Harvesting electricity from lightning

Wouldn’t it be great if we are able to harness electricity from lightning? Now, a company called Alternative Energy Holdings (AEHI), seeks to become the first company to harness the natural energy delivered in a bolt of lightning, by collecting power from the ground area surrounding the lightning strike and converting it into usable electricity to be sold through existing power grids.

The average lightning bolt contains approximately one million kilowatts (1,000,000 kW) of electrical energy, and lightning strike towers work by ‘harvesting’ this atmospheric electrical energy and converting a substantial portion of it into usable electricity.

Harnessing the natural energy produced from a bolt of lightning as a clean energy solution will not only eliminate numerous environmental hazards associated with the energy industry, it will also significantly reduce the costliness of power production. When amortized over four to seven (4-7) years, a lightning farm will be able to produce and sell electricity for as low as $0.005 per kilowatt hour, thus significantly undercutting the current production costs of its competing energy sources.

Our project research team has successfully developed a model prototype to demonstrate the ‘capturing’ capabilities of the lightning farm technology, and initial project focus will be on the development of a mobile full-scale lightning farm to be tested during peak lightning season (July through August) of 2007.

Comments

Anonymous said…

I read about this yesterday and can't wait to hear about what the out come will be on harnesing lightning. I sould mention though that I am a bit skeptic of it actually working. I think there is a good chance the whole lot will get blown up. There was some story floating around some years ago that there was some attempt to catch some of the lightning energy in this massive capacitor - it blew up!

20 October, 2006 18:40

Spluch said…

I am sure that given time, AEHI will be able to resolve the problems which they might be facing. But then again, it will be many… more years before such a technology becomes feasible. Can’t wait!

21 October, 2006 07:37

Unknown said…

I contacted the company's researchers to get more information. I'm working on a project for a science class at my University. However, Alternative Energy Holdings won't release any information on the lightning farm prototype that they claim to have. I am very skeptical. I wish that they would at least let me know what they have discovered. I want to learn, not steal their idea.

10 April, 2007 05:11

I'm not an expert but, I think lightning strikes when there is enough static electricity in the clouds to arc to the earth. Can a bolt of lightning (static electricity) be divided (grounded) forcing it into several different battery by useing wires? Have a device that is bigger around then the bolt of lightning. Then have a cable down the center of the device for the lightning to travel. All around the side of the device would be millions of copper wires that be far enough away from the center cable so that it draws (arc) only equal amount of 110 volt of the static electricity to each of the millions of wire to store it in a battery attact to the wire. A rocket would be fired into the cloud with a wire on it to get the lightning to travel to the center cable. I saw them use rockets with small wires to direct lighting on a show that was studying lightning on TV.

12 July, 2008 08:26

They're collecting sun, water, wind now; why couldn't they collect electricity from lightning?

24 August, 2008 00:01