Lightning appears to be this limitless supply of energy, so why isn’t this being considered as a valid source of our future energy needs. Surely we could have some sort of lightning rod connected to a huge array of batteries to store all of this electricity. I’m sure there is a simple explanation, but I’m interested to hear what it is.
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Why don’t you fill your tea kettle from the fire hydrant? Why don’t you charge your cell phone in 7 seconds by plugging it in to the same outlet as your electric car? The answer for all is kind of similar: handling a lot of power for a short period of time is often much harder than handling less power for much longer. Besides all the other practical barriers people have mentioned like predictability and timing and so on.
At the end of the day, spending millions of dollars on a device that can capture a lightning bolt a few times a year is a lot less practical than building a wind turbine that can capture that same energy continuously.
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