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Although it sounds like an advertisement for the mobile company, it is the work of the researchers at the University of Southampton that is creditable. Prompted by the phone company, the researchers attempted to charge a mobile phone using lightning as the source of energy.
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| Photo Credit: Pete Hunt |
Lightning strikes the Earth around 40-50 times per second and each lightning bolt carries anywhere between 1000 – 5000 joules of energy, enough to send a tennis ball at 23,000 km per hour. While we are aware of the energy potential of lightning, we have never managed to harness this energy because we do not know how to control it (much like Fire was for a man of Stone Age). Through these efforts, Nokia and The University of Southampton are looking for ways to harness this energy and also charge phones wirelessly. (You can read more about it in our previous post, about wireless charging).
While we might be decades away from harnessing this energy successfully for everyday use, it does make for an interesting video 🙂
