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There are varying rates of those things between States I'm sure, but they are minor compared to power prices.
There are varying rates of those things between States I'm sure, but they are minor compared to power prices.But do states compete? Look at your rego, your water which are still within gov controls?
Ideally, you get both!There are varying rates of those things between States I'm sure, but they are minor compared to power prices.
| 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 |
| Energy Source | Availability | Scalability | Safety | Cost per kWh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lightning | Rare | Poor | Extremely high | |
| Solar | Daily | Excellent | Low | |
| Wind | Frequent | Good | Low–medium | |
| Grid power | Always | Infinite | Depends |
I knew it's not feasible to capture lightning, but it is a massive amount of power generated by the Gods.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).
| Panel Size | 1 m² (typical panel) |
2. Solar Panel Comparison
| 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.
| Battery Type | 12V 100Ah Lead Acid |
3. Battery Storage Comparison
| 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.
Lightning releases energy too fast for any standard storage system to handle.
Key Point:
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
A couple of pine trees on my place have suffered the same fate.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.
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.A couple of pine trees on my place have suffered the same fate.
Historically they certainly did.But do states compete?
Well we still can't buy plutonium at every corner store, so lightning it is.is it feasible to capture and store electricity from lightning?
There's also the hybrid approach.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.
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.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.
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"...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.
Speaking of vehicles and power supplies...Anyone got a DeLorean in their garage?
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 garageSpeaking 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
I trust Sky News about as much as you trust the ABC.The summary
And the actual report from csiro
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.
But i also added the CSIRO report linkI trust Sky News about as much as you trust the ABC.
Well, I wonder if the gov will ever admit that their clean energy targets are screwed.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...
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