Actually: unrealistic.

1. We all use metal wires to transmit electric energy. For different currents, we need wires with different specifications. For example, for ordinary home decoration, buses generally need 6 square meters (cross-sectional area, square millimeter, the same below), air-conditioning cabinets need 4 square meters, and lighting circuits need 2.5 square meters.

So, how many square wires do you think you need to conduct lightning with a maximum of 300,000 amperes?

2. Energy is generally stored in the form of chemical energy. For example, our commonly used charging and discharging batteries are realized by using the method of mutual conversion between "electric energy and chemical energy". However, it usually takes several hours for a mobile phone to be fully charged with several thousand milliamps, even if it is charged quickly, it will take dozens of minutes.

The lightning time is very short, usually only a few tenths of a second. It is not impossible, but the equipment must be huge.

3. Lightning doesn't happen often. The area with the highest lightning frequency in the world is Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, South America. According to the statistics of scientists, there are 233 lightning strikes per square kilometer in the lake every year.

Even if a lightning receiver is installed in this place, how big is the receiving "antenna" to receive lightning within one square kilometer? After it is completed, it will only receive 233 lightning flashes every year, and the rest of the time is free, and it needs maintenance, which is too uneconomical.

4. Based on the average intensity of lightning, the voltage is 65.438+0 billion volts, the current is 30,000 amps, the time is 0.5 seconds, and the total energy is about 400,000 kWh, which is received 233 times a year, less than 65.438+0 billion kWh. However, the national nuclear power operation in February 2020 released by China Nuclear Energy Industry Association 1-65438+27 shows that the total power generation of nuclear power plants in 2020 is 366.243 billion kWh, accounting for 4.94% of the national total power generation. This is the electricity generated by 49 units of China 16 nuclear power plant. You need to build 4000 such "lightning receiving stations" to match it. About 80 "lightning receiving stations" are equivalent to a nuclear power unit. However, the cost, maintenance and safety performance are quite different.

Supplementary note: seeing many people give me favorable comments, I would like to add the investment accounting of copper cables needed for a lightning receiving station.

When the current flows in the conductor, it all goes around the cable, so theoretically, the current carrying capacity of the cable should be linear with the diameter (circumference) of the cable. According to the maximum current carrying capacity of copper cable found on the Internet, I converted it into diameter and made a linear analysis, as shown in the following table:

The formula is: y=30.38x-48.4 1, where x is the diameter in millimeters and y is the maximum current carrying capacity in amperes.

Now put y = 300,000 MPa into the formula to calculate: x≈ 10000mm = 10m.

Assuming that an antenna with a height of 1 km is directly used to receive the lightning within the range of 1 km 2, and the other pole is grounded (the disk is underground with a certain depth and width), which is also 1 km long, then the amount of copper required by two copper wires is (copper density ρ=8.9× 10? kg/m？ ):

g =ρV =ψ▼r？ L=8.9× 10？ ×3. 14 16×( 10/2)? ×2000≈ 1.4× 10? Kg = 65438+400,000 tons

It is found that the annual output of copper in China in 2020 is about100000 tons, which is only enough to produce 7 sets of such antennas and ground wires.

If the copper futures price is about 660,000-67,000 yuan/ton, the copper cable price is about 93 billion yuan.

Note: The above calculation ignores the wires needed to connect each transformer and battery from the main branch. If access is considered, it is estimated that it needs to be improved by at least 50%.

It is found that the investment of one nuclear power unit is about160-20 billion yuan, that is, the cost of the above two copper cables alone is enough to invest in five nuclear power units. According to the calculation in point 4 above, about 80 lightning receiving stations are equivalent to one nuclear power unit. Therefore, only the cost of two copper cables is calculated, and the cost performance ratio of the lightning receiving station is only 1/400 of that of the nuclear power station. The cost performance is surprisingly low.