let’s assume that humans find a way to bottle up lightning and use the energy for practical applications.
Is there any information about possible environment impact on removing such huge amounts of electricticty from the atmosphere? Would it eventually run out? Does lightning in any way benefit the environment?
Lightning fixes Nitrogen, and so preventing lightning might eventually lead to crop failure.
It’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature!
Then the question is: is lightning “used up”? Does collecting it mean it will eventually not happen any more?
No.
Lightning is caused by Triboelectricity - the tendency to charge objects by rubbing. As long as there is wind and rain, there will always be lightning.
Lightning is the discharge of static electricity between the upper atmosphere and the lower atmosphere or ground. The potential comes from charged particles that are captured by the Earth’s magnetosphere and form the ionosphere. It is certainly is possible to extract energy from this charge differential; there was even a Shuttle mission (STS-75) which had an experiment using a tether to measure the charge differential at various altitudes. There is also a company that is developing concepts for tethered satellites (see Tethers Unlimited) although I don’t know that they’ve any practical energy-producing tethers (though their nanosat deployment and deorbit systems are seeing application).
As for the environmental impact, we understand surprisingly little about the effect of charged particles on climate, so I don’t know that there is a definitive answer. Erring on the side of conservatism, though, I would suggest that it would be unwise to deplete the normal charge potential owing to effects it may have on climate, the ozone layer, and gas exchange between layers of the atmosphere.
Stranger
Since when?
If this were true, then one would expect lightning without thunderstorms.
Nope, the cause of lightning is presently unknown. There are numerous theories, but all of them have fatal flaws. For example, one theory centers on the freezing of raindrops and the shedding of tiny flakes of electrically charged ice from their surfaces. And most lightning storms do involve freezing temperatures. But some storms generate lightning at temperatures well above freezing, so something is wrong!
A good book is “All About Lightning” by professor Martin Uman of the U. of Fl.
http://books.google.com/books?dq=all+about+lightning
.
If you allow lightning to strike some sort of collector electrode, you can only intercept a very tiny percentage of the total energy. With lightning, the stored energy flows from the surrounding electric field inwards towards the arc channel. So, if a lightning strike is two miles long, and you intercept the last 20ft of it (so the last 20ft of the arc never forms,) then you only collect 0.1% of its energy. That won’t affect the lightning much. 99.9% of the lightning bolt is still there.
If there was some way to shut off global ligntning and route the thunderstorm electrical energy into the power grid, THEN you’d need to worry. It’s a good Doctor Evil scenario, threatening to damp out the lightning and holding humankind ransom for one MILLION dollars.
One possibility: lightning is thought to power the global vertical e-field between ground and ionosphere. This e-field is thought to cause tiny cloud droplets to meld together during collisions. So, without this e-field, maybe all clouds stop creating raindrops.
The Catatumbo lightning has apparently stopped due to drought. The question then is did humans create the drought conditions and/or make the drought conditions worse so that it stopped?
Short of lighting, can more earthbound causes of static ever cause injury or death? I once observed a video where a race car pitted and when a crewman touched he was throw back several feet.
Yes.
Helicopters generate a lot of static electricity, particularly in humid conditions.
Touching a helo before it’s touched down can give a nasty to fatal shock. If you ever need to be hoisted aboard a helicopter, don’t grap for the basket or hook they lower until after it’s contacted the ground or water you’re on/in.
Static charges have started a lot of fires at gas pumps, some fatal.
I once got knocked on my ass by touching a sail boat that had just been pulled out of the water. It had been sitting on it’s trailer with the mast up for a few minutes. I may have been on the boat when it got pulled out and then climbed to the ground. Don’t remember. Just that I was knocked on my ass.
And LSLGuy, yep, when in search and rescue, where where always warned about not touching the cable untill it hit the ground first.
Lightning also starts fires that renew our forests.
While there have been static discharge gas pump fires, do you have a cite that there have been fatal gas pump fires?