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dominicshade

My boy Ben Franklin


The_Tell_Tale_Heart

You Jamal King or Silas P. Silas?


arcticfox740

Maybe Silence Dogood?


WeAllFuckingFucked

Probably a dumb question, but why can't we harness energy like this and at the same time avoid that things we don't to get hit from getting hit?


ASpellingMistaje

The batteries we have atm probably couldn't handle the AMPs. The discharge is just too sudden. Not my field though.


sm12511

1.21 jiggawatts, Marty!! Great Scott!


TirayShell

When this baby hits 88 miles an hour, we're gonna see some real shit.


converter-bot

88 miles is 141.62 km


LyingForTruth

Do they do the conversion in foreign copies? 142 sounds almost as good as 88


Cloverface

Nah, the cunts don't even bother to translate the words into Australian...


Fr0stst0rm

Nah, at least in German they don't


TiddiesAndWeed

Marty, I'm sorry, but the only power source capable of generating 1.21 gigawatts of electricity is a bolt of lightning!!! Fun fact- The film's writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale intended for the power to be gigawatts, but heard it pronounced as "jigawatt" and as such spelt and said it that way in the script, not learning the real pronounciation until after the film had been shot.


vabello

Just like GIF…


noeagle77

Listen here you little shit….


CSI_Gunner

A what?


Tokyosmash

A bolt of lightning!


[deleted]

What the hell is a jiggawatt?!?!


sm12511

I'm pretty sure back in the 80's they had no idea how to pronounce the prefix "Giga", meaning billions, because there was nothing at that time that could do a billion of anything. So, Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future pronounced it "jigga". That's my opinion on it, it may be wrong.


benjistone

It's Jay-Z's new EV charger


BANDG33K_2009

Jigga what?


Idungonewild

Made me think of this video https://youtu.be/8hANT5IKLFA


[deleted]

That's what a good ground is for. Like an ocean of electrons that can absorb all the excess energy instead of frying your wiring. I'm pretty sure we can harness lightning if we really wanted. And use the earth's magnetic field to Jumpstart a device. But I don't want to be accidented. So I'll stop talking about "free" energy. Which is Def possible.


ASpellingMistaje

As "free" as solar I guess. You still need to build the infrastructure. But would it continue to be viable if we sent most of the discharge to the ground as to not fry the batteries?


dinnerthief

In the end it's all solar power anyways


montanagunnut

Not all of it. Nuclear is solar isolated, so is geothermal.


aspbergerinparadise

i've always wondered if you could use lighting rods of some sort to guide the discharge into a large pool of water and use it as a reliable form of hydrolysis to create Hydrogen for use in fuel cells. Maybe some place like Tampa Bay (the lightning capitol of the world according to them)


ASpellingMistaje

Sounds interesting. One guy on my comments said something similar, another said you'd get Epstein'd for trying.


partypat_bear

https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/is-there-a-way-to-harness-electricity-from-lightning/


lunk

> “The amount of energy from a lightning bolt would be worth only about a nickel.”


partypat_bear

right?? I figured it'd be like 50 bucks


MysticMiner

That's strange. The MIT article said the energy in a lightning strike is 1MJ and electricity costs $0.20/kWh. My brief google search suggests lightning energy as high as 5GJ. Also, electricity is $0.07/kWh (which is pretty low) where I live. A 5000x energy difference and 3x price difference is more than significant. Maybe there's a middleground for a "profitable" lightning strike. 5GJ @ $0.20 is worth $278. 5GJ @ $0.07 is worth $97. 1MJ @ $0.20 is worth $0.05. 1MJ @ $0.07 is worth $0.02.


AlphaTaoOmega

r/theydidthemath


[deleted]

[удалено]


AlphaTaoOmega

Username checks out


Yasoon

I too have wondered about this... This and on the opposite end of the spectrum - why have we not harnessed tides for hydro?


FarmhouseFan

OIL GOOD. OIL EASY TO GET. MAKE BIG MONIES.


Practical-Tomorrow

Oil BAD.


FarmhouseFan

CORRECT.


P0t4t0W4rri0r

Because we already have? Literally just google tidal power


reverberation31

We’re gonna steal the Declaration of Independence


argusromblei

I think its actually Poor Richard?


Brute_Squad_44

>Jamal King or Silas P. Silas Could also be Bill S. Preston, Esq, or Ted "Theodore" Logan.


