The Amazing Properties of Lightning

Lightning, or a massive discharge of electricity around storms, is as scary as it is amazing. When heat, air, and water vapor mix in a cloud, it can attract many positively and negativlye charged particles together, that, when the build-up becomes too great, must be expelled in the form of an explosion. This explosion causes a huge noise to be emitted as well; this noise is something that we call "thunder." Along with the emission of noise, the bombarding particles also cause sparks to form, and those sparks create enormous outbursts of electricity that gets attracted from cloud to cloud, and also from clouds to the ground in streams. These electrical streams, or strokes, are incredibly energy-filled and bright, hence the term, "lightning."

We can calculate the distance a storm is from us by counting the number of seconds it takes to hear thunder after we see lightning. Lightning and thunder occur at the same time, but light travels faster than sound, so we see the lightning first, we know thunder will soon follow. It generally takes sound to travel at 3 seconds per kilometer, so if we can count to 5 before we hear thunder, we know the storm is 15 kilometers away.

Lightning is cool, yes, but can it be used as an energy source? There are people who think so. In fact, some university laboratories are experimenting with harnessing lightning to be used an as alternative form of energy. Will it work? Maybe. If you find out how to do it, maybe you will be the next Thomas Edison!

Nuclear Energy

Most people fear nuclear energy because you can't see it, taste it, smell it, hear it, or feel it. It can creep up on you from miles away, but you can't detect it yourself. It can cause many health and environmental problems if it happens to sneak into your bodily system through foods, the air, or in the water. Although it is scary, if we can harness nuclear energy safely, we can have endless amounts of energy for centuries to come.

This is one scary notion, indeed! Nuclear energy has both fascinated and scared me from my earliest days of childhood.In fact, in my state, Pennsylvania, a nuclear accident occurred at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in 1979. I won't tell you my age, but I was alive then, and I do remember that incident. Ever since then I've been both awed and terrified by nuclear power. Interestingly, one of my hobbies is writing stories, and one of my stories has the theme of a nuclear power plant.

After the Tohoku earthquake in March of 2011 which dessminated the town of Kessenuma and the Fukushima nuclear power plant, we all became more aware of the power, and danger, of nuclear energy. No one really knows the detriment of that accident as of yet, but we can say that the area is probably unsafe to live, and the food might be unsafe to eat. Anyway, we wouldn't want to find out, right? After the Kumamoto earthquakes, too, we all became fearful of what might happen in our own neighborhoods after a devastating earthquake. In Chernobyl in Russia in 1986, a nuclear accident occurred which caused radiation to leak for many years. It is still quite unsafe today.

In the class about nuclear energy we watched a short movie about the dangers of nuclear energy, but not only about the dangers - about the potential of nuclear energy as well. Of course nuclear energy is dangerous, but it also has the capability or producing vast amounts of never ending energy. Isn't that we we need to help humanity evolve? Isn't that better for progress? For advancing to the next level of awareness, of creating the next generation after generation of society?  This is something we all must ask - are the benefits worth the risk? Perhaps only time and advances in nuclear technology will tell.

Think about it!