ATMS 120: SP2014

Snodgrass

Name: ___________________________________ Weekly Challenge Problem #8: Lightning Power Due: Tuesday April 1 ! "#1$ Since man discovered that lightning was essentially a very powerful electric spark, we have been trying to develop ways to harness this power to provide electricity to our homes and cities. For a typical lightning strike, the bolt is 5 km long, !" cm wide, has a current between #5,$$$ and "$,$$$ amperes and can contain as much as #$ billion %oules of energy. Part #1: &ow long 'in days( would this amount of energy be able to supply power to )incoln &all* (You must show your work.) Assumptions: +ssume all of the energy can be stored and used. # kilowatt!hour , ".- million %oules .lectricity consumed by each s/uare foot ea%h year , #0 k1!hours 'kilowatt!hours( S/uare Footage of )incoln &all , #$2,022 ft 3here are "-5 days in a year, 0 hours in a day. Part #2: 4n reality, #5 of the energy in a lightning strike is electrical and the rest is heat. 6epeat the same calculation you did in 7art 8# assuming only #5 of the energy can be used to power the building. For how long can the lightning strike power )incoln &all* 'provide your answer in hours(* (You must show your work.)

+ popular movie in the mid!9$:s, ;<ack to the Future= claimed that time travel was possible through the combination of a >elorean, 99 mph, flu? capacitor and a #. # ;@iggawatts= of power. 4n the movie, Aichael %. Fo?, needs to get back to the future from #B55 and >oc <rown, played by Christopher )loyd, calculates that:s a lighting bolt could supply the necessary energy. Part #3. Diven the information below, calculate how many watts of power '# watt , # %Es( are in a typical strike. Convert your answer to gigawatts '#$ B watts( and compare it to what the >elorean needs. (You must show your work.) Needed info: .nergy from a typical strike: #$ billion % 'assume all of the energy goes into the flu? capacitor( 3ime for the return stroke of the lightning to travel between the cloud and the ground , 2$ s 's , micro seconds , millionths of a second , #F#$!- sec( You can show all of your work on the back of this pa e. !ust make it clear"