Is it possible to harness the power of lighting if you attract it to a rod, and transfer that to a generator?

Question

like during a lightning storm have a bunch of rods to attract the liughtning and then run that energy through a generator instead of having coal and fossil fuels polluting

Answer 1

Lightning is a very quick flash of a lot of current. You would need a way to store it so it could be used.

I guess one possibility is if you could use the heat from the lightning's energy to add to the energy that is making steam to drive a turbine in a power plant. It seems kind of iffy - just sitting around waiting for lightning but maybe as a supplemental source of energy it could help.

BTW you don't mean "generator." That is the machine that turns mechanical energy into electrical. It doesn't make electricity if electric is put directly into it.

Answer 2

*clears throat*

Ahem,

Um, I saw stop watching the history channel and start playing Harvest Moon(:

See in harvest moon, you get married, have kids, care for animals and do farm stuff.

The simple life.

Yes, the simple life, where you don't have to worry about harnessing power and lighting being sexually attracted to a fishing rod and going into a computer generator, with the coal and dinosaur fossils.

Just worry about if your simple minded kid is going to eat his own c**p again.

See?

Question resolved.

I think you should pick me for the best answer :D

Answer 3

It would be very difficult to harness the energy of lightning.

It is about 30,000amps at 1,000,000Volts.

Think of the rubber gloves you would need to wear to be able to come close.

If you could contain and control it lightning would provide power to a city for a month.

Look into the topic of "Plasma" since that's what lightning is. Man made plasma is controlled within a magnetic field.