Re: How can I make static electricity do work?

Good question.  There are really two questions here:
a.  How can I make static electricity do work, and
b.  How much work can I get out of a static electricity source.

The answer to a. is simple:  Yes, you absolutely can use static electricity 
to do work.  What happens is that you have a static charge at some point, 
and another charged body at another point.  Then the force between them is 
F=K(Q1)(Q2)/r**2, where K is a constant, Q1 & Q2 are the charges, and r is 
the distance separating the charges.  Now if Q1 causes Q2 to move, then 
work is Force*Distance, and you've definitely done work.

The answer to b.  is a little more complex.  Generally, you can't get 
*much* work out of a static charge since the charge is limited in 
magnitude.  There are many exceptions to this:  lightning, for example.  
Here, clouds build up a static charge with respect to the earth, and 
eventually a static discharge develops.  The power of this discharge is 
equal to voltage*current.  One step further:  work=power*time, so work is 
done by the lightning discharge.  However, this is hard to harness.  What 
it looks like you're asking is "can I get a practical device to operate off 
of static electricity"  and the answer is yes.  The energy stored in a 
static device, like a capacitor, is 0.5*C*(V**2), energy ~ work, and so you 
can get some power out of the capacitor.  The problem is that you can get 
power out of the capacitor (which stores static charge) only for a short 
time for practical devices.  So (in real-life cases) you can use a charged 
capacitor to flash a lamp, for example, but it will only flash for a short 
time.  Similarly, a bell will maybe ring once, or a motor move only a few 
degrees, before the static charge is depleted.  There are a couple of cases 
where you can use static discharge to advantage; one that I know of uses a 
very large capacitor to power the memory in a computer while the computer's 
off, but this uses only a very small current out of the static device.  
Most real-world things use much more current than the static charge is able 
to supply for any practical length of time.  So, in summary, the answer to 
b. is 'Yes, but only for a VERY short time'.