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Author Topic: The power of lightning!  (Read 2009 times)

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Offline dpareja

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The power of lightning!
« on: October 15, 2013, 11:49:12 am »
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/is-lightning-the-future-of-clean-energy-1.1931760

Quote
Nokia and scientists from the University of Southampton recently announced that they had used simulated lightning to partially charge a Nokia smartphone.

...

A typical lightning bolt can carry several billion joules of energy, and the power of lightning has captured the imagination of those looking for new clean energy sources in recent decades.

But harvesting it has remained largely elusive, and the only widely publicized commercial attempt was abandoned in 2007 by a company in the U.S. called Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. The company did not respond to CBC’s requests for an interview about those experiments.
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Offline Askold

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2013, 12:13:26 pm »
Of couse it was Nokia...

Other phones would have been deepfried and melted by the thunderbolt. Nokia killed and ate the lightning, absorbing the lethal force of nature and grew stronger!
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Offline Ghoti

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2013, 01:25:56 pm »
"Short Circuit" joke in three... two...
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Offline MadCatTLX

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2013, 02:09:34 pm »
What about that one "art"* piece that used a giant antenna to collect the lightning's charge and shoot it back into the sky.

*because "mad science" looks iffy on a grant proposal.
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Offline Dan

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2013, 02:40:06 pm »
Quote from: askold on October 15, 2013, 12:13:26 pm
Of couse it was Nokia...

Other phones would have been deepfried and melted by the thunderbolt. Nokia killed and ate the lightning, absorbing the lethal force of nature and grew stronger!
You need that much power to run Windows.
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Offline Sigmaleph

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2013, 03:08:07 pm »
The article could be summarised as "Huzzah, power from lightning! Except it's simulated lightning, and it only charged a fraction of the phone's battery. And the method cannot be adapted to deal with natural lightning. And really there wouldn't be any point to doing it anyway, because the power and frequency of lightning is too small for it to be used as a meaningful power source."

There is an actual accomplishment here, true, which is being able to transmit power through a terrible conductor such as air. But it doesn't adequately simulate the conditions of lightning, which is much harder to predict, lasts for a shorter time, has a higher voltage (by a couple orders of magnitude, from what I can find), and so on and so forth.
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Offline Ironchew

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2013, 03:10:50 pm »
Several billion joules of energy per bolt sounds nice, but isn't most of that energy dissipated through explosive breakdown/heating of the dielectric (air)? We would need much taller lightning rods to harvest most of that energy.
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Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2013, 03:11:35 pm »
I already decided on my response before I even clicked on the topic.

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Offline Askold

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #8 on: October 15, 2013, 03:13:57 pm »
Quote from: Dan on October 15, 2013, 02:40:06 pm
Quote from: askold on October 15, 2013, 12:13:26 pm
Of couse it was Nokia...

Other phones would have been deepfried and melted by the thunderbolt. Nokia killed and ate the lightning, absorbing the lethal force of nature and grew stronger!
You need that much power to run Windows.
Oh yeah?

Well... Touche.

I shall wait and see if the only thing strong enough to destroy Nokia is Microsoft. (And then we still have Jolla if that happens.)
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Quote from: sandman on May 30, 2012, 08:27:43 am
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Quote from: SpaceProg on November 30, 2012, 10:21:56 pm
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline JohnE

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #9 on: October 15, 2013, 04:14:57 pm »
Quote from: Sigmaleph on October 15, 2013, 03:08:07 pm
There is an actual accomplishment here, true, which is being able to transmit power through a terrible conductor such as air.
Meh, Tesla already did it better, about a century ago.
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Offline Old Viking

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Re: The power of lightning!
« Reply #10 on: October 15, 2013, 04:18:50 pm »
Anyone can do this.  You fasten the phone to the top of a long metal pole.  You find a nice open area.  During the next thunder storm you run about with the pole held high above your head.
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