https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-022-01139-z
A terawatt laser filament is shown to be able to guide lightning over a distance of 50 m in field trials on the Säntis mountain in the Swiss Alps.
I would have thought shooting the laser would just cause lightning to strike the laser emitter itself. But they can tweak the laser to make the air ionization start some distance from the emitter. So, they can make the lighting strike something else. There is a neat picture in the article showing lighting going along, then following the laser beam down for a bit, then leaving the laser beam and going to a tower. People first tried this in 1999.
Is there any feasible tech that can harvest energy from a lightning bolt? Maybe a molten salt type thing?
Turns out there’s only about 0.25 kW of energy in a lightning bolt - which costs maybe 5-10 cents in the US - so it’s not really worth it.
We're one step closer to controlling the weather. That is, if you don't believe we hadn't already accomplished that with HAARP.
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