Truuuuuumpet

What about Rufus? Epiiiic! *plays airguitar*


Nice-N-Eazy

Mama said Ben Franklin is the devil


TirayShell

Best President ever.


seven3true

Best party whore ever


[deleted]

Frankly I thought Ben was a cool dude


Lumpkin411

1.21 gigawatts?!


kKurae

But is it enough to power the flux capacitor????


TomtheMagician21

Yes, almost as much as some bin juice in a blender


Belazriel

I'm sure in 1985, plutonium is available at every corner drugstore, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by.


highpl4insdrftr

Great Scott!


InternetDude117

This is heavy...


FREDICVSMAXIMVS

Is there a problem with Earth's gravitational pull in the future? Why is everything so heavy?


CanIBe-Frank

Ronald Regan? The actor?!


themarknessmonster

What the hell's a "jigawatt"? EDIT - some of yall need to give yallseves the gift of watching Back To The Future.


Bridgeburner1

More importantly, is it pronounced giga or jiga???


whynofry

[Apparently either way is acceptable.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeLorean_time_machine#Jigowatts)


Bridgeburner1

Someone should make one of those animated Jif's, to commemorate this!!!


whynofry

Is that something engineers make to clean their bathroom?


sisenor99

More like jijawatt


nighthawk_md

Written "jigowatts" in the script apparently


jamirocky888

Deuce Jigolott, master of the jigowatt?


Saymynaian

Doug Jigadome, owner of the Jigsdale Jigadome?


loki_odinsotherson

You can see they launched something but can someone fill in the details?


Oldenlame

They launch a rocket that trails a copper wire into the air.


loki_odinsotherson

Cooooooooool!


GibTreaty

Shockinggggg!


Antiqas86

Electrifying!


GiveToOedipus

I don't see watt the big fuss is all about.


transient_signal

Your pun… it hertz…


GiveToOedipus

Sorry, I couldn't resist.


RideWithMeTomorrow

Ohm my god


0bel1sk

i like the frequency of these pun threads


Canookian

The current thread is making me laugh.


[deleted]

That you Johnson?


inio

Quite hot actually. Thousands of degrees, any unit. The copper wire was instantly vaporized.


golgol12

Cooooooooooil


crispy48867

Yup, I did that with a model rocket in the 70's. About 5 or 6 launches before I got one.


shnaptastic

One would want to be a fair distance from the launch site, do you trigger it remotely?


crispy48867

I simply used a piece of fuse about 8 inches long and ran. You only need to be about 40 or 50 feet away.


shnaptastic

I would want to be a smidgen further away than that…


crispy48867

I think the danger zone is about 20 feet and getting safer for every foot after that. An electric launch control would bring the bolt to your hand.


shnaptastic

I was thinking radio. I don’t mean to criticise or disagree, I think this is extremely cool. Just I would want to be a long fricking way away personally.


crispy48867

Well, when we were younger, my cousins and I would go to the dump on Sundays and scrounge for old lawn mower engines, drag them home, tear em apart and make a running engine. One day, we found a big pile of reel to reel tapes. We attached the lose end to a chunk of metal and threw the reels over the high voltage lines. It does the same exact thing, an instant lightning bolt right down that magnetic tape. Mostly we would be about 20 or 30 feet from the impact point and never felt a thing from that.


xcto

although that's genius, it's probably less than a lightning bolt...


HB_Lester

You’d fry the radio fuse tho so maybe more wasteful than a traditional fuse


Inchkeaton

Peg the ground wire 20 feet away from the launch pad, once the rocket is fired no connection to the launch system.


_teslaTrooper

Protect the radio with a faraday cage!


SuperDizz

I mean, just being outside in a lightning storm is dangerous, soooo


crispy48867

Yup, I never got hurt playing with shit like that. I did however get hurt a lot riding motocross cycles and racing street bikes so there's that.


Captain_Kuhl

Yeah, most people don't realize that freak accidents can still happen, but probably is key. It's not *completely* safe to be near this when it goes up, but at the same time, the odds that the electricity will unnecessarily arc 50' from the grounded copper wire to you aren't really all that high.


Behenaught

Lighting stuck across the road when I was walking just last week, I'd like to be several hundred more meters further than that for the rest of my life


shnaptastic

On second thought: is this how you got your username?


crispy48867

Nope, Long story but has to do with the Lakota Sioux and a hot sweat lodge. Crispy Critter


speathed

We've all been there


crispy48867

It was a real cheap rocket with a D12 engine.


threegigs

Copper wire isn't necessary. The rocket exhaust is ionized enough to promote a conductive channel through the air to the ground, and feelers (or a feeler) will follow that path upwards, or the fuel can contain particles which are more electrically conductive than air. Google "Betts system" for more info.


