Question:
My name is John Kranz and I would like to know what are the
possibilities of using light} as a power source. Could it be an effective means
of power for the future?
Replies:
There are two problems that you could think about solving. Although
there are lots of lightning strikes, they are not predictably distributed
in time or space. We would need to know where to intercept the
strikes. How could we know this? Second, the amount of power
that flows is huge, more than most systems can handle, an occurs
in such a short time that we cannot easily store it. Usually
the power melts the apparatus. This means the apparatus must be
big and thus expensive. Cost and predictability. Solve
these and this could be real. What do you think?
NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators, sponsored and operated by Argonne National Laboratory's Educational Programs, Andrew Skipor, Ph.D., Head of Educational Programs.