The future of energy generation and storage

[SirRumpole]

But do states compete? Look at your rego, your water which are still within gov controls?

There are varying rates of those things between States I'm sure, but they are minor compared to power prices.

 

[qldfrog]

There are varying rates of those things between States I'm sure, but they are minor compared to power prices.

Ideally, you get both!
Or a NSW could buy Qld power, just to add competition.
Anyway, nothing will happen, Feds and even worse, States are broke, they would sell anything just to be able to borrow more.
Until people are thrown out of their houses, councils filling bankruptcy and every wealthy or wealth generating person or company taxed to leaving the place, they will dig further in.

 

[farmerge]

After listening to and watching a massive thunder and lightning show this morning, the amount of electricity that was around was huge.
It certainly made thing rattle and when the lightning hit the ground a couple of times it sounded like I imagine like a bomb going off.
Pity this power cannot be harnessed.

 

[SirRumpole]

is it feasible to capture and store electricity from lightning?

ChatGPT said:​

Capturing and storing electricity from lightning is technically possible but not practically feasible with current technology. Here's why:

---

What Makes It Appealing?​

• A single lightning bolt can carry up to 1 billion joules of energy — theoretically enough to power ~10,000 100W lightbulbs for a few hours.
• It's raw, high-energy power — seemingly free and natural.

---

Why It's Not Practical​

1. Unpredictable & Infrequent​

• Lightning is random in location and timing.
• You’d need a huge network of towers or conductors across wide areas to increase the chance of a strike.

2. Extremely Short Duration​

• Lightning lasts for microseconds to milliseconds, with extremely high voltage (10–120 million volts) and current (up to 300,000 amps).
• Capturing it requires instant response and massive surge handling, which is technologically extreme.

3. Dangerous to Collect​

• Channeling a bolt safely without destruction requires robust, fast-responding materials.
• Most systems capable of handling that kind of energy get destroyed or degraded quickly.

4. Storage Limitations​

• The energy comes in too fast to store with conventional batteries or capacitors.
• To capture and convert it into usable form (like 240V AC or storable DC) would require special ultra-high-speed converters and dump systems that don’t exist at scale.

5. Cost vs Reward​

• The cost of infrastructure for capturing and conditioning a single bolt would far outweigh the tiny, inconsistent energy yield.
• It’s cheaper to build solar panels or wind turbines, which provide continuous and controllable energy.

---

What Is Feasible?​

• Studying lightning for science and safety.
• Using lightning rods to protect buildings — not to store energy, but to safely direct it to ground.
• Harvesting ambient atmospheric electricity (very low power) with technologies like electrostatic collectors — but this yields only microwatts to milliwatts.

---

Fun Fact:​

• Researchers at Sandia National Labs and other institutions have attempted prototypes to store lightning energy, but none have led to a viable energy system.

---

Would you like a simple energy comparison between lightning and solar panels or batteries to put it into perspective?

You said:​

yes

ChatGPT said:​

Here’s a simple energy comparison to show how lightning stacks up against more practical energy sources like solar panels and batteries:

---

1. Energy in a Single Lightning Bolt​

Property	Value
Duration	~100 microseconds
Voltage	100 million volts (typical)
Current	~30,000 amps (typical)
Energy estimate	~1 billion joules (1 GJ)
kWh equivalent	1 GJ ÷ 3.6e6 J/kWh = ~278 kWh

Enough to power an average home for 9 days
But only if 100% of it could be captured and stored (which it can't).

---

2. Solar Panel Comparison​

| Panel Size | 1 m² (typical panel) |
| Average Power | ~150 W (in sunny conditions) |
| Daily Energy | ~1.2 kWh/day (8 hours of sunlight) |
| Panels to match 1 bolt | ~230 panels for 1 day |
So you’d need ~230 m² of panels generating for one sunny day to match one lightning bolt.
And you can get solar energy every day, not just when storms occur.

