The problems with harvesting lighting have to do
basically
with two factors, namely: unpredictability of lightning
and
conversion of intense energy into a more usable form.
let me deal with the first one. lightning is often endemic
to one area of a country. for example 'the lightning belt'
in
south africa is mainly the drakensberg and the high veld
where the air is dry and large systems meet. also the
relief
and the composition of the land below the clouds has
some
affect. given this lightning can be sort of predicted to
occur in a certain geographic location, and due to
climatic
conditions at certain times. it cannot however be
predicted easily what rate lightning is likely to occur in
an
area making it difficult to engineer systems that can
withstand 5 strikes in a minute and similarly cost
effective
enough to justify only a few strikes per year. this
problem
can be partially solved by have many inexpensive
lightning
conducting apparatus in a relatively small area, thus
increasing the chance of even distribution and reliability
of
the overall harvesting mechanism.
the real challenge is however how to convert an intense
impulse of energy into a more usable form. my first idea
was similar to some other ideas here, namely heating up
something then using the energy to spin some kind of
generator. i also like the idea of harvesting the energy
in
the clouds before it becomes lighting by using conductive
balloons and sending electrical energy down to earth. my
idea has to do with using the electrical and heat energy
in
a lightning bolt to ignite a fusion reaction.
the idea is basically have a high pressure chamber of
(tritium?) hydrogen, with a radioactive bead of enriched
uranium in situ. upon engaging with a lighting bolt the
uranium is evaporated and the hydrogen is plasmarized.
hopefully on the cooling cycle the hydrogen ions find
some
alpha particles and fuse (releasing energy like the sun
does). this will hopefully cause a nice controllable chain
reaction and easily harvestable heat energy which will
heat
a propellant and spin some generators...
ok people if this borders on pseudo science etc please
excuse my lack of formal nuclear physics education...it
is
after all half baked!!!