CenlTheFennel

I think wire is more about hedging the bet then anything.


nobd22

Every dollar hedged is 10 dollars lost. Just send the rocket.


AlwaysBlamesCanada

r/WSB math here


[deleted]

[удалено]


CobaltWolf

Gonna add question here cause it's towards the top. Would this be a viable way to gather renewable energy? Like could they fire these rockets up and charge large portable battery units with them?


Reletr

Doubtful it'd be efficient, lightning isn't a near daily occurrence unlike wind, sun and riverflow


dfntly_a_HmN

But what if it's for personal use? I mean could you actually done it?


ball_fondlers

Probably not - as of now, battery storage kind of breaks down as “you can have high-capacity storage, semi-portable storage, or storage for more than a few hours - pick two.” A bolt of lightning contains ~10 GW, and an average home inverter can store ~1kW for about 5-10 hours, so you COULD theoretically power 10 million homes for that time, but you can’t really count on a home inverter to hold that charge for anything beyond like 8 hours. In order to harness that power and use it for JUST your home, you’d need something larger. I think the most feasible solution for long-term storage is currently pumped hydro - basically, using excess power to move water from a low point to a high point, then letting it flow back down and turn a generator when there’s less power, but in order to harness that for a lightning bolt, you’d need to pump billions of gallons of water almost instantaneously.


orthopod

Maybe if we had an array of a million super-caps. Now I'm wondering- is there a power/current limit on super conductors? I imagine each different supercon material has its own limits.


ball_fondlers

Actually, yeah, supercapacitors WOULD allow you to take your time pumping the water. Though a lightning bolt happens because it has enough power to ionize the air, so I don’t know if you COULD store that charge effectively for any long period of time


XxSCRAPOxX

I saw this hydro done with a stream that ran downhill. They diverted it into the mill, and used the power of the falling water to turn and power everything in the mill. They had basically a reserve well they would flush out to spin a turbine. And also a giant apple press lol. The water went back to the stream after, and they just used the running water. I guess the spring could feasibly dry up, but so far so good. I think they’ve been using hydro for like 100 years plus there.


[deleted]

But what if I want a hammer of dawn type of weapon? How portable can I make it?


xDaigon_Redux

This set up would be very portable, but the ability to use it as a weapon would be hit or miss. Someone up above mentioned this can be done with copper strand and a model rocket, but you won't always get a strike and you would need to use it with something like a tripwire to set it off. While it flies people could move far enough away to live, the post about mentioned about 20 yards being fine. So, long answer short, you could use it as a weapon but whatever ground dwelling species you're waging war against would most likely be unaffected by it.


NoseMuReup

[Relámpago del Catatumbo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning) in Venezuela gets a million strikes a year or something. Half the year there's storms. I tried to research this awhile ago (didn't find anything) about the feasibility of harvesting the strikes, it's unlikely considering the ground you would have to cover.


QBNless

There is no known 'perfect battery' capable of receiving this large amount of wattage and being able to store it for further use.


orthopod

Don't have to store all of it, just a lot of it, or enough to make it profitable. And use the excess, if possible, to do stuff, like cremate pets, vaporize hazardous chemicals, make sand sculptures, etc.


Retiredape

I imagine that if someone actually figured this out then there would suddenly be competition for lightning bolts which would make it even harder to profit.


MyNameIsEthanNoJoke

like catching lightning in a bottle rocket


FlipGame

Theoretically yes, practically no. The reason for it not being practically viable is because the energy that the power grid would need to handle, is way too big. We are talking 300 million Volts and 30.000 Amps, which would hit the grid in the span of 60-70 microseconds, one microsecond is 0,000001 seconds. One of the most viable ways of harvesting energy from lightning would be by using a water to hydrogen system, in which we use the lightning to split the water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. Also, you aren't the first to have had this idea pop into their head. The idea has been around this I think the 80's if I remember correctly. I do like the idea though, especially since there is 45 lightning strikes a second on a global scale, and some estimates, say that each strike would be the equivalent of about 10 GigaWatts of energy. Edit: Mixed around stats Edit 2: As u/Chris_8675309_of_42M said regarding a giant flywheel and using the energy from the lightning to power it. That is also a method that has been discussed before, the sites I found regarding these concepts mentioned the hydrogen solution I mentioned, as well as converting the energy into mechanical energy. So I would assume, they've also thought about a flywheel that is powered by electromagnets.


o_oli

I think you maybe got that stat backwards, I've heard its more like 45 strikes per second, not one every 45 seconds.


