Can we capture lighting thunder and can electricity be produced from that?
Answers
The greatest challenge here is that all of the lightning's energy is transferred in tiny fractions of a second. This means we must have an incredibly large battery (or capacitor) that can charge up instantly when the lightning strikes, then slowly and steadily let out the bottled up power when asked. Devices with these capabilities are both difficult to produce and very inefficient. Physics tells us that we cannot store and retrieve this energy with 100% efficiency. In fact, we lose the majority of the energy we are converting in nearly every process. Compounding the limited total energy and the difficulty and loss in accessing it, we can barely create a tiny fraction of a percent of the power that we use every day from atmospheric lightning.
Sadly, it is completely, utterly unfeasible to use lightning for electricity. But cheer up, it is still beautiful to watch.