Just wondering if anyone has been keeping track of capacitors / batteries capacity?
I remember learning in college that we will likely never or at least not for a very long time have the capacity to store the amount of energy in a lightning strike.
I'm just wondering if and when that would possibly change? Does some of the materials nanotechnology brings have the possibility of storing that much energy?
Also back then they didn't really have a use for that much energy at least in the short term. I'm also sure even now outside of stuff like cern we barely do.
But as our demand for energy goes up I feel like this type of thing will have to become more of a reality to meet power demands.
But it would be really interesting to me if it turns out that it's just not physically possible to store that much energy inside a battery.

long term energy storage + converting chemicals into electricity would be a battery, capacitors are a different breed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

The biggest problem with newer renewable energy resources is the concept of whether it is dispatchable, or how consistent the supplying resources are without interruption. One fact of lightning is that its not a continuous phenomenon, it happens vary rarely. Even if it is a lot of electricity, if it cant happen at a steady rate of XX joules per second that can be relied upon. And if you have a way to capture a certain density of electricity, the density varies widely between every lightning strike, whereas current infrastructure can only handle small fluctuations. It would be near impossible to build infrastructure around it with current methods.

Another thing to point out is that the energy from lightning sometimes comes from the earth, not from the sky, so we would be giving away energy then.

actually the common battery is a generator, as far as i know its impossible to store power

e: impossible to store electricity sorry, power is something different

This post was edited by dude_927 on Apr 29 2015 04:57pm

I've been waiting outside during thunder storms with a jar ready but so far no luck.

almost like back to the future hehe. Lets say you were able to attract lightening lets say by using a steel pole. basic physics the lightening would travel down that pole and along the easiest path.The problem with harnessing that bolt is handling the surge that comes with it, then you are left with storing it then converting it to alternating current to power your house. by the time thats all said and done you would only be left with a small portion of the lightenings power.Our knowledge and understanding of things change all the time. when computers first came around they were the size of a wall and couldnt store shit, now we got 40 gig hd the size of a finger hehe. right now harnessing the sun more efficiently is our best bet or the hydrogen thats in water. that yields far more power than lightening

Exactly. As humans we need to look at the most consistent source of renewable energy. Lightning is far too inconsistent in terms of energy per second. Solar and hydrogen is much more consistent.

Well, electricity is electrical current, which is just moving electrons. Storing it doesn't make sense conceptually. It's like trying to store a flying ball.

Our best bets are gasified biomass and nuclear energy. Solar is extremely expensive and making hydrogen with current processes also creates carbon dioxide.