Eli5: can we use lightning for electricity? If not, why?
In: Physics
Mostly, it’s about predictability. Lightning is pretty *rare*. It could also have highly varying strength (thus power you get out of it, if you somehow do). And you need one to strike at your lighting collector rod to begin with.
Electricity is about stability, because it provides our most stability-critical elements – heat, food, light, etc.
So tying it to really jumpy, unpredictable natural half-disaster is really bad.
Or consider this; sunlight, which compared to lighting lasts about 8 hours (in average conditions hours, season and locale) instead of 30 microseconds is ALSO considered “unstable” and problematic. Yet, you can nearly always count on sun to come out sooner or later.
So while lighting strike releases A LOT more energy, instability levels are also insane and cannot be relied on.
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