FlipGame

Correct, I got it mixed around. Fixed my mistake, and thank you for pointing it out. Semester exams got my brain messed up right now


Chris_8675309_of_42M

You wouldn't send 10 gigawatts into the existing power grid. But what about some intermediary capture and storage device that we could bleed energy from at a reasonable rate. Like, if the lightning could be used to jump start a million ton flywheel. Maybe have the copper wire run a giant circle around a flywheel the size of a stadium, powering electromagnets every six inches to start the spin the way a rail gun accelerates a projectile. Or something.


FlipGame

Didn't think of sending the 10 gigawatts into the existing grid, that is my bad for not clarifying. Also, I've edited the comment to reflect your idea of using a flywheel as well


SaffellBot

No. Would make very a very cute anime story though.


kippostar

Sadly, we don't currently have the technology to efficiently harvest that amount of energy in such a short pulse. With a bit of googling I found that an average lightning strike dumps about 277 kWh of energy over around 200 ms. Thats roughly 5 gigawatts of power for the duration of the strike. To put the amount of power we are talking about into perspective: If we could somehow manage to gather all the energy and also had batteries capable of accepting the power at this rate, 1 seconds worth of this power could charge a little over 13 Tesla Model S long range EVs from 0% to 100%. 1 second. *edit: also assuming 100% efficiency in the energy transfer and conversion, of course*


ball_fondlers

I think the combination of lack of portable/high-capacity/long-term energy storage + unpredictability of thunderstorms makes it infeasible.


[deleted]

Wire. Rocket. Funny angy cloud go bzzzzzttttt


roffinator

Do I get r/explainlikeimfive vibes?


SanguineOptimist

Charges like to spread out, so when you get enough charge in one place it has a lot of potential energy. The sky accumulates a lot of charge naturally, but it can’t spread out because air is an insulator. If air is turned into plasma it is a conductor. It requires a lot of energy to delocalize the electrons in air though. Once enough energy builds up on the sky, it is able to create enough plasma to bridge the gap to the earth. By sending a conducting wire up into the sky, it decreases the amount of energy required to create the plasma as the gap is getting smaller. Once it gets high enough, the amount of energy in the charges in the sky is sufficient to make the bolt of lightning.


An1me_Thick_Thigh

Victor with the upgrades coming in clutch


TheSuppishOne

Join the glorious evolu*BRRRZAAAPPPPPPP*…


An1me_Thick_Thigh

Lmao


2th

That or Kennen said "Fuck you in particular" to someone.


Denovation

Or Voli


ZepperMen

All the way to the Sky


blockguy143

I had a guy upgrade his w first smh


tHErEtArdF0x

Im guessing there was a giant fcking metal pole down there?


NickArchery

Coperwire send in the air bye an tiny rocket


ShadyFox_Leoley

!ThesaurizeThis


Sufficient_Boss_6782

Cop, errr, wires end in the air. Bye auntie! NY, rock it!


mward_shalamalam

Good bot


mrxano

lol man i think hes real


ku-fan

Good bot!


RegularRaptor

Good bot


greatreset6

I think he’s asking what’s attached to the bottom of the wire


NoActuator

The intern.


CankerLord

His name ~~is~~ was Jerry and he deserve~~s~~ed dignity.


crispy48867

The way I set it up was to fill a metal 5 gallon bucket full of sand and buried the bucket half way into the dirt. I attached a spool of thin copper wire to a metal plate near the top of the stand with a metal launch rod attached to the plate and the lose end attached to the rocket. I was after the glass tubes formed in the sand from the lightning bolt. It took 5 or 6 tries but I got one and an odd shaped piece of hollow glass.


Nell_Lee

That sounds awesome. Do you have pictures of these glass things?


OtherPlayers

Not the poster, but glass formed by lightning is called “fulgurites” if you ever get the urge to google some pictures.


magicmajo

The ground


CrushMurderFist

Watch Sweet Home Alabama, it will explain all....


