Career research Paper

The job that I’m wanting to get is some type of job that research about lightning and

using it to make energy that we use as electricity. There is some workplace that research

lightning but there is no place that harness lightning and create electricity. The reason why I

want to do this job that is clearly not sure if it exists is because I have a goal that I want to

accomplish, and it is to help my own country and to protect the environment. By creating this, it

might also bring down the rate of people getting struck by a lightning.

Many of the scientist has attempted on harnessing lightning from lightning bolt. Since

late 1980s, there were several attempts, one of them was in the summer of 2007, an alternative

energy company called Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc. (AEHI) tested a method for capturing

the energy in lightning bolts. Inventor named Steve LeRoy, who had reportedly been able to

power a 60-watt light bulb for 20 minutes using the energy captured from a small flash of

artificial lightning (Glassie). He did light a light bulb from small artificial lightning but being

able to get electric power from small artificial lightning and real lightning is big difference. If

they were to harness the lightning, it is possible to get average of 60-75 W (watt) and it can light

60-watt light bolts for about an hour or more. If they were to harness lightning bolt, they would

be able to get 10000000 kW (Kilowatts) and light more than one light bulb for many hours.

There are many problems when harnessing lightning. The first problem is that even

during a storm, it is very difficult to tell where exactly lightning will strike ("Could you power a

city with lightning?"). Even if people can see when lightning strikes the ground it would be too

late to harvest them. The next problem is the temperature it creates. Air is a very poor conductor

of electricity and gets extremely hot when lightning passes through it. So, lightning can heat the

air it passes through to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5 times hotter than the surface of the sun)
(“How Hot Is Lightning?”). The most heat resistance material that are found are tantalum carbide

and hafnium carbide materials, these materials can hold nearly 4000 degree Celsius. When

convert from 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit into Celsius, it will be 27,760 degrees Celsius, so it will

still not be able to resist the heat that lightning creates and most likely melt. The third problem is

that the way to save the harnessed lightning. We must have an incredibly large battery that can

charge up instantly when the lightning strikes, then slowly and steadily let out the bottled-up

power when asked (Hartsfield). The lightning is made of strong electrical power and it is the

electrical power that can’t last long. Even if harnessing lightning was thing to do, we might be

able to use some wattage form it but most of the power would most likely be loss because there

is no battery that can store all that power from lightning.

To be able to create something that can harness lightning I need to learn more about

electricity and how it works. It would be easier to know what is the name of the job that I want to

be in, but apparently there is no specific name for that job. So, I have decided to aim for the

similar job knowledge requirements to know what to study in college. I could aim for electrical

engineer, meteorologist or energy engineers. The electrical engineer, they work mainly using

electricity, meteorologist uses scientific principles to explain, understand, observe, or forecast

the earth's atmospheric phenomena (“All About Careers in Meteorology”)., energy engineer

works on projects designed to reduce energy use or costs. This may include designing, building,

evaluating, or remodeling energy systems or energy procurement methods (“Energy Engineers”).

Before I graduate high school, I must choose which one I have to set as my educational goal, so I

can focus on one thing and not have to focus on many different things.

It might be pointless to learn and trying to create some thing that is almost impossible.

According to Donald Gillispie, CEO of AEHI, they "couldn't make it work (shunting off a large
portion of the incoming energy)," although "given enough time and money, you could probably

scale this thing up... it's not black magic; it's truly math and science, and it could

happen"(Glassie). Like Donald Gillispie said, the thing that I’m wanting to accomplish isn’t

impossible thing it just need time and money to be accomplish. Even if other people say it’s

impossible and pointless thing to do, people have always overcome all those impossible things

and had made many pointless things. It may be reckless to not know the name of the job that I

want to do, and worst I don’t even know it exist or not, but I would like to aim for a similar job

and take step by step to reach my goal.

 Work Cited

“All About Careers in Meteorology.” American Meteorological Society, 2020,

www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/education-careers/careers/career-guides-tools/all-

about-careers-in-meteorology/#:~:text=The%20American%20Meteorological%20Society

%20defines,This%20education%20usually%20includes%20a. Accessed 28 Aug. 2020.

"Could you power a city with lightning?" physics.org, 1 Sept. 2011. www.iop.org/explore-

physics/facts/toast-power.asp. Accessed 27 Aug. 2020.

“Energy Engineers.” Study.com, 2020,

study.com/articles/Become_an_Energy_Engineer_Education_and_Career_Information.ht

ml. Accessed 28 Aug. 2020.

Glassie, John. “Lightning Farms.” The New York Times, 9 Dec. 2007,

www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09lightningfarm.html?_r=1. Accessed 27 Aug.

2020.

Hartsfield, Tom. “Could We Harness Lightning as an Energy Source?” RealClearScience, 7 May

2012, www.realclearscience.com/blog/2012/05/could-we-harness-lightning-as-an-energy-

source.html. Accessed 27 Aug. 2020.

“How Hot Is Lightning?” National Weather Service. USA.gov,

www.weather.gov/safety/lightning temperature#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20lightning

%20can%20heat,the%20surface%20of%20the%20sun). Accessed 27 Aug. 2020.