Flashes of inspiration
Despite the odds, a few intrepid souls remain undeterred. In 2007, The New York Times reported that a company called Alternate Energy Holdings had tried to build a lightning capture system (much like that described above) in the strike-prone Houston area. Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t get it to work, and subsequently pulled out of the lightning farm business.
Perhaps starting smaller would be prudent: in a 2013 collaboration with Nokia, researchers at the University of Southampton simulated natural lightning by creating electrical discharge across an air gap with alternating current; they then directed the discharge through a transformer and used it to charge a Nokia cell phone. These controlled conditions, however, are a far cry from the raw power and unpredictability of the real deal.
Although lightning technologies look set to remain in the realm of science fiction for the foreseeable future, people can certainly dream—and dream they have. Take a look at the hyper-futuristic design for the Hydra Tower, which won an honorable mention in the 2011 eVolo Skyscraper Competition. With its exoskeleton of graphene—an extremely conductive carbon material more than a hundred times stronger than steel—Hydra is meant to use lightning to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, thus generating fuel for hydrogen-powered systems.
Other architects envision using lightning for bioremediation of soil or groundwater—the energy would be used to pyrolyze, or thermo-chemically decompose, industrial waste contaminants.
Clearly, humanity no longer considers lightning use the sole domain of wrathful gods.
This article is from a monthly column called The Bug Report. Click here to see the other articles in this series.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Pexels.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
