity productions) lose their magnetic force when heated, recent research has identified that tiny particles called paramagnons act like semiconductors, capable of transforming heat into electricity.
Going from this fundamental research to an achievable product can occur first with more earth-to-terre heat sources, such as the heat of manufacturing processes or vehicles. Applying to lightning is a less urgent task.
Conversion
Anyone who has a phone knows that it is possible to convert electricity into sound waves. The opposite is also possible, and experiences are underway around the world to harvest sound for electricity.
The extreme heat produced by lightning detonates the air around it, producing the sound waves that we call thunder. A few hundred feet from its source, thunder can produce around 120 decibels. The existing sources of healthy energy of traffic and urban noise pollution are however too reliable nuisances to deserve experiences with the harvest of thunder.
Prospects on the harvest of electricity
With electricity, the offer must always meet the demand – if not, the system is breaking down and the power outages occur. One of the challenges of Lightning energy harvest, as for other renewable energies, is its intermittent.
Intermittent lightness is much less predictable both in time and the location than wind or solar energy. Lightning electricity storage is the most difficult part, not only because the energy storage industry is still in its infancy, but because the storage devices themselves will have to resist a single solid electricity bolt without damaging the device.
The political will (and therefore research dollars) focuses on more established technologies of renewable energy: water, wind and solar energy. For the moment, the lightning of lightning will remain the pursuit of individual inventors with dreams of being the next Benjamin Franklin.
