What could you power with 1 billion volts?

Cloud-to-ground lightning bolts are a common phenomenon—about 100 strike Earth’s surface every single second—yet their power is extraordinary. Each bolt can contain up to one billion volts of electricity.

Can you harness the power of lightning?

Sure, it’s possible. Unfortunately, relying on lightning bolts to power our hair dryers, TVs, and refrigerators would be far from cost effective. The problem is that the energy in lightning is contained in a very short period of time, only a few microseconds.

How much current is lightning?

A typical lightning flash is about 300 million Volts and about 30,000 Amps. In comparison, household current is 120 Volts and 15 Amps.

How fast is a lightning?

1. The speed of lightning. While the flashes we see as a result of a lightning strike travel at the speed of light (670,000,000 mph) an actual lightning strike travels at a comparatively gentle 270,000 mph.

How powerful is 1.21 gigawatts?

1.21 gigawatts delivered in 50 microseconds is only about 60,500 Joules, or 14 kilocalories of energy. Which is the amount of energy in…a cucumber. But hey—if it works, it works.

Can we harness gravity?

You can indeed harness the energy of gravitation and it is done on a somewhat small scale, as the main method to do it is to use the tidal movements of water. Most places do not get particularly impressive tides, so it remains a rather minor method of producing energy.

How hot does lightning make the air?

50,000 degrees Fahrenheit
Air is a very poor conductor of electricity and gets extremely hot when lightning passes through it. In fact, lightning can heat the air it passes through to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5 times hotter than the surface of the sun).

What is the minimum distance between electrical harnesses?

As a design objective, a minimum spacing of two inches should separate harnesses carrying circuits of varying signal levels. Where practicable, only those harnesses or harness segments carrying circuits of the same signal level group should be clamped under the same cable clamp.

Can We harness lightning to power our power grid?

The idea of harnessing lightning and using the static electricity to supplement our power grid is nothing new. The difficulty has always been knowing when and where lightning will strike, capturing it, then releasing the electricity onto the electrical grid.

How much electricity does a lightning bolt power a house?

Even though the average lightning bolt contains about 250 kilowatt-hours of electricity, the average house uses anywhere from 500 kilowatt-hours to 1500 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month. So one lightning bolt won’t even power the most energy conservative home for half a month.

How many volts of electricity does a human body produce?

A bolt of lightning is 1 billion volts. Yet, a human cell generates .07 volts of electricity. At 37.5 trillion cells, that’s 2.625 trillion volts in a human body.