MadSci Network: Environment |
Theoretically you can create an artificial storm. Many experiments have been done that create clouds and even rain inside enclosed volumes. I do not know of any of these actually producing lightning, though. Your second question concerns harnessing the power from such a storm. Although there is no theoretical reason for not doing so, it is not practical. To generate the storm you would have to pump energy into the system, probably in the form of heat to induce convection. You cannot extract more energy from the storm than you put in, so it is much more practical and efficient just to use your energy source directly. A more reasonable scenario would be to try and "harvest" the energy from lightning bolts in real storms. It is conceivable to capture the current from lightning bolts in superconducting loops, thoughI would imagine that the engineering challenges involved have not made this a practical option. Hope this helps, Reyco Henning
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