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Lightning Power

This is my idea for using lightning for electricity.(Here is the link for the question http://www.instructables.com/community/Why-dont-they-use-gigantic-leyden-jars-to-collect/) First the lightning rods will catch the lightning bringing it in to the transformerwich knocks the power down to a suitable power voltage,then it would feed the electricity into a combiner which will combine all the power into one. Finnaly it will either go into the capacitor bank(electricity storage) or just go into the power lines! Hope you like it, if you have any more ideas, please tell me! Rate and comment please too.

5 comments

Sep 15, 2010. 6:43 PMRe-design says:

What's a combiner?

Transformers only work on A/C or intermittent d/c.

D/C is terrible for transmission, you'd have to convert it to a/c to send the power over a few miles.

Lightning is intermittent and months or even years may go by without a good lightning storm even in storm frequent areas.

Lightning is not always positive or negative, it can be either. So you have to make allowances for that.

Mar 11, 2011. 6:13 AM

electfire says:

1) transformers DO work with steady DC

2) yes DC isn't the best for long distance only in that it is harder to get the higher voltages used for transmission and its not as easy to step down of up.

3) Partially true yes, I saw a map once showing what areas of the US get the most lightning and Florida gets the most strikes per year... and yes it wouldn't be able to provide a steady power source even with storage.... but it would be a great addition to the renewable energy arena. After all the biggest mistake is trying to find one source as a solution instead of using multiple ones....

4) that is true then again neither is AC! .... (hmm..... )

Mar 13, 2011. 9:14 PM7654321 says:

transformers dont work with steady dc

Mar 11, 2011. 12:02 PMRe-design says:

1) on steady DC the only thing a transformer is good for is an electromagnet, and not very good for that.

Read this.

Look especially at the second paragraph under the second sketch.

It's the changing current that generates a current in the secondary. If there is only constant DC then there is no change on the only current generated is on the first start up pulse.

Oct 21, 2010. 5:53 PM

electfire says:

I suppose this is proof that great minds think alike!
:/ (drats I thought I had a completely unique idea!)
I had thought of something similar many years ago -
the only thing that kept me from making the jump from theory to prototype is that there wasn't anything that can take the force of the lightning and all the voltage and heat... not to mention any good way of storing the captured electricity...
but hey, who knows maybe if enough people combine their ideas together, it might be possible!