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Why can't we use lightning as a source of energy?

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Question added by Sanjay Krishna
Date Posted: 2017/05/08

From purely electrical charge calculations, each lightning strike has on average only five billion joules if we assume zero loss in transfer and storage.

The first, and most devious of all challenges pertaining to harnessing a lightning strike, is its electrical power. As stated earlier, an average lightning strike contains5 billion joules of energy. Now, this wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that it lasts for only a few microseconds (a very short time when we are talking about billions of joules), which complicates the whole operation.

Then, there is the fact that lightning strikes are totally sporadic. You never have advance knowledge of the exact location or the precise time at which a lightning strike shall occur. That makes it rather hard to snatch those instantaneous bolts of energy.

Even if you knew these details in advance, the process of capturing that huge blast of energy in such a short time would still have its own logistical implications.

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