---

3. Battery Storage Comparison​

| Battery Type | 12V 100Ah Lead Acid |
| Energy | 12V × 100Ah = 1.2 kWh |
| Lightning equivalent | 278 kWh ÷ 1.2 = ~232 batteries |
So, storing a single bolt’s energy (if it were possible) would require over 200 large batteries just to hold it.

---

Key Point:​

Lightning releases energy too fast for any standard storage system to handle.
Even supercapacitors or high-end grid storage would struggle to absorb a bolt without blowing up.

---

Practical Perspective​

Energy Source	Availability	Scalability	Safety	Cost per kWh
Lightning	Rare	Poor	Dangerous	Extremely high
Solar	Daily	Excellent	Safe	Low
Wind	Frequent	Good	Safe	Low–medium
Grid power	Always	Infinite	Safe	Depends

 

[farmerge]

is it feasible to capture and store electricity from lightning?

ChatGPT said:​

Capturing and storing electricity from lightning is technically possible but not practically feasible with current technology. Here's why:

---

What Makes It Appealing?​

• A single lightning bolt can carry up to 1 billion joules of energy — theoretically enough to power ~10,000 100W lightbulbs for a few hours.
• It's raw, high-energy power — seemingly free and natural.

---

Why It's Not Practical​

1. Unpredictable & Infrequent​

• Lightning is random in location and timing.
• You’d need a huge network of towers or conductors across wide areas to increase the chance of a strike.

2. Extremely Short Duration​

• Lightning lasts for microseconds to milliseconds, with extremely high voltage (10–120 million volts) and current (up to 300,000 amps).
• Capturing it requires instant response and massive surge handling, which is technologically extreme.

3. Dangerous to Collect​

• Channeling a bolt safely without destruction requires robust, fast-responding materials.
• Most systems capable of handling that kind of energy get destroyed or degraded quickly.

4. Storage Limitations​

• The energy comes in too fast to store with conventional batteries or capacitors.
• To capture and convert it into usable form (like 240V AC or storable DC) would require special ultra-high-speed converters and dump systems that don’t exist at scale.

5. Cost vs Reward​

• The cost of infrastructure for capturing and conditioning a single bolt would far outweigh the tiny, inconsistent energy yield.
• It’s cheaper to build solar panels or wind turbines, which provide continuous and controllable energy.

---

What Is Feasible?​

• Studying lightning for science and safety.
• Using lightning rods to protect buildings — not to store energy, but to safely direct it to ground.
• Harvesting ambient atmospheric electricity (very low power) with technologies like electrostatic collectors — but this yields only microwatts to milliwatts.

---

Fun Fact:​

• Researchers at Sandia National Labs and other institutions have attempted prototypes to store lightning energy, but none have led to a viable energy system.

---

Would you like a simple energy comparison between lightning and solar panels or batteries to put it into perspective?

You said:​

yes

ChatGPT said:​

Here’s a simple energy comparison to show how lightning stacks up against more practical energy sources like solar panels and batteries:

---

1. Energy in a Single Lightning Bolt​

Property	Value
Duration	~100 microseconds
Voltage	100 million volts (typical)
Current	~30,000 amps (typical)
Energy estimate	~1 billion joules (1 GJ)
kWh equivalent	1 GJ ÷ 3.6e6 J/kWh = ~278 kWh

Enough to power an average home for 9 days
But only if 100% of it could be captured and stored (which it can't).

---

2. Solar Panel Comparison​

| Panel Size | 1 m² (typical panel) |
| Average Power | ~150 W (in sunny conditions) |
| Daily Energy | ~1.2 kWh/day (8 hours of sunlight) |
| Panels to match 1 bolt | ~230 panels for 1 day |
So you’d need ~230 m² of panels generating for one sunny day to match one lightning bolt.
And you can get solar energy every day, not just when storms occur.

---

3. Battery Storage Comparison​

| Battery Type | 12V 100Ah Lead Acid |
| Energy | 12V × 100Ah = 1.2 kWh |
| Lightning equivalent | 278 kWh ÷ 1.2 = ~232 batteries |
So, storing a single bolt’s energy (if it were possible) would require over 200 large batteries just to hold it.

