Harnessing Lightning For Energy
Diagram
Energy From Lightning
In an electrical storm, the storm clouds are charged like giant capacitors in the sky. When clouds are formed, the upper part of the cloud is the positive and the lower part of the cloud is the negative. With the processes of condensation, or forming water droplets, and evaporation or changing to a gaseous state of the water, within clouds, these two processes take place.Water droplets help make up a cloud. With the rising of moisture molecules and collision with ice and sleet, which are falling to earth, electrons are knocked off of the rising moisture which creates "Charge Separations". The knocked- off electrons gather at the lower portions of a cloud causing a negative charge. Rising moisture that has just lost an electron, carries a positive charge to the top of the cloud. The extreme charge separation creates the lightning strike.
A strong positive charge is formed in the earth's surface by a repulsion of electrons. A conductive path is needed for the negative cloud's bottom to conduct to the positive earth and a lightning charge is the result. It is my contention that if towers are built in open fields or over water areas , where lightning occurs on a regular basis, then the lightning strikes may be harvested by use of conductors that will distribute the electric charge evenly to alternating cells, having transformers that may be able to break down the charge evenly, and then be sent to storage cells or batteries, that have the capacity to house or contain the power enough to contain the electrically charged molecules. These in turn may then be distributed to sources able to utilize the harnessed electricity in towns or cities. Now that I have explained what causes lightning, I will describe a transformer, which will take the power of a strike and convert it to smaller voltage then sent to a battery(described next) for storage and later utilized as a storage source of electric power.
The job of the transformers will be discussed at this point. If a secondary coil is attached to a load that allows current flow, the electric power is transferred from primary circuits from the transformer to the load. A transformer allows alternating current(AC) to be stepped up, or stepped down by the number of windings in its coils, because a transformer controls the power of the electrical charge.The transformers job is to convert the strong electric current of the lightning strike to viable lesser power, and sending the reduced charge of electrical molecules to a holding cell housed in the form of a battery. These batteries must be of a capacity that will be able to withstand the extreme current sent by the lightning strike to its receptacle, located on top of convenient towers in available high-lightning strike areas.
Basically a battery is a device for storing chemical energy and converting it into electricity. It is made up of one or more electric chemical cells. Each of these has two electrodes, one negative and one positive half cell.When the two half cells are connected by cables or lines, electricity flows from negative to positive electrodes. The flow of electrons is called electricity and it can be harnessed to do needed work such as provide current to operate machines of many varying sizes and uses. I contend that if these batteries are strong enough to withstand the power sent by the transformers, then electricity can be stored and distributed as nedded to outside sources. The batteries will have to be much larger than conventional car batteries, but operate in a similar manner. The sites for the towers will be the subject of scrutiny that will involve studying of graphs where lightning has the most frequency and has been plotted and this can be done using meteorological surveys. Scientists can decide the best sites and build them where there has been proven the most likely areas to harvest the lightning strikes. These may prove to be areas in the gulf or on coastal areas, where the most storms have their origins.
The lightning tower receptacles must be strong and made of metal and able to withstand powerful lightning strikes.The charge of the strike would be instantly transferred evenly from one one SPIKE, through evenly spread connection lines that lead to four branching receptacles. These in turn, send the charge to TRANSFORMER housings and then they travel to facilitating BATTERIES. The batteries store the electricity to be used by facilities that need the source of electric energy, like subways systems and powering lighting and multiple other locations needing power in city areas. Backup generators could be built to support output when there may be lapsing of times when lightning strikes are less pronounced. My proposal would require much experimentation by trained scientists and researchers. It would definitely require a safe environment and much care must be used to carry out the experimental procedures using electrical currents. Something like this may well be utilized in harnessing the power of lightning strikes some day in our futures. It would be a shame to waste a natural resource such as that provided by lightning and its being so abundant in availability.I would like to emphasize that there are hundreds of people killed around the world by lightning and that it is not a force of nature to be toyed with, The study should be left to experts in the scientific field who take every precaution in all experimentation with electricity. (Please see my accompanying illustration)
