I guess you scientists are wondering why I asked you all here tonight.

Well, not so much asked you here as lassoed you with a rope and refused to let you go until you heard me out.

But not to worry: I'm sure you all will forgive my unconventional methodology once you hear what a wonderful idea I have for generating pollution-free energy.

All right, stop squiggling over there: I'm going to let you scientists go in just a second, okay? Sheesh! (You'd think you guys had never been kidnapped before by a mad amateur scientist such as myself.)

Now then, what if I were to tell you that we have an untapped energy source right over our heads that could be America's "get out of jail free card" when it comes to escaping the prison of dependence created by our need for foreign oil?

Yeah? What would you say THEN? (after you stopped cursing me for tying you up, of course...)

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the answer to all of our energy problems. (Drum roll, please maestro. NO! Not a rim shot, a DRUM ROLL! Sheesh!)

Presenting...

The humble lightning bolt!

Trumpet fanfare plays

Well, go on, somebody strike the cymbals to signify a thunder crash!

Cymbals crash

Yes, Dr. Frankenstein had it right, folks! Let's stop using lightning rods to wastefully drive this massive energy source into the ground and let's devise ways to capture it instead for subsequent use in our automobiles and homes (and in our mad scientist laboratories, too, for those of us who are fortunate enough to have them).

Silent pause

Well, what are you guys staring at? Don't you realize that one thunderstorm (and I quote from the Atlanta Journal, albeit indirectly, by way of a link on the HyperPhysics website from the University of Georgia) can discharge enough energy to supply the entire U.S. with electricity for 20 minutes?!

I say we funnel massive bucks into a plan to attract and "capture" the massive energy of these self-same lightning strokes.

Cheers and applause

Okay, I'm untying you scientists now because I can see that you're suitably impressed with my idea; I don't think any professional in this initially captive audience is going to lash out at me now after they obtain their freedom. (I should think NOT!) If anything, you'll probably want to slap me on the back, right, guys? You ladies may even want to plant a big juicy one right on my no-doubt unworthy lips, and I can hardly blame you -- but please refrain, people, okay? I'm proposing this scheme for the benefit of Secretary Chu and company in the Obama Administration, as my patriotic duty as an American citizen, you see? It's the least that I can do to get this country back on its feet again in the global marketplace, and to put umpteen million people back to work as a natural consequence of harnessing this cheap, clean, and plentiful energy source.

Cheering

Oh, thank you, thank you, folks! Oh, please, I'm unworthy. (Hold still now so that I can get you guys untied! I know you're excited, but please!)

There! Now that I've loosed the ties that bind, let our scientists go forth and loose the fateful lightning of this wonderful swift sword of energy production: the simple lightning bolt!

More cheers, more applause

Oh, thank you, thank you. (Have I untied everyone now? Raise your hands if you're not untied.)

Of course, you know what's going to happen now, people, don't you?

Scientists quiet down, eager to hear the apparent upcoming caveat to Brian's seemingly wonderful energy-making scheme

I think in every field -- physics included -- there's a subset of seemingly intelligent scientists whose main contribution to the history of great ideas (such as this one, perhaps...?) is to be the loudest and most smug naysayer of the bunch: the one who seeks to show off their exceptional knowledge of their field by writing a series of lofty and sarcastic attacks "proving" why the idea in question will never get off the ground. Thus, rather than accepting my general proposal as the impetus that it is meant to be and as the starting point for further exploration and development, these self-styled curmudgeons will immediately set out to prove that the proposed goal is not reachable and that the proposer of the same doesn't know their physics (in this case) from a hole in the ground.

Booing and hooting

Oh, now, folks, don't boo and hoot these curmudgeons of which I speak: They almost certainly had a lousy childhood, so if anything, we should probably feel sorry for them.

A quick, final volley of boos, followed by silence

So I want to finish this little speech of mine by urging the curmudgeons out there -- and, indeed, any other scientists with legitimate specific concerns on this subject -- to accept this proposal of mine as the generalized suggestion that it is, as a call to greater enthusiasm and effort, rather than vaingloriously seeking to torpedo my call for lightning-created energy generation with some real-world fact that supposedly renders the whole project a 'no-go.'

For a classic example of such knee-jerk naysaying, check out the curmudgeonly reaction to a previous online suggestion for a lightning power plant from another visionary such as myself back in August 2001 at halfbakery.com. (Hey, listen, if this is a half-baked idea, let's start baking the other half at ONCE!) As virtually the first response to the provocative proposal, a triumphant naysayer advises the visionary that the power "at the end of a lightning bolt" is insignificant compared to the power that it dissipates in the atmosphere and that the plan in question could ultimately only power a lightbulb "for a couple of days."

This is classic scientific naysayer, folks:

The naysayer, as always, assumes that the visionary would go about his project in the one way that the naysayer knows for a fact will not work, so then the naysayer can set out to aggrandize himself by proving, publicly and decisively (and, indeed, accurately, given his hastily assumed premise), that the idea in question will never get off the ground. It never occurs to the naysayer that he's tilting at windmills, trying to attack a straw man of his own making, and that the whole point of the original suggestion was to urge the relevant scientific minds to think outside the box of what we know for a fact cannot work. Okay, so there's a way that we could "capture" lightning and have little to show for it. So, that's obviously not the method that we're going to use, Mr. Naysayer. Still, the general proposition remains: the mother of all potential power generators is over our heads during a thunderstorm and we can surely at least envision possible ways to harness it, especially if we plausibly extrapolate the sorts of technologies that may exist in 5, 10, 15, 20 years, et cetera. Think huge satellite dishes, for instance, that "corral" the lightning into storable form; think cloud-based drones containing huge high-speed supercapacitors (the likes of which are already on the drawing board); think...

Oh, I don't know! You guys are the professional scientists! Talk amongst yourselves! Perform the relevant experiments. We need another Tessla here to unlock the power of another Niagara Falls. But whatever you do, don't come back to me and tell me why we CAN'T get our energy from lightning like this, okay? because that's missing the whole point. If this suggestion (and my way of stating it here today) does not set the machinery working in your mind (if it does not prove to be an effective pep rally for advances in the field) then just say so. Say, "Brian, I thought about it and I can't even DREAM of a way to turn lightning into a reliable power source as you so eagerly suggest. Sorry about that, kid." But don't come up here, vainly trying to "prove a negative" by telling me you're certain that this proposal of mine CAN'T work. Or if you must do that, then at least come up here with a little humility, for Pete's sake, remembering all the egg that the Nobel-prize-winning physicist Robert Millikan got on his face back in 1923, when he famously opined: "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."

Right, then. I've now untied everybody and you're free to go. But first let's set a goal so that we have something to shoot for in terms of my proposal, okay?

I'll give you (let's say...) five years to come up with a blueprint for harnessing the energy of thunderstorms to create an unlimited supply of energy for the United States of America. Fair enough? Five years starting...

NOW!

All right, now, scoot: You guys have an awful lot on your plate.

And hold your heads up high as you exit, folks. You're scientists, remember? You're going to "loose the fateful lightning" of the terrible swift sword of power generation known as a lightning bolt! (Chin up, people: that's the spirit) ...as science marches on!

Sing with me now, folks:

Glory, glory hallelujah,

as science marches on!"

Related Brainstorms:
Lightning Power Generation System