---

Key Point:​

Lightning releases energy too fast for any standard storage system to handle.
Even supercapacitors or high-end grid storage would struggle to absorb a bolt without blowing up.

---

Practical Perspective​

Energy Source	Availability	Scalability	Safety	Cost per kWh
Lightning	Rare	Poor	Dangerous	Extremely high
Solar	Daily	Excellent	Safe	Low
Wind	Frequent	Good	Safe	Low–medium
Grid power	Always	Infinite	Safe	Depends

I knew it's not feasible to capture lightning, but it is a massive amount of power generated by the Gods.
And when it decides to earth onto the ground via usually a Marri tree here it is a massive explosion.
We have had a few Marri's (Red Gums local jargon) ripped apart over the years.

 

[SirRumpole]

I knew it's not feasible to capture lightning, but it is a massive amount of power generated by the Gods.
And when it decides to earth onto the ground via usually a Marri tree here it is a massive explosion.
We have had a few Marri's (Red Gums local jargon) ripped apart over the years.

A couple of pine trees on my place have suffered the same fate.

 

[farmerge]

A couple of pine trees on my place have suffered the same fate.

What I have found when trying to cut up a tree that has been hit it is like trying to cut to piece of steel with a chainsaw.
Other problem is it won't burn easily.

 

[Smurf1976]

But do states compete?

Historically they certainly did.

Tasmania and Victoria were both extremely aggressive about the whole thing, almost incomprehensibly so from a modern perspective.

Those overseas offices weren't just about obtaining finance and keeping up with what others were doing on the engineering side. Finding out what the prices were was a crucial part of it.

Both have an interesting history of being intertwined with the WW2 effort in different ways.

Both had a similar structure of a self-sustaining entity at arms length from the governments that owned them.

The existence of both effectively forced the other states to do the same. SA had no chance of attracting industry to the state if it couldn't compete on energy costs and that lead to forced nationalisation of the industry - and it was a conservative government that went down that path, feeling it had no choice other than to do so despite the ideological difficulty it faced with a very hostile takeover of private enterprise.

NSW, which had been the traditional home of Australian industry, realised they'd be losing that if they didn't act and that forced them to follow the rest. Cheap power or bust is what it came down to, so cheap electricity it had to be.

From some old statistics from 60 years ago, this tells the story.

Industrial electricity consumption by state as a % of national total 1965-66:

NSW = 35.0%
Vic = 26.6%
Tas = 19.7%
SA = 8.1%
Qld = 7.9%
WA = 2.8%

Industrial use as % of total state consumption:

Tas = 76.6%
Vic = 44.3%
SA = 43.5%
NSW = 42.0%
Qld = 35.0%
WA = 32.4%

No money was being lost with all this. In Tas the HEC made a profit that year and whilst I can't confirm it for that year (I'm looking at a printed document from Tas for the source of these figures) the others were profitable or at least break even overall.

Taxpayer subsidies? Not directly, since the capital was either raised externally or where borrowed from government was done on a commercial basis with interest paid. At most it could be said there was an indirect subsidy via the implicit government guarantee enabling lower interest rates than might otherwise have been available. Even that one's somewhat tenuous however given the electricity authorities generally were seen as more creditworthy than state governments themselves.

 

[Smurf1976]

is it feasible to capture and store electricity from lightning?

Well we still can't buy plutonium at every corner store, so lightning it is.

Anyone got a DeLorean in their garage?

 

[Smurf1976]

True, however there is always the profit margin to contend with and as electricity is at the bottom end of the production chain, price feeds in to everything else.

There's also the hybrid approach.

Privately owned but under active government regulation. Several states did that in the past with gas, a model where private enterprise owned it but they did so under license and subject to heavy regulation.

Heavy regulation = government set the permitted profit of the company and prohibited "excessive" payments to directors and management, whilst requiring the business to be well managed and subject to audit. In return the company was protected from being taken over and had a guaranteed 100% market share.

