There is a never-ending list of children receiving coal and souls condemned to hell. Among lists of this nature, are ways to create and utilize energy. One of the most interesting concepts, and perhaps least popular, I feel is power by lightning. 

There has been discussion amongst those who are daring enough to experiment or at least be interested and amongst them, there are a couple ideas which seem to be the most popular. One of the is using a tungsten reservoir and another using rods to harness lightning bolts. 

A reservoir of tungsten is ideal because it has a high specific heat (which lightning likes)… so technically, some other materials would work as well. When the lightning hit, the tungsten would melt and the energy therein would be stored as heat. This heat could create stream, and in turn, could… TURN a turbine to create electricity. 

The other popular idea of using a lightning rod is probably not the small metal rod on a barn that you may be thinking of. In this case, the “rod” would actually be an entire tower! It would be connected to a large capacitor or series of capacitors. When the lightning hit the tower the capacitor(s) would charge and then release their energy across the power grid in an orderly fashion. 

Some banter on this idea can be found at:http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Lightning_20Power_20Plant 

Right now, I don’t know of any current projects in the production stage. Though they do sound interesting… and perhaps even entertaining to watch! At any rate, we should never forget Flash Gordon. 

-LINKS-

rods
specific heat
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Lightning_20Power_20Plant
Flash Gordon

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.