Collect and store energy from thunderstorms

Yes,

Thunderstorms come with rain. The rain falls from the sky, collects in rivlets, flows to creeks, to streams, lakes and finally rivers. We dam the rivers and use the falling water to spin turbines.

Oh wait, already done...

lol,

Hey come on JRaef, its a valid question for some areas of the planet.

Though I'm not interested in addressing that myself, I have other issues to deal with at this time. which hopefully does away with the need to ask such questions.

We discussed this topic a year ago....

Why not look for it? a lot of interesting and valid ideas cropped up in that thread...

John.

Assuming you mean lightning, there is a lot of energy in it to be sure. But the delivery system leaves a little to be desired. Lightning occurs because the atmosphere and the earth act like a giant capacitor, so all the stored energy is released at once. I can't think of any kind of storage medium that could absorb all that energy that fast; except of course maybe another giant capacitor! Interesting thought though. Cover Florida with Mylar on top of a layer of electrolytic gel... hmmm.........

We could put it to a vote. They wouldn't want it but their votes wouldn't end up being counted anyway.

lol, you're crazy funny dude. yeah that delivery system leaves a little to be desired is right.

anyway, who said one had to wait for a strike, what about gathering the build? still need a rather big plate or something to hold the charge, and you have to insulate it, and everything else to keep it from grounding.

big job.

Florida gets my vote as a plastic free world.

Helium balloons tethered to giant capacitors feeding a DC bus that is being systematically discharged by transistors firing in a PWM pattern to run generators perhaps? It would be difficult to get anything else high enough to come in contact with the atmospheric charges.

Or to go the Monty Python route:

2 sparrows flying in tandem holding a coconut, which has been coated with a conductive paint and has a wire attached to a capacitor on the ground?

far out dude, thats almost brilliant. You'd have to dope the tether to create flow, but I think it might just work!!!

so, you have a bit of brains hidden in there huh!!!

lol, poor birds man. lol far out!

I suddenly had a vision of florida with millions of balloons tethered to the roof of houses in a thunder storm... hmmm... not such a practical thing huh.

Didnt Ben Franklin develop something like this a "few" years back? [I think it was called a Leyden Jar.] His system worked too. Maybe he suggested a solution to the energy problem that exists here in the US. In the US, we could just build a large network of Leyden Jars and hire the certain groups of individuals (especially those with all the alternative solutions to our energy woes) to "go fly a kite".

The polling stations might end up being zapped by lighning bolts...

Doesn't some weather research org somwhere have a experimental setup where they have a huge lightning rod hooked up to a bank of batteries somehow?

Also same setup, but they use a model rocket connected via wire to a lightning rod, then to the batt bank. During a storm they shoot the model rocket up into the clouds in hopes of inducing a lightning bolt.

What about the problem of lightning bolt itself though, doesnt it have many volts but little amps? EE isnt my forte

perhaps a doped tether means harnese capacity before strikes!

Lightening... Lots of Volts AND lots of AMPS!!! An average strike is equivalent to about $60.00 of electricity from the utilities.

google: lightning,harness and you get over a million hits. osen.org/technologies/lightning/tabid/194/default.aspx is not so quick to dismiss the thought, but there are a lot of hurdles to overcome.

The voltage gradient is too high, the duty cycle is too low.

You average the lightning energy per square Km per year and you would not get much. What you do get is huge high voltage/current peaks at 1/100,000% duty cycle more or less.

It can be used as a means of execution in some states. An electric high(very) chair...

You could run it like the lottery... A day in the chair without a strike gets you off the hook!

The ionosphere has approximately 8,000 thunderstorms a day charging that area. Quite a tidy sum of power to tap. The ability to capture this energy and use it is something we have been doing this for years, most lately & still in operation today the Alaskan project first called "Star Wars" under Pres. Reagan now called H.A.A.R.P. : High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.

It's a technique brought to the worlds light, excuse the pun, by Nikola Tesla in 1912 when he presented a patent to give away electricity. Not a popualr idea in capitalist America so it was never completely funded to his wishes, the free energy idea you ask about was his too.

Today, H.A.A.R.P. can cause a lightning to strike anywhere they want it on earth or in space, all by using high frequency to pool and cause the conduit. Works on missiles very well too, with a directed heat wave all the way out in the ionosphere of 1600 F degrees and has the directed point source exploding power of about 4 volcanic eruptions when the pulse is focused . Additionally, they can raise the ionosphere several miles higher than it is naturally , with the ability to burn out the ionosphere at will.

Works very well for communication with Subs and can place a call during or after a N. Strike.

I don't think it's a backyard project because of expense , but there are about 8 installations world wide , some on islands and in the UK, with plans to increase these as needed for defense.

Bond

bondjamesbond@rock.com

there are 50,000 thunderstorms per hour.

HAARP sounds like fantasy

I hear it to be about that many strikes a day, not storms per hour ., but I really don't do the science part , just the delivery.

H.A.A.R.P is not a fantasy, but it could be a nightmare if the wrong frequency is chosen and or directed at a population. Our brains work on small but constant frequencies and if one can direct the low level frequency that insights violence or peaceful thoughts , laziness or whatever , you have changed the ability to make proper decisions . That's scary, even to me.

Bond

Bondjamesbond@rock.com

Oh boy, now I have to add a layer to my aluminum foil hat.