 

[qldfrog]

Historically they certainly did.

Tasmania and Victoria were both extremely aggressive about the whole thing, almost incomprehensibly so from a modern perspective.

Those overseas offices weren't just about obtaining finance and keeping up with what others were doing on the engineering side. Finding out what the prices were was a crucial part of it.

Both have an interesting history of being intertwined with the WW2 effort in different ways.

Both had a similar structure of a self-sustaining entity at arms length from the governments that owned them.

The existence of both effectively forced the other states to do the same. SA had no chance of attracting industry to the state if it couldn't compete on energy costs and that lead to forced nationalisation of the industry - and it was a conservative government that went down that path, feeling it had no choice other than to do so despite the ideological difficulty it faced with a very hostile takeover of private enterprise.

NSW, which had been the traditional home of Australian industry, realised they'd be losing that if they didn't act and that forced them to follow the rest. Cheap power or bust is what it came down to, so cheap electricity it had to be.

From some old statistics from 60 years ago, this tells the story.

Industrial electricity consumption by state as a % of national total 1965-66:

NSW = 35.0%
Vic = 26.6%
Tas = 19.7%
SA = 8.1%
Qld = 7.9%
WA = 2.8%

Industrial use as % of total state consumption:

Tas = 76.6%
Vic = 44.3%
SA = 43.5%
NSW = 42.0%
Qld = 35.0%
WA = 32.4%

No money was being lost with all this. In Tas the HEC made a profit that year and whilst I can't confirm it for that year (I'm looking at a printed document from Tas for the source of these figures) the others were profitable or at least break even overall.

Taxpayer subsidies? Not directly, since the capital was either raised externally or where borrowed from government was done on a commercial basis with interest paid. At most it could be said there was an indirect subsidy via the implicit government guarantee enabling lower interest rates than might otherwise have been available. Even that one's somewhat tenuous however given the electricity authorities generally were seen as more creditworthy than state governments themselves.

That was then, i still remember a previous ALP Qld state government raping the energex coffers of money due for grid maintenance and asking special dividends to fill partly one of their never ending deficit.
When have you last seen any state government engaged in any competition aiming at actual production or industry support in recent years.i have the feeling they just compete for extra Fed subsidies..gst share, road, natural disaster flood drought wind heat cold..
Just the way the whole of Australia is turning. Welfare nanny state even at our States level.
And back to power, one would be very untruthful to blame high current prices on private enterprise when the said current enterprises have seen for the last 2 decades directive to: get all roof solar in, stop coal and fossil fuels plants with closure time imposed by government , notwithstanding a carbon tax rising its head every election.
How the hell can you build an efficient business like this?
Even the power bill subsidies direct to consumer or to keep open plants are pure distorsion again
Well you can not have efficient business let alone start a new one, and we pay the price.
Our mess is 100% governments (Fed plus states) responsibility so fair chance they will ever admit and fix it

 

[qldfrog]

There's also the hybrid approach.

Privately owned but under active government regulation. Several states did that in the past with gas, a model where private enterprise owned it but they did so under license and subject to heavy regulation.

Heavy regulation = government set the permitted profit of the company and prohibited "excessive" payments to directors and management, whilst requiring the business to be well managed and subject to audit. In return the company was protected from being taken over and had a guaranteed 100% market share.

In the past...indeed... aka when these government decisions were still decided based on some technical bodies, not a news poll..and to keep blame where it all lies, when people voting were able to acknowledge their absence of knowledge instead of going to parades asking for UN chart signature, close all fossil fuel or even " recognise Palestine"...
And one day "bomb xxxx"
And they vote so are listened.
Ultimately voters are responsible.
And their inculture while led by failing media and school system in not an excuse in the internet age.
I stop that "who is to blame" part as the tech os more interesting and more fun while i cry more than I laugh when looking at this issue.
How is it possible to **** it so brilliantly for a country who had it all:
skills and know how, coal, uranium, gas, sun, grid and money to implement..

 

[SirRumpole]

Anyone got a DeLorean in their garage?

