Yeah, except the lightning strike occurs for a few millionths of a second and we don't really know where exactly it is going to strike... so it'd be a tad hard! Hence Swansont's "just not practical".

 

- Perhaps a satellite to focus on an area of positive/negative Ions, condensed. Maybe with this we could "estimate" Lightning strikes however, being able to filter all the Amps and vaults and being able to "catch" the strike would be almost impossible. Luck and filters. That is the closest you would get. . .

Just my thoughts, soon, maybe someone will prove us wrong.

 

In my opinion, we couldn't do it. Like someone said, light is totally random. Due to that fact, it would be totally cool if you had a satellite, but, you said it yourself. It is random. So, you would have to have lightning collection centers everywhere. Then, there is the problem of catching the strike. Lightning has about at the least 10,000 amps, which for all purposes, is an insane amount, to be safe, about 700 times the amount of energy of a house socket(which is about 15 amps). But the amount of amps could go up to 200,000 amps. You would need a lot of resistance to slow that down. And resistance is essentially friction, and with friction, you loose energy, so by the time you could use the energy, there wouldn't be a lot to use.

 

In my opinion, we couldn't do it. Like someone said, light is totally random. Due to that fact, it would be totally cool if you had a satellite, but, you said it yourself. It is random. So, you would have to have lightning collection centers everywhere. Then, there is the problem of catching the strike. Lightning has about at the least 10,000 amps, which for all purposes, is an insane amount, to be safe, about 700 times the amount of energy of a house socket(which is about 15 amps). But the amount of amps could go up to 200,000 amps. You would need a lot of resistance to slow that down. And resistance is essentially friction, and with friction, you loose energy, so by the time you could use the energy, there wouldn't be a lot to use.

 

Average lightning has 30,000 Amps for a very short period of time. Like 0.0005 seconds.

30,000 A * 0.0005 s = 15 Coulombs. (because Q=I*t)

So in reality it's just 15*6.25*10^18 electrons = 9.375*10^19 electrons (the same charge as in I=15 A steady current)

But of course electrons with high kinetic energy, 500 MJ.

 

You can't compare it with current in socket, which is steady slow stream of electrons spread over time.

 

about 700 times the amount of energy of a house socket(which is about 15 amps).

 

Ampere is not unit of energy.