So the Earth can take a lot of electricity...?

Question

The ground is an excellent grounder... hence the name- or so I've heard. So it can take a lot of energy- specifically electricity- from things like lightning. And, as far as we know, electricity is just electrons, right? So what happens to all of this excess electricity once it goes into the ground? It disperses, which is what the electricity 'wants', right? But does it all stay in the Earth? Or somehow come back to the surface, float up to the sky, and start everything over again?

Answer 1

Most of the electric energy in nature (like lightning) is static electricity.  Static electricity doesn't move it just builds up , and discharges at one time it doesn't flow like the kinetic energy we use in our homes. Static electricity is caused by friction. Just like when you rub your feet on a carpet and touch a door nob.

The weather causes friction too as it changes.  This causes clouds to build up a positive charges. Eventually that charge is greater than the negative charge on the ground.  When that happens the negative energy from the ground is drawn up toward the cloud, and then the cloud discharges its positive energy.  And you have lightning.

As long as the clouds are moving more friction charges more clouds.

There are other electromagnetic forces on earth too.  The earth is one giant magnet, and in the upper atmosphere there is a great deal of electricity.

So as long as we have friction and movement the Earth will have electricity.

Answer 2

Atmospheric electricity is the regular diurnal variations of the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic network (or, more broadly, any planet's electrical system in its layer of gases). The Earth’s surface, the ionosphere, and the atmosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit. Atmospheric electricity is a multidisciplinary topic.

There is always free electricity in the air and in the clouds, which acts by induction upon the earth and the electromagnetic devices.[1] The atmospheric medium, by which we are surrounded, contains not only combined electricity, like every other form of matter, but also a considerable quantity in a free and uncombined state; sometimes of one kind, sometimes of the other; but as a general rule it is always of an opposite kind to that of the earth. Different layers, or strata of the atmosphere, placed only at small distances from each other, are frequently found to be in different electric states.[2] The phenomena of atmospheric electricity are of three kinds. There is the electrical phenomena of thunderstorms and there are the phenomena of continual electrification in the air,[3] and the phenomena of the polar Aurora constitute a third branch of the subject.[4]