sous-merdeIsn't it weird that we'll never (ever?) talk about lightnings as a potential renewable energy source ?
skeldLightning has a peak power of 1TW for 30 microseconds according to Wikipedia, corresponding to an energy content of about 8000 Watt-hours. That is enough to run a 100 watt conventional light bulb for 80 hours, so not actually much energy. You would need to capture about half a million lightning strikes a second if you wanted to power the world that way, for example.
Who’s using conventional 100w bulbs?
Get a 20w LED and it’s just 400 hours. Better, but still not much.
AgentOrangesicleSo if I’m wearing an Arduino to power some LED’s for cosplay, how often do I have to get struck by lightning to keep it going?
Only once, and they’ll remain lit for as long as it matters to you.
Hit a blunt to get lit for half a day.
Get hit by lightning to be lit for the rest of your life.
Get hit by lightning to be lit for the rest of your life.
I’m a hobbyist in electronics repair. Conventional light bulbs make great AC current limiters and have a built-in indicator. 😂
I double-checked and you’re entirely right, i didn’t know that, i totally understand why solar powers are preferred now, thanks !
TechnoguyficationA single lightning strike could power a large city for a few milliseconds. Not even seconds or minutes. Definitely not months.
1,400,000,000 strikes earth every year According to www.metoffice.gov.uk/…/facts-about-lightning
That would be barely 4.5 strikes each second.
That’s five magnitudes away from your cited goal of powering earth.
The reason noone talks about harnessing lightning as a power source is the diminishing returns on top of its unreliability and it being demanding on the tech it would need - which we know for decades now.
My conclusion is OP didn’t research google his question first.
