7 ms·
OK so I know people say it isn't practical but perhaps with a bank of capacitors charging some lithium batteries this cell tower could be powed by lightning. 1
by zeristor 7y ago
OK so I know people say it isn't practical but perhaps with a bank of capacitors charging some lithium batteries this cell tower could be powed by lightning.
100 strikes a year, it depends though if these are in one season.
This website runs the data for citizen lightning detectors, but you have to be a member to access the data:
http://map.blitzortung.org/#4.88/43.72/-5.29 http://map.blitzortung.org/#4.88/43.72/-5.29
- bancars 7y agoPeople say it isn’t practical because it isn’t, and that’s why we don’t do it. [1] [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-cant-we-extract-electricity-from-lightning-10162498.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-cant-we-extra...
- hutzlibu 7y agoWell they asume the scenario to get all the land lightning strikes ... and say it is too expensive to build so many towers and not worth it. Surely true, but I thought the main reason is, that it is just too difficult. The lightning will just melt anything where you want to store it and probably take not the intented path to those capacitors or batteries and just burn something else. And maybe with effort you could build something lightning proof, but the gain is probably way too low. Still, if I would have the funds avaiable, it would be an awesome project ...
- augustt 7y agoIf you could harvest it with 100% efficiency you'd still save less than $2000 in electricity (assuming 5e9 joules in a lightning bolt).
- nine_k 7y agoI bet cable maintenance in mountains costs more.
- bastawhiz 7y agoIt's a cell tower. It needs cables anyway. And being a cell tower, it also likely needs to be fairly close to actual humans anyway, so the cables it needs likely aren't even that long. Not to mention the one-off R&D investment you'd be making, along with all the specialty hardware (and its up-front costs), training, etc. involved in capturing lightning. The savings just isn't even remotely worth it.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoThe savings just isn't even remotely worth it. Except it would be new technology, could be patented etc. It's mostly in fiction that fixing X for one person or situation doesn't proliferate into a new way to handle X altogether, and that's done in fiction so the storyline can save the day and then keep pretending we totally live in the same universe as actual reality.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago>> The savings just isn't even remotely worth it. > Except it would be new technology, could be patented etc. I don't think this works. New technology can only spread if it is worth it. Developing technology for the sake of having new technology is almost always worse than nothing; you would not expect it to proliferate into a new way to handle anything.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoMy point is "If you think of it as just a solution for this one cell tower, sure, it's not worth it. But if you think of it as new technology that will be used in many situations, then development costs can make sense." Of course, it doesn't guarantee success.
- reaperducer 7y agoIt's a cell tower. It needs cables anyway. I've seen plenty of remote communications towers that do not have cables. Solar powered with generator backup and microwave relays to the next hop. It's SOP in the railroad industry, and how Sprint got its first backbone. (The "SPR" in "Sprint" is Southern Pacific Railroad.)
- NullPrefix 7y agoIs that $2000 figure for a single discharge or a yearly figure already multiplied by 100 (days)?
- amelius 7y ago1kWh = 3.6e6 joules 1 lightning bolt = 5e9/3.6e6 = 1389 kWh price of energy = 0.10 $/kWh price of 1 lightning bolt = $138.90
- Spare_account 7y agoI'll buy one
- planteen 7y agoHow many capacitors have you seen rated for over 100 MV (megavolts)? I think a dielectric that can survive a field with that much tension is called unobtanium. Lightning is causing dielectric breakdown of the air (a great insulator already) over thousands of meters. https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/MathieuLo.shtml https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/MathieuLo.shtml
- sschueller 7y agoSince the earth is acting like a giant capacitor before the lightning strike, it may be easier to siphon off the charge before hand?
- jimmaswell 7y agoCould they send the lightning into the ground and put capacitors at points in the ground where the potential difference is acceptable?
- mmastrac 7y agoMy EE degree is getting a bit dated, but I think that would work because you'd effectively be using the earth as a power resistor. But by the time you've dropped the voltage potential of the strike, is it worth it for the smaller amount of energy you'd recover?
- etherael 7y agoMaybe not at a single fixed point on the strike zone, but what about a ring at surface level? or even an earth submerged hemispherical sphere? Shouldn't there be a zone at which the peak available materials are capable of harvesting energy safely in a hemispherical shape within the earth around the strike zone? Then the harvested energy would be effectively "whatever reaches that zone to be absorbed" with the rest of it being resisted by the earth, no? Which given the energy in a lightning bolt it's hard to imagine is not "a lot". These ideas seem too obvious to think that somebody hasn't already tried them and ruled them out though.
- 7y ago
- nabla9 7y agoEnergy from single lightening strike is something in the order of 5 billion joules or 1.500 kWh. The device should be relatively cheap to be worth of the cost.
- evan_ 7y agoMaybe channel the energy to a huge bank of resistive material and use the heat in some way.