Speaking of vehicles and power supplies...

Tesla doesn't support using your EV to power homes or the grid

EV batteries have the potential to power a household for days and could even play a part in our future electricity grid. But not everyone supports the technology.

www.abc.net.au

 

[qldfrog]

Speaking of vehicles and power supplies...

Tesla doesn't support using your EV to power homes or the grid

EV batteries have the potential to power a household for days and could even play a part in our future electricity grid. But not everyone supports the technology.

www.abc.net.au

Same as battery scheme/scam, and what they did with roof top solar :you buy and maintain the EV, they (aka energy providers distributor and state) profit and tax you...then left you stranded in your garage
Again, always...
Would you subscribe to such a scheme?
Will they let you not being in it?

 

[IFocus]

From memory I think it was in Washington State there is a location that has regular lightning they were catching the lightning studying it might have been where they worked out lightning travels both directions almost

 

[qldfrog]

The summary

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/facts-can-no-longer-be-concealed-labors-renewables-push-undermined-by-csiro-report-proving-coal-is-king-energy-expert-claims/news-story/ca5330534757f2f9b49419312199a061

And the actual report from csiro

https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost-2024-25-Final_20250728.pdf

Note that to make coal not so brilliant, the lifespan of a coal power station is given at 30y, imagine how much better coal figures would be if it was more realistic.
So cheapest remain coal, but who cares about cost, jobs or economy if our government is for aspirational vacuum heads voters
So more power subsidies, more debt and not 0.1c change of temperature in the next century for that privilege.

 

[SirRumpole]

The summary

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/facts-can-no-longer-be-concealed-labors-renewables-push-undermined-by-csiro-report-proving-coal-is-king-energy-expert-claims/news-story/ca5330534757f2f9b49419312199a061

And the actual report from csiro

https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost-2024-25-Final_20250728.pdf

Note that to make coal not so brilliant, the lifespan of a coal power station is given at 30y, imagine how much better coal figures would be if it was more realistic.
So cheapest remain coal, but who cares about cost, jobs or economy if our government is for aspirational vacuum heads voters
So more power subsidies, more debt and not 0.1c change of temperature in the next century for that privilege.

I trust Sky News about as much as you trust the ABC.

 

[qldfrog]

I trust Sky News about as much as you trust the ABC.

But i also added the CSIRO report link, is the inconvenient truth that bad?
Or is now the CSIRO a far right Nazi outlet?
I do not trust sky either, abc and sky are both WEF supports
But they summarise that fact better than me on the report.
I heard about the report then tried to find a news article...in that order
And their ABC did not pop up...

 

[SirRumpole]

But i also added the CSIRO report link, is the inconvenient truth that bad?
Or is now the CSIRO a far right Nazi outlet?
I do not trust sky either, abc and sky are both WEF supports
But they summarise that fact better than me on the report.
I heard about the report then tried to find a news article...in that order
And their ABC did not pop up...

Well, I wonder if the gov will ever admit that their clean energy targets are screwed.

No time to do it like the present, they are in for 6 years at least so better to own up now and hope the people understand.

They can always blame it on the Greens LOL, which is close to the truth anyway.

 

[Logique2]

My bolds under.
Yes ..I want one of these in my garage .

"EVs banned by global shipping company due to fire hazard"
https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/evs-banned-by-global-shipping-company-due-to-fire-hazard - August 2025 -Tue at 2:52 pm

"A major transport company has told customers it will no longer allow EVs or PHEVs on its ships, citing fire risks from lithium-ion batteries.

Matson, a 104-year-old transport and services company based in the US state of Hawaii, confirmed it will no longer ship EVs or PHEVs across the Pacific Ocean – or any other sea.

“Due to increasing concern for the safety of transporting vehicles powered by large lithium-ion batteries, Matson is suspending acceptance of used or new electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles for transport aboard its vessels,” said a letter to customers from the company, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

“Effective immediately, we have ceased accepting new bookings for these shipments to/from all trades.”"