points by nomercy400 17 hours ago | 0 comments
How many batteries in parallel would you need to capture the power of a lightning strike?
[–] onraglanroad 12 hours ago
As mentioned, you can't do it with batteries.
To capture the 1.21 GW from a lightening strike requires a flux capacitor.
[–] HPsquared 17 hours ago
You'd probably use some kind of capacitor
[–] Maxion 17 hours ago
To capture it? Quite a few I'd imagine. The energy you could collect though from one hit is quite low.
[–] myrmidon 16 hours ago
It's around 1MWh within a fraction of a second.
That means very high peak power, making your whole capture infrastructure extremely expensive, but even capturing 100% of an average lightning bolt is worth <$100 in electricity.
Which is why nobody even attempts this.
[–] neutronicus 13 hours ago
An actual generation scheme would probably do something with the potential difference prior to dielectric breakdown actually occurring, at any rate.
[–] chii 17 hours ago
yea, i think the low efficiency (plus how to predict where lightning would hit!). Might as well just put up a wind turbine, since wind is much more predictable, not to mention easier to harvest.
[–] bluGill 17 hours ago