I knew it being lazy isn't my fault, it's the US government using their mind control rays. It make me wonder though, why they don't use it in the Middle East, in those evil countries that have all USA's oil. Jeff

Jeff ,

It turns out you have more oil in the states, than they do in the middle east, a fact discovered by H.A.A.R.P . They can xray the earth and see at any point or what is on the other side with this tool. Pretty handy little hammer.

Bond

Bondjamesbond@rock.com

But wait! There's more! If you order the HAARP within the next 30 minutes, you'll also receive this attractive set of steak knifes!!!

Be nice Vermin. If it wasnt for the "conspiracy" faction, life could get rather boring.

HAARP exists, but it's weapons function and capability as you attribute them are wrong

These things cycle through the media every few years. I knew an old man that told me of a 40 mile long trench that they had dug in Canada. The trench contained what could be called a dipole antenna (by the way, he worked for GE). Everyone was talking about weather control, death rays, controlling volcanic eruptions... It turned out to be an antenna for talking to nuclear subs. They had found a way to send 40Hz radio waves through the earth, and using a compression algorithm, could send orders and one-line messages to the subs crew's around the world.

I've heard of HARP, and I'm guessing it's really just an upgrade to sub communications.

Since 1912 it has cycled a few times indeed through the media. Say - whenever some movie star is not misbehaving and they need a lead story to scare readers back.

Trenches - I don't think so, not for communications with subs. Comm traffic is a major current use for H.A.A.R.P., but what I saw built in Alaska was well above the ground and in a phased array of many antennas.

Check Out The Web And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAARP. Where were we before Wikipedia ?

Bond

Bondjamesbond@rock.com

Yes, I've seen pictures of HARP.

The "Big Wire" buried in the tundra did it's job, but that was like 50 years ago. Submarine communications and coordinated communications with the rest of the nuclear triad are probably much more sophisticated by now.

Since I am not an engineer and know only a little physics, my thinking is not limited by knowledge.

How about towers at sea, that can pass the charge deep underwater, to do electrolysis and store the hydrogen/oxygen under the high pressure naturally found in the deep, deep, sea.

The energy could be recovered by fuel cell technology.

Sounds like a question for MASU.

Look him up, he has a weekly energy blog herein CR4, with some insightful but strickly by the book views.

Well that super model upstairs is sending me some low level energy waves, so I'm off for the evening Gents.

Cheers

Bond

Bondjamesbond@rock.com

Ever hear of the Lightning Field?

This article from New Scientist (I know it's a few years old) gives an idea of lightning distribution. It mentions that lightning rarely happens over the oceans which unfortunately rules out bondjamesbond's idea.

thanks all for an entertaining post... living in Orlando Florida, you get used to the radio continually telling you that you are living in the lightning capital of the world... every building we design has lightning protection... a high school project that I worked on has one building that averages, yes averages twelve strikes per storm. If it were worth the cost and effort to send the charge to a capacitor, I'm sure someone would have by now.

Now, to head off at ninety degrees. We also have other storm events here in Florida. We call them Hurricanes. Do you realize how much energy a hurricane represents? How about some huge floating barges with wind turbines and capacitors that we could steer out into the path of a hurricane?

Someone thinks a similar idea is possible.

thanks Nigh. that's interesting. I'm not sure that most folks would think that making your own tornado is a good thing. sorta in the frankenstein genre.

one of the more obscure arguments that I've heard against wind turbines is that if you put enough of them up, they will actually slow the wind down... with whatever environmental impact that would bring... if you could put enough barges in the path of a hurricane, we'd either have a major shipping hazard or maybe slow the hurricane from a 140 mph wind event to maybe a.... 138 mph wind event.

You're right, the tornado idea sounds a little dangerous. I think I'll stick with my spare time project of creating a small black hole to generate power, what could possibly go wrong!

See the discussion on Static antenna to supplement PV power systems --this forum

Handiman

HAS ANYBODY HEARD OF NICOLI TESLA?

This dead guy has the answer

If he did he took it with him to the grave.

Maybe it would be of interest to check out HAARP's website (http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/) to see what they say they really do. Where they get their funding might be of interest too.....

Tesla was focused on energy transfer over an atmospheric media. Where Tessla was interested in the lightning, the power from the storm should be "bled off" before it gets to the level of an 'atmospheric capacitance discharge' (lightning). By the proper antenna configuration, we can supplement our electrical grid and deplete the storms of their violent discharges. The use of radio, cell phones, high voltage power grids, and greater ionization of the atmosphere by pollutants all contribute to a high static level which must be abbated (redirected) to beneficial uses, to rebalance the ecosystem.

The Handiman

HAARP is working at the IONSPHERIC and magnetospheric altitudes, not on low earth lightning.

The Handiman

Regarding how to store the static build-up from lightning, I believe many a lineman has been killed by a wire that is not connected to a power source. They are taught to throw a wire or chain over a line they intend to work on to drain any charge, before touching it. Two wires run alongside each other for several miles make an excellect capacitor.

very hard topic there is one way by a dowsen rod clipped with cables to a down converter to store power in battery bank form but lighting is hard to predict where it will hit so you would have to reverse the pole of electrons in the rod to attract the lighting to the rod.if you want to talk more about this post your email and i will answer all questions you might have. i have been working a project similiar to this one with water.