Lightning-powered!

We had a thunderstorm last night, which is pretty rare for Seattle. We get lots of rain clouds, but little in the way of fireworks. Still, it’s cool to look at.

Which brings back a question I wonder about now and again: Why don’t we use lightning for our utilities?

Obviously, we couldn’t run everything on lightning power, but it seems to me that, with the right kind of capacitor, the energy from lightning strikes could be used to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we use.

I imagine the real kink in this plan is “right kind of capacitor.” Is someone working on this? I can’t imagine there’s no one, but I haven’t seen anything about it.

*name

*e-mail

web site

leave a comment


 
  • Starred review from Publishers Weekly

  • Named to Publishers Weekly's "Best 100 Books of 2009" list.

  • Calendar of posts

    September 2010
    S M T W T F S
    « Aug    
     1234
    567891011
    12131415161718
    19202122232425
    2627282930  
  • What I’ve said

  • What you are saying

  • Categories

  • Tags

    Add new tag beautiful burgers call center comics everyone loves blue dog film food funny giveaway harvest of fire i look bad interesting things internet Kolchak life is great! links mac hate man bites world meme moi? people politics progress project number next publishing qotd read faster reasons i suck the boy the buried king the wife TV wasting time weirdness words