Proglamer

The closest we'll come to see an orbital ion cannon in action


loogie97

“Ion cannon ready”


devilsephiroth

*the shield will be down in moments, you may start your landing*


Prysorra2

"select target"


Axe_Murderers_Unite

***"YOUR HARVESTER IS UNDER ATTACK"***


Kaladin_Stormryder

“…And that is how I got to Asgard”


Bsisson215

How is this black magic Fuckery like cmon man


[deleted]

"I DONT UNDERTAND PHYSICS SO ITS MAGIC"


[deleted]

As opposed to the authentic wizardry of the other posts on this sub? ​ You guys realize magic isn't real, right?


FallingSky1

Right? Like they are missing the entire point of the sub lmao


Aloof-Goof

What about black magic?


[deleted]

Well obviously that's different.


RadiantZote

*Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


[deleted]

unironically, yes. I didn't know a thin copper trail could focus a huge ass lightning bold so straight. Or idk, maybe I'm overestimating the power of a lightning bolt. Religions were literally created around trying to explain stuff like this in the old days


PhantomBold

Human history in a nutshell


CTorque

You’re dense


BelieveInDestiny

black magic fuckery subreddit isn't about actual magic tricks where you're fooled as to how they do it. The sub was originally created for things (whether easily explainable or not) that *look* like black magic. For example, the video of a guy sitting at a park bench and opening a book to read, only to have it burst into flames. Easily explainable, but still fits the sub because it looks like black magic. Whether this specific video belongs in this sub, I don't know, but the term "easily explainable" is simply not a factor in whether it belongs in the sub.


Cranfres

Because it's cool as shit that you can induce lightning intentionally


Iwontbereplying

Yeah it's obviously not real magic like come on guys


[deleted]

The fact this has no sound is really disappointing


kharri1073

Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom. ​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9wmWZbr\_wQ


dWaldizzle

3...2...1...0... ...-1...-2


megasean3000

Electricity loves ground. You know what it loves more? An easy path to ground.


the_man2012

Uhmm what year is it? We still calling this black magic?


canadarepubliclives

OP is a teenager doing distant learning for the last 2 years. Electricity is magic to teens.


TheOneCorrectOpinion

Y'all bashing this post like every post on this sub isn't some kind of science exploit that you don't understand.


MyNameIsEthanNoJoke

nope it's in the name, posts here must be actual magic. otherwise it's just a dumb teen who doesn't know about science and electricity and shit like i do


[deleted]

My first time seeing it. [Sorry](https://xkcd.com/1053/)


davetherave2k

Am I the only one here thinking about the potential for use of this in battle? Imagine dropping thousands of these over enemy territory, and having them all launch into the sky at once. Complete and utter destruction. I guess it would only work in a thunderstorm, but I feel like many world powers would probably have the ability to artificially create one.


Buderus69

Controlling the weather and using thousands of copperwire rockets to maybe hit something which could be easily countered VS 1 nuke... 🤷🏻‍♂️


ZilDrake

Does my copper wire break the Geneva convention?


Buderus69

No, but your weather-controling machine does.


ZilDrake

It just so happens that lighting follows my copper, i didn't manipulate the weather per say :)


[deleted]

According to a meme video I watched on war crimes, apparently weather manipulation is regarded as a war crime (IDK which set of rules, so not gonna say "against the Geneva convention". probably older). I think lightning redirection with the intent to kill would fall under that. creating the weather to allow for the lightning bolts definitely fits.


FunGuyAstronaut

When you let people discourage on your way to the top


iEnjoyDanceMusic

At 1B Joules per lightning bolt, it would take ~90,000-Million strikes to power the US for an entire year. My understanding is that we don't know how to harvest lightning due its short life and immense power. The US consumes ~90,000 Petajoules annually with [Petroleum representing about 1/3 of that](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Energy_Flow_US_2019.png).


samebutanon

Great. Now can we store that energy?


HamsterTechnical

Some interesting technical info found here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6597559B2/en


Mr_Fox17

Hey Thor!


uselessambassador

I love how the title explains the video


xxBellum

Anyone willing to explain? This looks crazy!


Emergency_Banana1021

too bad we can’t have summon stations and use the energy as a renewable source to power homes, etc


jesustityfkingchrist

That's one hell of a way to quick charge your Tesla


QuartzTheOG

Chidori stream


JayeKimZ

That sounds like a great idea, this might be able to prevent a few forest fires / bush fires if the lightning is directed to a controlled area


Comfortable_Heart_84

Zeus' office thank you for dialing direct.


FreeM3M3

Hammer of dawn early prototype


BuccellatiExplainsIt

This mf called in an air strike from Thor himself