System for harvesting atmospheric electricity

Abstract

Systems, methods and apparatus for harvesting atmospheric electricity are provided. The system includes a laser configured to form a plasma filament and a collector configured to collect electricity flowing along the plasma filament. The plasma filament comprises an electrically conducting plasma filament. Atmospheric electricity may be collected by having the plasma filament form at least a part of a conducting path: (1) between ground and a cloud, (2) between differently charged regions of the same cloud, (3) between differently charged regions of different clouds, and (4) between different regions of atmosphere, where there is a vertical voltage gradient. When the plasma filament is not long enough to form the entire conducting path, a lightning may be triggered to complete the conducting path needed to collect atmospheric electricity.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.